[ISEA2024] Paper: Nancy Mauro-Flude — Heritage Frontiers in Computational Media Art: The Oceanic provenance of Permacomputing and Codework

Abstract

Keywords:
heritage algorithms, Oceana, codework, future heritage, technē, digital decolonisation, sandboxing, informal cultural economies, philosophy of technology, critical media theory

This paper explores how culturally distinctive minimal computational art practices open up spaces for emergent alterities that more accurately align with the innovative landscape of the Oceanic region. It argues for the necessity of future literacies, focusing on the potential of radically sustainable computing (Heikkilä 2020) and text-based forms of computational poetics (Tenen 2017) to raise awareness of context-based social, material, and ecological relations. Drawing on feminist digital heritage studies and philosophers of technology (Doruff 2006; Gibbs 2011; Cameron, 2021; Dekker, 2023), the discussion analyses post-patriarchal computer subcultures and surveys media art emerging from the southern hemisphere. It compares and contrasts (implicit or explicit) intentions for efficacy to nurture a more holistic integration of technology, art, and culture. It examines the provenance of codework poetics to demonstrate how self-determined cultural inheritance can transcend digital colonial logic. A close examination of the provenance of codework poetics demonstrates how self-determined forms of cultural inheritance can reshape and transcend the restraints of digital colonial logic. The analysis highlights the significance of informal communities of art practice that engage in experiential forms of digital literacy, which can attract a more diverse range of constituents—describing the ways in which ‘Big Tech’ is enmeshed in colonial imperatives, driven by the accumulation of capital and unsustainable computing emissions. It critiques the dependence on ‘Big Tech’ partnerships witnessed in the uptake of the digital in art museums as seamless, immersive experiences, which procure audience engagement and optimisation through glib forms of instant gratification and token exploits. The findings offer insights for navigating future heritage paradigms within computational media art, advocating for context-grounded experiential learning and reciprocal economies of digital heritage.

  • Dr Nancy Mauro-Flude is a digital caretaker, a proud generational Tasmanian and founder of the School for AC/DC+P). Drawing from her training in theatre anthropology, dance, and somatic movement, Nancy’s research underscores the significance of sharing diverse relations and literacies and emphasises the value of errant encounters with living systems in the epoch of automation. Her recent publications, include ‘The Thorny Conversation of Art and Economy’ (2023, Intellect Chicago) and ‘Computabilities Dancing’ (2023, Leonardo MIT) which reflect this collaborative approach. Nancy is an elected core member of Digital Ethnography Research Centre and lectures at College for Design and Social Context, RMIT, Melbourne, Australia.