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Hackers: The Art of Abstraction
scubacuda writes "Wired: Inspired by McKenzie Wark's The Hacker Manifesto , Madrid's MNCARS's exhibit, Hackers: The Art of Abstraction , explores the connections between hackers, artists and anyone engaged in any kind of creative work. The centerpiece of the exhibition are documentary films and videos made by independent filmmakers and hackers from all over the world, including Freedom Downtime by Emmanuel Goldstein, Free Radio by Kevin Kayser, The Hacktivist by Ian Walker, Unauthorized Access by Annaliza Savage, New York City Hackers by Stig-Lennart Serensen and Hippies From Hell by Inne Pope."
Well, maybe for the few true geniuses out there. But for most hackers it's merely a skill, maybe a craft at most.
Hackers and Painters by Paul Graham is a great read on why artists and hackers have similar interests and mindsets. A must-read for hackers.
"Chaos is what drives the creative process"
It really depends on what you are trying to create. If you want to create strictly art then maybe chaos drives teh creative process but much of the creative process is due to there being something needed to be created. Like something an engineer creates. An engineers creating something has little to do with Chaos and a lot to do with structure.
Evolution or ID?
I believe that art (fine art) and computers are integrally related in the methods of abstract creativity requried for the initial creative phase. After that, they deviate in the techniques and level of creativity required. Fine art generally allows for more creativity, because there is not necessarily the business push to "get it done now". As a fine artist whose day job is I.T. related, I can say that it is an easy transition.
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Mitnick, Escher and Lamo: an Eternally Twisted Pair.
just the first though that came to me with the description of the book...
This expansion of the term "hackers" is a great idea. Now if we could just combine it with the idea of making really "creative hacks" patentable, we might have a solution to the whole mess of US Patents, and democratize the gold rush towards the "patent extortion money" pie.
Think about it for a moment. Creativity deserves to be patentable. Once a hack is patented the "hacker" will then try to dissuade others from using it till they pay him for the rights to use it. Thus we have transferred the policing of the hack to the hacker itself! That is advantage number one.
Advantage number 2 stems from the fact that why let SCO (and other similar scum) try to get away with the patent extortion money. Let all the others who are really creative (hackers) get a share of it too. This way, everyone, programmers, artists, musicians, writers, engineers, chemists, and so on, are now eligible for patents (much better than the measley copyrights) and the patent extortion pie.
And the bonus advantage of making the "creative hacks" patentable is that it would flood the US Patent Office and wash away its patenting sins, and maybe force it to stop giving out dumb patents.
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To see a world in a grain of sand, and then to step back and see the beach where the sand lies
Plan9; the most beautiful code in the most beautiful OS with the prettiest mascot.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Linux, Gnome, KDE, OpenOffice, Mozilla, and ummm lets choose, VI.
These code bases are beautiful works which entail blood, sweat, passion, and thought. There are pieces of Art that I think shouldn't qualify as its not an expression of the creator, yet just a piece of art for arts sake.
Just as not all code is something that is enjoyable for many reasons but some being that the end result sucks or the code is so piss poor the end result sucks.
Is Linus a genuis, nope, is he quite possibly the most creative man in OSS programming, sure. I don't think Linus is a superhuman by any means, but I do know he posses the talent to see something and then make it happen. Just as you can have an artist look at a canvas and then paint the mona lisa on it. Its the coders that can see a picture of what they want the end product to look like and make it happen, is the same as an artist looking towards a canvas and seeing the finished product before anyone else can.
So yes, hacking is an art form, but like any art, not just anyone can do it.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
Why do all these programmers want to be considered artists anyway?
An artist is someone who ignores function and concentrates on form where they think beauty lies. An engineer is someone who sees beauty in pure dedication to achieving a function in the most efficient fashion.
A perfectly calculated arching cantilever is beautiful, a painting of a waterfall is just an inferior copy.
-- An Engineer
Beep beep.
"This is our world now... " What a load of pretentious claptrap. You want knowledge? Go to a library. Seriously, this kind of self-justifying wine does little to endear me to the authors cause. Things are "free" to you because others are paying for them. You can argue the toss about the current socio-economic system, but at then end of the day, someone else will be footing the bill. Where I live, all the garden walls are 6 foot high brick affairs, one summer, some bored local kids decided to start throwing stone into gardens, one hit my 3 year-old. The whining excuse got from them was that they "didn't mean to", they were just having "some fun" and it "wasn't their fault". The post reminded me of their excuse, full of self-justification and blaming others for their actions, especially if things go wrong and someone ends up getting hurt. Remember it's not the people at the top, the town planners who designed an estate with little children to do, but the people at the bottom who get hurt.
