2c:null 2d:["$","title",null,{"children":"A Critical Software Art Collection | Daniel Howe | Observable"}] 32:T7d1c,See also: the **[Critical AI Art Collection](https://observablehq.com/@dhowe/critical-ai-art-collection)** --- _{Note: this list is intended as a learning resource - additions are gratefully accepted.}
### [Science is Poetry](https://julianoliver.com/projects/science-is-poetry/) (2026) by Julian Oliver A tactical media response to AI web crawlers that scrape human content for use in training models without consent. Users can protect content by linking to the project from their website or blog. AI crawlers seeing the link will be pulled off-site and entrapped in a endless maze of noise, which may later be used as training data, introducing errors and ‘hallucinations’. ### [PXLCAM](https://pxlcam.anna-zhang.com/) (2025) by Anna Zhang *PXLCAM* takes photographs in deliberately low resolution with retro effects. Smaller files, smaller footprint — digital data takes energy to store and share. Every shot is stamped with a countdown to the climate deadline. A camera is a tool for noticing the present — a reminder of the beauty of the world as it is now, worth capturing, worth protecting. ### [No Time to Discourse](https://notime.now/) (2025) by Mark Sample *No Time To Discourse* is a speculative atlas of climate disaster throughout North America. Wildfires, floods, droughts, hurricanes, the unrelenting heat. *There are thousands of disasters, none of which have happened, all of which are happening, today, tomorrow, and tomorrow's tomorrow.* Each disaster is generated in real-time via what Sample calls 'a small-language model' made with [RiTa](https://rednoise.org/rita/). ### [Anonymous Autonomous](https://katherinebehar.com/art/anonymous-autonomous/index.html) (2024) by Katherine Behar Connecting trucking and ride-share industries to creative class knowledge work, *Anonymous Autonomous* explores workplace depopulation through automation in blue- and white-collar settings. Empty office chairs behave like driverless cars, using simplified autonomous vehicle technologies like computer vision and LiDAR to navigate space and avoid collisions, or sometimes rebel in solidarity. ### [Thoughts And Prayers: The Game](https://thoughtsandprayersthegame.com/) (2024) by Baker, Lacher & Moore *Thoughts And Prayers: The Game.* A game where you try to stop mass shootings using only thoughts and prayers. It's pretty hard. To date, players have sent over 70 million thoughts and prayers. ### [Nondance Dance](https://ssbkyh.com/works/nondance_dance/) (2022) by Shinseungback Kimyonghun *Nondance Dance* is a performance using software trained with Google Video AI to detect dancing. The dancers spend the first half of the performance learning what the software does NOT detect as dancing and then attempt to dance in the second half without detection. If they are detected, the stage is blacked out so the audience can no longer observe them. ### [Preoccupations](https://thenewriverjournal.org/preoccupations/) (2022) by John Cayley & Daniel Howe Prose-poetic and discursive ‘translations’ between a pair of structurally related texts, set in contemplative rural and conflict-riven urban environments. Words and phrases in each are connected via an associative chain of intermediaries, along which the piece perambulates, with dynamic word-level replacements occurring in real-time. ### [Signal Facebook Ads](https://www.signal.org/blog/the-instagram-ads-you-will-never-see/) (2021) by Signal A multi-variant targeted ad designed to show you the personal data that Facebook collects about you and sells access to. The ad simply displays some of the information collected about the viewer which the advertising platform uses. Facebook's response? Ad Account Banned! ### [Radical of the Vertical Heart 忄](https://rednoise.org/daniel/radicaloftheverticalheart) (2021) by Daniel Howe A reading machine that moves through the Chinese lexicon by making minimal changes (stroke-by-stroke) to the sub-components of characters, in order to arrive at a new word. Rather than evaluating letters it analyses radicals, components and strokes. When it lands on sensitive words, such as those disallowed by China's Great Firewall (or those now illegal in Hong Kong), a break occurs and the machine jumps from traditional to simplified. ### [Unerasable Characters II / 刪不了的符號 II](https://siusoon.net/projects/unerasablecharacters-ii) (2021) by Winnie Soon *Unerasable Characters II* collects censored/deleted texts on Weibo, including emojis, symbols and words in Chinese and English, exploring the politics of erasure and the temporality of the existence of various voices under digital authoritarianism. The length of time each tweet appears is equal to the time it was visible. ### [Minus](https://bengrosser.com/projects/minus/) (2021) by Ben Grosser Minus is social network where users get only 100 posts—for life. Rather than algorithmic feeds, visible “like” counts, noisy notifications, and infinite scrolls of typical social media platforms, Minus limits how much one posts to the feed, and foregrounds—as its only visible and dwindling metric—how few opportunities one has left. ### [Bodily](https://paolocirio.net/work/bodily/) (2021) by Paolo Cirio *Bodily* problematizes body scan technology, looking at Thermal Infrared Imaging and how this technology is used to profile individuals and diagnose health conditions. In the piece, diagnostic algorithms work like slot machines to determine the fate of patients, demonstrating how such algorithms carry political significance about discrimination, surveillance, and