2.2.5. Connecting approach; processpatching method
Processpatching is the proposed method for the artist as connector or bridge builder between disciplines. The artistic connecting approach, or the ‘artist as connector’, refers to artists who consider something or someone to be related to something or someone else. Processpatching has its roots in the arts without being formalised as a method. Processpatching is the new term I use for mixing and re-interpreting a plurality of methods into the artistic method. As laid out in this section, the term Processpatching is chosen as an associative, connecting approach, which is similar to the process it describes. This section will elaborate on the related theory and broader context of connecting and processpatching first as these terms are newly introduced in this study. This is followed by the art context, interdisciplinary context and science, technical and design contexts.
‘The possibility that all this knowledge may one day be unified in a handful of mathematical formulas is less impressive than the urge that lies beneath it: to use human inventiveness to fearlessly search for ways to further promote human inventiveness itself. From this perspective all of these fascinating studies, devices and books of the past 50 years are not ways of getting a grip on the world (with all of the resulting social, political and economic control technologies), but ways to push imagination, creativity, critical sense and playful tendencies to higher grounds.’
(A. Mulder, M. Post)[137]
Mulder and Post clearly outline the difference between a scientific search for a unifying theory (Ridley.2.1.1.1.) and an artistic fascination for new connections and new meaning through re-contextualisation. It is typical of many art and technology works that they are combinations of several techniques and methods borrowed from different disciplines. This connecting approach shows us how other (non-technical) fields can be useful in working around those issues that are hard to solve with current technology or that are difficult to express in machine-understandable language. The verb ‘to processpatch’ is used to describe this attitude. Processpatching represents the less formal and more intuitive approach to research and development. It has a strong emphasis on the creation of new aesthetics, which are created via new combinations or repurposing of existing materials and methods.
Processpatching refers to the aRt&D process of electronic or interactive art, where different things are connected for the creation of an art experience, or an art project in a broader sense. The term is a blend of two words that both encompass a range of meanings and associations.
A Patch links to several different things, these are the once relevant for electronic art practice:
A piece of fabric.
An electrical cable (patch cord) which can be used to alter the functionality of a piece of electrical equipment, such as a musical synthesizer. This can be extended to virtual "patches" in software or electronics.
A telephone patch is any connection between a phone line and another communications device, whether it be a radio, a tape recorder, a data device (such as a modem), or even another phone line.
In amateur radio, a phone patch connects transmitters or receivers to the phone line for phone conversations.
A set of "diffs" (differences) suitable for input to the patch program. Patches are a common way of supplying small updates to pieces of software where the source code is available.
A fix for a software program where the actual binary executable and related files are modified.
(source Wikipedia)[138]
A Processpatcher is someone who pieces expertise, approaches, techniques, and materials together in an associative way. Processpatching is not a literal translation of the two words of which it is comprised; it is an associative new term with references to different aspects of the electronic art research and development process.
Processpatching is, in the first place, a poetic word with associations and references to the process as a series of actions, changes or functions bringing about a result, or a series of operations performed in the making or treatment of something. The term as such refers to the artistic iterative research and development process. Process refers in this context also to the (social) interaction process as part of the interactive electronic artwork, and has a strong association with experience design, rather than exclusively to ‘product’ design. (see also Chapter 1. The processpatching context) Patching, as the second part of the blended term, hints at the dynamics of software development where a patch is a piece of software code to fix a bug or to create a new, additional functionality or feature. In communication technology from the past there are other references to patching, for example, the patchboard as a matrix to establish telephone connections. Further down the ontology of processpatching, one finds references to patchworking. Patchworking refers to needle work, to quilting bees and sewing circles, where the creation process is a social act. From needle works, Sadie Plant’s[139] allegory of weaving and computing vaguely refers to our notion of processpatching. Processpatching shares the reference to analogue and digital techniques, as well as to the associated gender of its operators. However, processpatching (like patchworking and quilting) differs from weaving, whose framework and boundaries are predetermined by the frame or measures of its loom. The endlessness of processpatching and the absence of technical boundaries or limitations fits better with our need to (electronically) stitch together whatever suits best. Nevertheless, the intuitive, non-linear, associative and communicative aspects are often associated with femininity. Processpatching is not thus gender related, although it bares associations with communication, creation and technology.
