Imaginary Technologies - The Applied Culture of Apps

Abstract

A recent Art Forum essay declares that "every era has its interface" (Provan 2013). Increasingly, our interfaces are not those of reference, of screens, veils, partitions and pointers, but those of function and functionalism: the App. Apps are parceled action. They are not the icons of yesteryear, as each of them gives indication of potential far beyond an interface, creating more than just a pointer to memory lying otherwise dormant elsewhere. The congealing computing culture of the App purports bundled possibility, a set of hidden capabilities and cosmic potentialities released as we launch actors into action. With this new direction of computing comes a host of aesthetic and social metaphors derived from the culture it reflects: continuous churning of data, reconstitution of the network and the elaboration for digital artists and creators of new ways of making and imagining. Using examples from contemporary art and design practice, a platform study (Bogost, Montfort 2000) of the graphical and software interface of the App will be presented. The talk will approach Apps through comparative media studies (Hayles) and media archeology (Parikka 2012) toward elucidating and differentiating the value of ‘imaginary’ technology projects, their creative and critical capacities, as a practice-based arts and research method.