You don't need a lab to make mud.
The mathematician, contributor to the Manhattan Project -- and a founder of modern computing -- John von Neumann, considered by knowledgeable colleagues to have contributed to all fields of mathematics except topology and number theory, disagreed. Describing the qualities of a good mathematical proof, von Neumann wrote : (John von Neumann as quoted in William Poundstone, Prisoner's Dilemma).
Perhaps unsurprisingly, given von Neumann's seminal influence on computer programming, his description of a good mathematical proof reads to me very much like a qualities I expect to see in a good algorithm, function, or class when I'm reading or writing code. Foe me, elegance is always of first importance when I -- and I use the word consciously -- craft code: a function that does not flow, a class the instances of which cannot be used in an elegant and (at least from the user's point of view) transparent way, is almost always bad code, and illuminates a lack of understanding on the part of the coder.
Kludges are offensive, not because they don't work -- the only justification for a kludge, after all, is that if nothing else, it works -- but because they are indicative of a lack of craft, and because they indicate a lack of understanding, either on the part of the coder himself, or the on the part of framework/clases/language he is coding in or with. A kludge is bad because it is the pulled thread in the fabric of the program, a pulled thread that threatens or exposes a potential for further and MORE disastrous unravelling.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
I've read some bad writing in my day, but this tops 'em all. And I have to agree with the parent post here -- trying to sound intelligent usually nosedives into complete and utter nonsense.
Maybe we should work on the Art of Writing first.
The post reminded me of their excuse, full of self-justification and blaming others for their actions, especially if things go wrong and someone ends up getting hurt. Remember it's not the people at the top, the town planners who designed an estate with little children to do, but the people at the bottom who get hurt.
I wonder to whom and where this animosity is directed?
The events of the late 80's and very early 90's were much different than the world today. The barriers to entry were much higher - there weren't many script kiddies. There was NO free unix. Access to real computers was almost nonexistant - as was free access to almost any telecommunications service. A 'C' compiler could run you real money. The internet did not exist as you know it now, except in the hands of few academics. TeleNet, Datapac, and other networks were the only means to access longhaul data communication.
The exposure of vulerabilities went a long way towards demonstrating that little or no forethought had gone into the security of communications infrastructure. Blue boxing was a driving force to give AT&T a kick in the ass to move to OOB signalling in the late 80's / early 90's.
It's difficult to justify or look back at now, but a lot of the GOOD that you see in the community today came out of the seeds of that movement. Articles and writing such as the Mentor's capture the emotions and motivations behind the hacker mind moreso than any artifical piece of writing ever will.
My $0.02.
..don't panic
Actually, the most important thing I've found in art is the very thing that so many pseudo-artistic/expressive people loathe: limitations.
The most creative things I've seen/done involved some kind of restriction on the methods, tools, subject, viewpoint, etc.
In that sensem, it's chaos and limitations, like pouring plaster (chaotic) into a mold (limitation). Like sculpture, it's not what you put in, but what you leave out.
Not entirely true....
Even in poetry you have to remain within the confines of what defines "poetry".
If I just pour some ink on the page, make a big ol' ink blob... that isn't poetry.
If I crumple up some paper in a big ball, that isn't poetry.
If I cut off my ear and stick it in a plastic box, it isn't poetry.
If I run naked through my back yard, it isn't poetry.
-- by Ephemeriis (315124) on Monday March 01, @08:42AM (#8428306)
Now that's poetry...
Q.
Insert Signature Here
I think there are as many definitions of what constitutes "art" as there are aspiring artists (or their parasitical campfollowers, art critics).
I'm a traditionally trained commercial artist. (You are welcome to slashdot my site at spanishcastle.com to confirm that pronouncement). I also have done a limited amount of programming. I find them to be two distinctly different experiences, but not altogether different. I think any act of creation done in the pursuit of excellence can be considered art.
However, I tend to prefer my own simple formula for answering the age old question: is it art? They are:
1) Is it beautiful? (which is a loaded question, too, really)
2) Would you have it in your home? (or, in the case of large works, in your town?)
3) Five hundred years from now, when some future archeologist digs it up, will it still be recognizable as art?
Obviously, some art forms are simply too ephemeral (like music or dance) to meet these conditions completely...although you could also argue that the best of them are preserved in one fashion or another (symphonies are committed to paper, and dances are taught to the next generation)
I think programming might be considered more akin to graphic art than fine art.
