Florian Cramer (2002), 'Concepts, Notations, Software, Art'

In 'Concepts, Notations, Software, Art' (2002), Cramer laments the tendency in digital art to hide the code that lies behind the work. For instance, how in much interactive art, the impression is that the viewer makes the work somehow through 'interaction' rather than the complex interactions of processes and code running on the computer behind the scenes - demonstrating ignorance of programming and of course of programmers. He aligns this way of thinking with procedural and instruction-based artworks from a conceptual tradition. He sees this situation as deeply ironic given that programming in itself is a conceptual notation (2002: 102).

With the computer, accepted media art definitions become problematic, and the idea of computers relating to a category like 'new media' is notoriously difficult when 'old media' are simulated in a way that limits the possibilities of what a computer really does (that's probably a bit obscure). Clearly, we have to be more precise with the terms, and discussing software is one focus of many where some history and technical understanding is necessary to add precision.

Cramer defines software as a 'set of formal instructions, or, algorithms; it is a logical score put down in a code. It doesn't matter at all which particular sign system is used as long as it is a code, whether digital zeros and ones, the Latin alphabet... If a piece of software is a score, is it then by definition an outline, a blueprint of an executed work?' (2002: 102) A computer program is both a score and its execution at the same time, 'it uses the computer for computation. For Cramer, the fascination is that: 'Computer programming collapses, as it seems, the second and third of the three steps of concept, concept notation and execution' (2002: 105). In this way, also, it can be seen to be 'generative'. Underlying this, are programs and the programmers who make the programs - all relatively hidden from the mainstream discourse of interactive arts. [It is the labour of programmers that is stolen in other words]

Executable formal instructions also exist outside of software as such. Programs can be executed without necessarily running them on a machine - the instructions merely need to be followed. Tristan Tzara's instructions for making a Dadaist poem is a classic example of software without a computer. Cramer traces the link with conceptual art too, particularly work that engaged with text, or the material of language - leading to the idea of software as potential literature or 'combinatory literature'. It is the concept that is really the material if operating in the conceptual tradition. Cramer's key example of this is wonderfully simple: La Monte Young's 'Composition 1961' - a piece of paper with the instruction 'Draw a straight line and follow it'. (2002: 108) Here is a useful example of 'jamming' and 'denial-of -service code' and also 'addresses the aesthetics and politics coded into instructions (2002: 109).

It is in the distinction of aesthetics and politics that problems occur. Cramer contrasts 'software formalism' and 'software culturalism' to characterise what he sees as two distinct tendencies. He sees oppositional groups of practices exemplifying these tendencies (see more notes elsewhere on this - such as in my notes on 'Code') in order to recommend that: 
'If software art could be generally defined as an art; of which the material is formal instruction code, and/or; which addresses cultural concepts of software; then each of their positions sides with exactly one of the two aspects'. This would severely limit its speculative potential. Clearly, 'histories of instruction codes in art and investigations into the relationship of software, text and language still remain to be written'. (2002: 110)