The processpatching method is a creation process where different kinds of analogue and digital materials are stitched together. This practice of stitching and patching things together has a direct link with rhizomes, as advanced by Deleuze and Guattari.
‘The principal characteristics of a rhizome : unlike trees or their roots, the rhizome connects any point to any other point, and its traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature: it brings into play very different regimes of signs, and even nonsign states.’ (G. Deleuze, F. Guattari)[140]
Deleuze and Guattari bring forward another reference to a characteristic aspect of the artistic processpatching method. They see a direct parallel between rhizomes and the associative artistic practice of connecting things according to a network topology, which contrasts the tree-like linear structure, the latter of which is attributed by them to science. This mix of heterogeneous regimes is translated in the connecting approach or an assemblage of different multiplicities that changes as it expands its connections. The Processpatch aesthetics are embedded in the dynamic process of connections and their endlessness. Processpatching also refers to filling gaps. In this case the artistic patches bridge the disciplinary methodological gaps; the artistic patches bridge the disciplines. A Processpatch is a connection, or association, and subject to constant modification. It can be torn, used or reworked by a group or an individual. The latter refers also to audience participation and the user centred aspect in interactive participatory works. Elements of this approach are comparable with the collaboration model in the ‘Open Source’ and ‘Free Software’ communities. In both cases, as in multi- and interdisciplinary collaborations, the authoring process is partly in the hands of the group.
Finally, the Patchwork Girl represents the playful feminist reference to processpatching like in the hypertext narrative by Shelley Jackson. This patchwork girl embodies the ultimate form of flexibility because of the user’s interaction; the main character’s appearance is constantly re-configured and re-constructed in a Frankenstinian way.
(fig. 8 screenshot from Patchwork girl by Shelley Jackson)
The term ‘bricolage’, as used by Claude Levi-Strauss,[141] also relates to processpatching, in the sense that it also refers to art as a bridge between, what he calls, scientific and mythical thought. However Levi-Strauss starts from a structuralism’s point of view in anthropology. He claims that ‘the bricoleur is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks…’ in contrast to the engineer. Levi-Strauss’ use of ‘bricolage’, rooted in anthropology, refers to constructivist bridge builders between different knowledge fields. He brings in references to linguistic systems and formal methods based on the constructivist’s approach. The constructivist’s formal method, with clear parallels to linguistics, is often problematic in artistic works as firstly, the artistic intentions are often not easy to catch in language and secondly, a formal or (specifically in the field of software based art) algorithmic format, is not the one and only ideal for artistic methods. Indirectly, this affirms Deleuze and Guattari’s theory where they propose the rhizomatic approach for associative artistic work and the linear tree structure for structured scientific work and language.
‘Arborescent systems are hierarchical systems with centers of significance and subjectification, central automata like organised memories. ‘ (G. Deleuze, F. Guattari) [142]
The verb ‘to processpatch’ also refers to do-it-yourself actions and to a certain free (artistic), improvised style and its related aesthetics. The importance of aesthetics goes beyond the aesthetics of an object or subject, but often lies in the experience, the interaction or the ephemeral.
‘We believe that the experience of interactivity (..) emerges at the convergence of a series of paradigms which pursue the passage from an aesthetical theory of the object (visible) to an aesthetical theory of the experience (invisible, felt, ‘from the inside’: environmental, inclusive, participating, relational aesthetical theory) and of a technologic scientific school of thought, persisting and developing, substituting the notion of object with that of machine (systematic, cybernetic thought).‘
(E.Quinz)[143]
Emanuelle Quinz represents a growing group of theoreticians who explore a suitable or updated vocabulary for interactive art. In this context, the role of the audience and participant is of crucial importance in establishing the aesthetic experience; without the participant nothing happens, or boldly stated, without the participant there is no artwork. However, the audience does not usually make the aesthetic choices. These are made in the software code; in the way things (analogue and digital) are patched together. The program or source code and the patches are where the framework for interaction and the aesthetic experience is pre-designed. The focus on aesthetics also includes references to a larger art, design, social science and technology discourse. Later in this chapter I come back to some specific aspects of aesthetics in detail. In the overview about the artist’s role and methods, the processpatching category is an independent entity in its own right.