Fine art is a form of expression. I am not sure how well programming does this. Were it not for commented code, I don't how one could discern the author of a great piece of code from another.
Graphic art is a form of communication, which programming is designed to do, after a fashion. It is a means whereby a person may communicate with a machine.
Perhaps only machines know the difference? Perhaps we are bearing witness to a new form of art: machine art. Maybe one day, sentient machines will look and marvel at the elegance and simplicity of some tidy bit of code with the same fascination and admiration we might admire an artist's rendering of our own universe today.
I'm still waiting for both hardware and software manufacturers to address the issue of permanence, though...
Yeah, I been there, but with differences.
I didn't go around breaking others' art; I made some of my own.
I was bright enough to figure out that, if I do it the way the teacher wants it done, I don't get hassled. I can always do it my way when I'm doing it for me, and then nobody has the authority to tell me I'm doing it wrong.
I showed some promise and was rewarded with more challenging (and interesting) stuff by teachers who cared. That's how you *find* teachers who care.
You can learn the system and get what you want. Or you can turn your back on it and let it hit you from behind. Your choice.
Programming is essentially a creative endeavor where beauty emerges from the harmonious implementation of function - i.e. a function (creation) in harmony with the object (material or imagined) which is the program's intention to model and with a given set of factors or rules (the API, language, instruction set.) This kind of creativity is in this sense more akin to that expressed in building architecture and industrial design than that expressed in the fine arts and philosophy.
Terming programming as a fine art is quite a stretch apart from the latter's primary concern - which is the creation of beautiful objects. Programming's primary concern is the creation of interactive models of objects in harmony with their material or imaginary counterparts and the boundaries that define the model space.
In this other sense, the aesthetic pleasure derived from programming or observing beautiful code is similar in nature to that derived from the construction or contemplation of philosophical concepts - both can recur to visual metaphors but are in essence invisible.
HAD
I have to disagree. Yes, engineering is indeed about creating structure, but that's beyond the point. It's about chaos being the driver of the process, not the result nor target of that process. Creativity is combining things in new and often unexpected ways. You cannot structure that process. You can model creative processes to some extend, but those models will always depend on some randomness, thus on chaos. An example would be a genetic algorithm: this is a creative algorithm, (re)combining existing solutions, and letting the best solutions survive. But you can not have a genetic algorithm (at least not an effective one) without the random function.
Art work is there to create an atmosphere, to procure an emotion, so it has a function.
Its not because the function is psychological that it is inexistent. The summit is to be able to associate beautiful with practical form, and that's what design is all about.
I have seen beautiful designs by hackers, so to me many have artistic concepts, and are inspired.
Hacking a way of slicing reality for mathematical minds?
A good cook is creative in his art so is a doctor undertaking a chirurgic operation, so is, so is so is.....
All professions have their amount of creativity, and some are more creative then others, no matter the occupation.
In all cases, the inventor has to master the rules who define the medium he applies, thus to use the maximum possibilities, for the creation to be well balanced, i.e. ingredients in the case of a dish, colours for a painting, sounds for music, etc...
I really can't wholeheartedly suggest that anyone RTFM[anifesto]--it is pretty tough going. (Incredibly, it is apparently shorter than previous versions. Groan.)
The manifesto attempts to redefine "hacker" as pretty much anyone who reworks intellectual material. At this stage of the world, this includes a substantial swath of humanity. Politically, this places a bunch of knowledge workers alongside each other in the trenches, all working to reap the benefits of their insights rather than being victimized by the amusingly named & nefarious "vectorists," who aspire to possess not only all means of communication (vectors) but stocks of information (archives) and flows of information (?just-in-time news coverage?) as well.
Under the banner that information should be free, the manifesto envisages a fairly nebulous post-factional regime that sounds a lot like contemporary anarchism.
To worry about whether or not you like the idea that hackers are artists is to get it exaclty backwards, the point of this is to convince all other knowledge workers that they are hackers. I think that the manifesto author presumes that other knowledge workers should be being flattered by being considered hackers, and that they will be so tickled that they will embrace the notions of the manifesto.
This is not to say that there is not some food for thought here; though sometimes obscurely worded, it really does have some interesting takes on the economy of invention. My caution to readers of the comments, is that whether or not you support this broadening of the term hacker, be careful that you don't accidentally side with a political agenda simply on the basis of that definition.