ethics of technology. ### [Tokenize This](https://bengrosser.com/projects/minus/) (2021) by Ben Grosser A net art work in which a “unique digital object” is created upon each new visit, with a custom color gradient and unique id code, referenced by a matching URL. Unlike typical websites whose URLs act as persistent indexes to its contents, each work is destroyed right after its creation. The work opposes the capitalist ideologies embedded in NFTs and the ways in which crypto-art markets thrust an often anti-capitalist and anti-corporate art medium into a 21st century get-rich-quick frenzy. ### [Dis/Connect](https://www.ericforman.com/dis-connect) (2021) by Forman, Luzatto & Gross Designed to to create a space of digital quiet, this chandelier's provides warm light over a dining table, while also preventing people from using smartphones below it. In the place of candles, *Dis/Connect* features ten radio-jamming antennae that interfere with any wireless communication within a five-foot radius. ### [Gender Inquality](https://observablehq.com/@karimdouieb/brussels-streets-gender-inequality) (2020) by Karim Douieb Visual interpretation of gender inequality amongst Brussels streets. The data and gender tagging is the result of combined effort of 60 volunteers. A description of their project can be found at [Open Knowledge BE](http://be.okfn.org/2020/03/03/equalstreetnames-brussels-launch-of-open-data-visualisation/) and an interactive map here [EqualStreetNames](https://equalstreetnames.brussels/en/index.html#11/50.8355/4.3651). ### [The Uncensored Library](https://www.uncensoredlibrary.com/en) (2020) by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) A Minecraft server and map released by Reporters Without Borders as an attempt to circumvent censorship in countries without freedom of the press. Providing access to independent information for young people around the world through a medium they can playfully interact with, the library consists of banned books republished within the game, allowing reader-players to inform themselves about the real political situation in their countries. ### [The "Safe" Bible](https://bastiengirschig.com/item/628) (2020) by Bastien Girschig An AI experiment about censorship and the Bible. The artist sends each sentence in the bible to Perspective API, a model developed by Google’s Counter Abuse Technology team, and Jigsaw, a tool to “help ensure healthy dialogue online”, ths redacted all those tagged as potentially offensive. ### [How do you see me?](https://deweyhagborg.com/projects/how-do-you-see-me) (2019) by Heather Dewey-Hagborg In *How do you see me?* Hagborg utilizes adversarial processes, algorithms that are designed to deceive machine learning systems, to generate self portraits that are recognized as her face, although they look nothing like her, or like any human face. ### [Derivatives](https://paolocirio.net/work/derivatives/) (2019) by Paolo Cirio Over a hundred thousand appropriated art auctions records to subvert the art market secrecy and speculation. This series is composed of images and records of artworks appropriated from Sotheby's auctions to turn them into further financial derivatives. Auction prices are overlaid over the images and sold as digital artworks on the website Art-Derivatives.com for a fraction of the value set at the auctions. ### [Collapse OS](http://collapseos.org/) (2019) by Virgil Dupras Winter is coming and Collapse OS aims to soften the blow, providing a minimal operating system with a single purpose: to preserve the ability to program microcontrollers through civilizational collapse. With a copy of this project, a capable and creative person should be able to manage to build and install the OS without external resources on a machine of her design, built from scavenged parts with low-tech tools. ### [Order of Magnitude](https://bengrosser.com/projects/order-of-magnitude/) (2019) by Ben Grosser For *Order of Magnitude* Grosser viewed every recordings of Mark Zuckerberg between 2004 and 2018 and used them to build a supercut drawn from three of Mark’s most favored words: “more,” “grow,” numbers such “two million” or “one billion.” The result is a nearly fifty minute film acting as a lens on what he cares about, how he thinks, and what he hopes to attain. ### [The Persistence of Chaos](https://thepersistenceofchaos.com/) (2019) by MSCHF x Guo O Dong A laptop, infected with six of the world’s most famous computer viruses: WannaCry, BlackEnergy, ILOVEYOU, MyDoom, SoBig and DarkTequila is publicly auctioned and sells for over $1.3 million. In *The Persistence of Chaos*, Guo O Dong auctions an air-gapped Samsung laptop (disconnected from the internet and unlikely to spread the viruses) which the artist refers to as "a kind of bestiary, a catalogue of historical threats”... ### [Nonfacial Portrait ](https://ssbkyh.com/works/nonfacial_portrait/) (2018) by Shinseungback Kimyonghun In this work, artists are asked to make portrait paintings of a person, following the rule that “the face of the portrait must not be detected by AI.” While the portrait is being made, a camera equipped with three face detection algorithms watches the canvas and informs the painter if a face is detected.The face of the completed portrait must be recognisable to humans but not to any of the face-detection algorithms. ### [Advertising Positions](https://rednoise.org/daniel/advertisingpositions) (2018) by Daniel Howe Participants in the project are 3d-scanned and given custom software to collect the many thousands of advertisements they are served over months of web browsing. Each ad is