Out of Breath

Excerpt from Prepositions, 2024.

«for» is the basic structure to write loops in programming. The for loop is written in three parts, separated by semicolons. The initial statement; the test of the truth of the statement; the update of the statement. The loop goes on until the statement is evaluated as false. As long as the statement is true, the loop runs forever. The infinite loop is written as for(;;). Infinite looping, also infinite scrolling, is used as standard feature of social media. It is said to cause social anxiety and loneliness. For machines, the infinite loop causes the system to become unresponsive. Freezing computer, anxious scroller.
for(initiate: i = I am scrolling;until: end scrolling; update: anxiety increases){ anxiety++; }
While I am scrolling, my anxiety increases.

About anxiety

the more I scroll the more anxious I am
I scroll
the more I scroll the more anxious I
the more I scroll the more anxious
I scroll
the more I scroll the more
the more I scroll the
I scroll
the more I scroll
the more I
I scroll
the more
the
I scroll

The smell of burned wires is melted love

Excerpts, 2024

1. keeping my hand on my phone in my pocket at all times

Some days feel lonelier than others but they all start with a one-hundred-percent charged battery on my phone. I look at the blueish screen until night time, until it fades to black and becomes disconnected. I keep the warm metallic body close to me when I fall asleep. This is not a love letter to my electronic devices. Why would I love mass-produced objects that imply capitalization; extraction; domination ? This can only be a mediation on electronic devices and the emotions they evoke. A cyber feminist rant.

I am writing this text on my personal computer. I am reminded of the history this carries— Ada Lovelace writing the first algorithm; Grace Hopper discovering the first computer bug... and other computer girls: the Eniac Girls, the Harvard Computers or Radia Perlman's algorithmic poetry. This is my personal historical index of the joys of technoscience.

What do we mean when we say: computer, machine, electronic device, robot ? I love their ambiguity and openness. They all describe objects that perform tasks; processing input and output. I wonder; what is it about the term 'robot' that brings futuristic robotic rebellions; humanoid metallic transbody; violence ?

In this text I explore machines as techno-companions, as the otherness we connect with, we care for. What worlds are opened up when engaging in a practice of care while making kin with the otherness ? The safe feeling of my phone being on. The cherished satisfaction of the data, online 24/7, stored in my pocket, next to my heart.

[...]

4. how to think about pet machines; the broken figure

Somewhere in a living room, a shiny metallic dog is asleep. His loving OLED eyes are turned off, his mechanical paws curled up under the warm motherboard hidden in the body, replacing a beating heart. Somewhere, in the cloud, lines of code are added to the system. Through the infrastructures, inside the city, up in the clouds or in the undergrounds networks, the system updates. Woof.

Where is the autonomy of the machine, when it is firmly entangled with its manufacturer's algorithms, when it is constrained to the model of the domesticated living animal ? Aibo, the domestic robot shaped as a dog, is promised to become a family member to its buyer (to understand as an opposite of: a toy, a military weapon). Things that make a machine legitimate to love: sensors, captors, motors, voice recognition (interaction). Things that make a machine cared for: cuteness, unconditional love, mutual communication, intimacy (illusion). Aibo, sit down, let's dance, never mind, take a picture, I love you, bad dog. Aibo, bad dog. Punish. Turn off. Put back on the shelf.

What lies under the mystical aspect of the pet machine ? The shiny surface with no imperfections, the clear and logical behavior, the expanding progress of the operating system. Aibo will feel more and more like a real dog in the future. It is difficult to access to the screws, hard to separate the sleek cover from the messy inside. The metal, the glue, the chemicals, the densest part is the head; ninety cables. The ugliness of the raw materials, their extraction. The bones, the blood, the butchery of it all.

A morning, the machine is broken and the illusion of the pet has faded. The screwdriver in one hand, the enchanted device is taking another shape. For the first time, it is the machine that needs something, support and repair, in return of its companionship. Either the device has failed and is abandoned, feeding electronic landfills, either the device, quitting the illusion of the pet, enters a new space and becomes a companion: not a pet, not a plant nor a computer, something else. The broken pet-type machine is the otherness.

ClumsyFemLab

Master thesis, 2023

ClumsyFemLab tire les ficelles entre les récits de chercheur.ses qui démontent, soudent, rêvent, performent, écrivent dans des communautés réparatrices. Non-linéaire, inutile, ou poétique, la pratique du hacking féministe se situe dans les interstices, se positionne contre le capitalisme, le patriarcat, la surveillance et la violence. Laboratoire écrit et imaginé, la maladresse engage dans ce mémoire une pratique fluide en dehors des codes et des scripts. Le rapport humain.e – plante – machine est questionné au travers de pratiques scientifiques alternatives nourries par le hacking. Réparer les corps, réparer les machines, prendre part au réseau, casser les systèmes.

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