Elen – filters

Elen ramp

A filter proposal

workshop by Sina Seifee, hosted by Pierre Rubio in his curatorial block for a.pass postgraduate program 2018 Milieus, Associations, Sieves and other matters [cri]

The basic question of ‘Filter’ was: what happens when linking the symbolic space of data-model to the (relational, procedural, emotional) qualities of the researches of participants? The work started with working on/with the feedback material produced during the block’s opening week and processing this material in diagrams. The proposal centred on the notion (and practice) of topological analysis to investigate questions of connectivity and boundaries, in order to find out what remains invariant as a result of transformation. This did direct us to construct ‘transversal objects’ actualising what connects and joins, what delinks and disconnects in the culture of each participant researches.

Sina Seifee
https://seifee.com/an-ajayebs-network-making
https://seifee.com/

This “filter” is about training in making metalinguistic abstractions (on a given computer hardware) to construct a “thing” that enables describing the problem of Building Abstractions with Data, in order to increase/enhance the expressive/descriptive power of our many languages. It addresses the question of machine/human readability in the digital imperative of computational world we are inhabiting (in this case: of artistic research environment #a.pass https://apass.be/)

Interested in computational literacy (including data-collection, librarianship) as part of our *diversity-work* and our *articulation-work*
interested in different languages (english, computer, non-sign languages, etc.) refers to different value systems and to different lived experience
Interested in the *labor of knowledge-work* (in collective digital flesh life)
Interested in shifts in topology (the ongoing reworking of bodily boundaries of each of our research practices)

TERMINOLOGY:

articulation-work: the labor necessary to make technologies fit together seamlessly

diversity-work: a kind of work in which we learn about the damage we cause, and of how “causes” are understood as “damage”

librarianship: a work that hooks up people with their technologies

data abstraction: a *technique of isolating* (the parts of your mini-language that deal with) how data/info objects are ‘represented’ from (the parts of your mini-language that deal with) how data/info objects are ‘used’ (—> i addressed this in my fable workshop in a totally different epistemology)

model: your object decomposed into *computational compound objects* (each with their own time-varying local state variables)

( representation of data and control over data: )
modular: localized part of the system that are produced by the perception of the system
objective: viewing a large system as a collection of distinct objects. concerned with how a computational object can change and yet maintain its identity
streamous: information that flow in the system. its evaluation is delayed. infinite list

metadata: machine-readable persistence statements

digital interface: discrete object of your “research problem” that refers to something outside the cri (outside the digital model)

topology: a (proposed) body-plan to investigate questions of *connectivity* and *boundaries*, in order to find out what remains invariant as a result of transformation. this will direct us to propose (well-intended but not tested) *transversal objects*.
to be able to propose: in the culture of each research what connects and joints, what delinks and disconnects.

PRACTICAL:

we want to find out how cri‘s “filter” translates its politics into metadata
and
what happens in linking the symbolic space of data-model to the (relational, procedural, emotional) qualities of the reseaches of participants

we will work on the block’s opening week feedbacks and process them in this diagram:
feedback –> quasi object –> structured knower –> data
(or technically:)
semantic in flux –> persistence statements –> object repository –> identifiers

(Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday are spent on the creation of “quasi objects”)

i propose some (well-intended but not tested) internal categories:
– stickiness
– zoom
– cheat
– persistence
– repetition
– vulgar
–

(i will describe them later)

and these categories produce three topologies:
1. ramp
2. nest
3. skew

(this is a maneuver to replace the question of ‘strategy’ to ‘topology’, the first act of making quasi-objects)

ramp: sequential, one dimensional, ‘sliders’
nest: fractal, serializable, arborescent, ‘comments’
skew: verb-active, stretching, ‘2D field color picker pointer’

each is “queryable” in different ways and propose different difficulties
each of them adapted from an existing technologies (range sliders, commenting, color pickers)
each embeds one of: colors, doings, values

slider: marking everything with decimals
comments: hypertextualizing
field picker: spreading
}–> they are all milieu-makers

AND ALSO (@a.pass):

to address (in a longer term) how a.pass performs analysis and prioritization of its own service definition?
to address (in a longer term) historical/cultural specificities of a.pass
to address aspects of a.pass’s exceptionalism (its characters, colors, doings, values)