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algorithmic folding

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This chapter attempts to re-envision the practice of computational art within the nexus of the fold. It takes inspiration from the artistic and somatic practices of the curators of this edited volume who have encouraged and facilitated this research. At a time in which algorithmic processes shape our experiences to a seemingly ever greater extent the practice of computational art offers a perspective from which to critically address this phenomenon as well as provides a means for intervention. Following Deleuze's reading of Leibniz, the analysis attempts to trace interweaving threads between art and computation to foreground practices and ways of thinking and can serve as both context and subject matter for artistic investigation. Reflections on the practice-research project Mediated Movement, Choreographic Collaboration are presented as a case-study through which many of these ideas were explored.

Keywords: abstraction ; anarchiving ; binary ; combinatorial ; computational art ; embodiment ; indeterminacy ; live coding ; materiality ; mediated movement ; metacomputation ; monadology ; performativity ; superfold ; virtuality

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algorithmic folding
Intellect , 220 (2025); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781789389685_13
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References

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     [Google Scholar]
  2. Arns, Inke. “Read_Me, Run_Me, Execute_Me: Software and Its Discontents,or: It's the Performativity of Code, Stupid.” In Read_Me: Software Art & Cultures, edited by Olga Goriunova and Alexei Shulgin, 177–93. Aarhus: Digital Aesthetics Research Centre, University of Aarhus, 2004.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations, edited by Hannah Arendt, translated by Harry Zohn, 26. New York, NY: Schocken Books, [1935] 1969.
     [Google Scholar]
  4. Birhane, Abeba. “The Impossibility of Automating Ambiguity.” Artificial Life 27, no. 1 (June 11, 2021): 44–61, https://doi.org/10.1162/artl_a_00336.239
     [Google Scholar]
  5. Bratton, Benjamin H. The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty. Redacted by Matthew Fuller, Lev Manovich, and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. Software Studies. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015.
     [Google Scholar]
  6. cantsin. “Forkbomb”, February 28, 2003. Accessed December 1, 2022. https://runme.org/project/+forkbombsh.
  7. Davis, Martin. The Universal Computer: The Road From Leibniz to Turing. New York, NY: Norton & Company, 2000.
     [Google Scholar]
  8. Deleuze, Gilles. Foucault. Translated by Seán Hand. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, [1986] 1988.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Deleuze, Gilles. The Fold: Leibniz and the Baroque. Translated by Tom Conley. Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit. London: Continuum, [1988] 2006.
     [Google Scholar]
  10. Deleuze, Gilles. “Postscript on the Societies of Control.” In Negotiations 1972–1990, translated by Martin Joughin. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, [1990] 1995.
     [Google Scholar]
  11. Edmonds, Ernest. On Computational Art. Interviewed by Richard Bright, September 17, 2019. Accessed December 1, 2022. https://www.interaliamag.org/interviews/ernest-a-edmonds.
  12. Fazi, M. Beatrice. Contingent Computation: Abstraction, Experience, and Indeterminacy in Computational Aesthetics. Media Philosophy. London, UK: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Forth, Jamie, and Susan Sentler. “On Movement, Rhythm and Data.” Edited by Christina J. Chua. SO-FAR, Weeklies (October 28, 2021), 2021. Accessed December 23, 2022. https://so-far.xyz/weekly/on-movement-rhythm-and-data.
  14. Gödel, Kurt. “On Formally Undecidable Propositions of Principia Mathematica and Related Systems I.” In Collected Works: Publications 1929–1936, edited by Solomon Feferman, vol. 1. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, [1931] 1986.
     [Google Scholar]
  15. Goriunova, Olga, ed. Readme 100: Temporary Software Art Factory. Dortmund: Herstellung und Verlag, 2005.
     [Google Scholar]
  16. Greene, Rachel. “Web Work: A History of Internet Art.” Artforum 38, no. 9 (May 2000):162–90. Accessed June 3, 2024. https://www.artforum.com/print/200005/web-work-a-history-of-internet-art-465.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Hiller, Lejaren, and Leonard M. Isaacson. Experimental Music: Composition with an Electronic Computer. New York and Westport, CT: McGraw-Hill and Greenwood Press, [1959] 1979.
     [Google Scholar]
  18. jodi.org. “404.” Ca. 1995. Accessed December 17, 2022. https://404.jodi.org.
  19. Le Guin, Ursula K. “A Rant about ‘Technology’.” Ursula K. Le Guin Archive, 2004. Accessed January 2, 2020. http://www.ursulakleguinarchive.com/Note-Technology.html.
  20. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. “On the General Characteristic.” In Philosophical Papers and Letters, edited by Leroy E. Loemker, 221–28. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, [ca. 1679] 1989, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1426-7_25.
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  21. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. “Explication de l'Arithmétique Binaire, Qui Se Sert Des Seuls Caractères o et i; Avec Des Remarques Sur Son Utilité et Sur Ce Qu'elle Donne Le Sens Des Anciennes Figures Chinoises de Fohy”. Mémoires de l'Académie Royale des Sciences 240(Mémoires de Mathématique et de Physique de l'Académie Royale des Sciences) 3 (1703): 85–89.
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm. “The Monadology”. In Leibniz's Monadology: A New Translation and Guide, translated by Lloyd Strickland. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press, [1714] 2014, pp 39–161.
     [Google Scholar]
  23. Manning, Erin. “Anarchive – Concise Definition,” n.d., SenseLab – 3e. Accessed June 6, 2024. https://senselab.ca/wp2/immediations/anarchiving/anarchive-concise-definition.
  24. McLean, Alex. Forkbomb.Pl. July 4, 2001. Software. Accessed June 7, 2024. https://slab.org/forkbomb-pl.
  25. McLean, Alex. “Lessons from the Luddites.” Furtherfield, June 2, 2017. Accessed June 7, 2024. https://www.furtherfield.org/lessons-from-the-luddites.
  26. McLean, Alex, Ellen Harlizius-Klück, and Janis Jefferies. “Introduction: Weaving Codes, Coding Weaves”. TEXTILE 15, no. 2 (3 April 2017): 118–23, https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2017.1298232.
     [Google Scholar]
  27. Morozov, Evgeny. To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism. New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2013.
     [Google Scholar]
  28. Srnicek, Nick. Platform Capitalism. Redacted by Laurent De Sutter. Theory Redux. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2017.
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Swetz, Frank J. “Leibniz, the Yijing, and the Religious Conversion of the Chinese”. Mathematics Magazine 76, no. 4 (October 2003): 276–91.
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Turing, A.M. “On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem”. Proceedings of the London Mathematical Society s2-42, no. 1 (1937): 230–65, https://doi.org/10.1112/plms/s2-42.1.230.
  31. Zuboff, Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York, NY: PublicAffairs, 2020.
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