then applied to a single polygon on the mesh skin of their 3d avatar, in a uniquely revealing data portrait that exposes the surveillance capitalist gaze. ### [LAUREN](https://lauren-mccarthy.com/LAUREN) (2017) by Lauren Lee McCarthy A week-long performance in which the artist acts as a human Alexa. Beginning with the installation of custom designed smart devices (cameras, microphones, switches, door locks, faucets, etc), McCarthy watches over a volunteer 24/7 and controls all aspects of their home, aiming to be better than an AI because she can her understand her host as a person and anticipates their needs. ### [Project Alias](https://bjoernkarmann.dk/project/project_alias) (2018) by Bjørn Karmann & Tore Knudsen *Project Alias* brings us Alias, a teachable 'parasite' designed to give users control over their smart assistants, regarding both customisation and privacy. Through a simple app users train Alias to react on custom wake-word/sounds, after which Alias takes control of your home assistant by activating it for you. When you don't use it, Alias makes sure the assistant is paralysed and unable to listen by interrupting its microphones. ### [Data Selfie](https://www.dataselfie.it/#/) (2017) by DATA X A browser extension that tracks you on Facebook in order to show your data traces and reveal what machine learning algorithms can predict about your personality based on that data. The extension explores our relationship to the online data we leave behind as a result of media consumption and social networks - the information you share consciously and unconsciously. ### [HARVEST](https://julianoliver.com/projects/harvest/) (2017) by Julian Oliver Using wind energy to mine cryptocurrency with proceeds funding climate research. *HARVEST* transforms wind energy into the electricity required to meet the demanding task of mining cryptocurrency, a decentralised process where computers are financially rewarded for their work on the blockchain. Rather than filling the digital wallet of the artist, all proceeds go to non-profit research groups so that they can better study climate change. ### [White Collar Crime Risk Zones](https://lav.io/projects/white-collar-crime-risk-zones/) (2017) by Clifton, Lavigne & Tseng *White Collar Crime Risk Zones* uses machine learning to predict where financial crimes are mostly likely to occur across the US. The project is a critique of American policing and imprisonment systems. ### [Feminist Data Set](https://dilettantearmy.com/articles/making-critical-ethical-software) (2017) by Caroline Sinders *Feminist Data Set* is a critical research and art project that examines bias in machine learning through data collection, data training, neural networks, and new forms of user interface (UI), as well as the projected creation of a feminist artificial intelligence (AI). ### [Straightened Trees](https://danieltemkin.com/StraightenedTrees) (2016) by Daniel Temkin Using custom code, the natural curvature of each tree is "corrected." Manufactured objects, i.e. buildings and power lines, twist and contort around the artificially plumbed tree. Each photo is shot on large format film, the only medium that captures enough detail to straighten the tree without pixelly artifacts. ### [Screens](https://chino.kim/screeners/) (2016) by Chino Kim Glasses that use computer vision and smart film to detect screens and screen them from the wearer. Using smart film, an opaque plastic that becomes clear when an electrical charge is applied to it, whenever you look at a screen, be it computer, smartphone, TV, or whatever, the glasses become opaque, effectively blinding you until you look away. ### [Pierogi West ATM Vestibule](https://www.pierogi2000.com/pierogi-west-atm-vestibule/) (2016) by Andrew Ohanesian A fully functioning ATM built by the artist charged the user the hefty fee of $4.99, but after completing a transaction, the user received a receipt with a title and an edition number on it… basically, ca purchased work of art. ### [Level of Confidence](https://www.lozano-hemmer.com/level_of_confidence.php) (2015) by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer Commemorating the kidnapping of 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teachers’ College in Guerrero, Mexico, _Level of Confidence_ consists of a face-recognition camera trained to tirelessly search for the faces of the disappeared students. As visitors stand before the camera, the system finds the missing student who looks most similar, complete with "level of confidence" score. The author inverts military and police algorithms to search, not for criminals but, for the victims of a massacre for which, he believes, they were responsible. ### [Personal Surveillance Agency](https://www.timo.ee/psa/) (2014) by Timo Toots A surveillance system for ants, *PSA* has microphones wired in an ants nest, sensors monitoring the climate inside and outside of the nest, camera watching over the little society of the ants. The gathered data and sounds are made public through the speakers and screens, as you experiment with being a master surveillance overload. ### [How It Is in Common Tongues](https://www.ubuweb.com/contemp/cayley/) (2013) by Daniel Howe & John Cayley In this intervention into the mechanics of copyright an algorithm searches Google Books for the text of Samuel Beckett's *How It Is*, attempting to find, in sequence, the longest common phrases composed by writers *other* than Beckett (whose estate has been particularly aggressive in keeping his writing from the public domain). The eventual result is a printed artist book matching Beckett's text word-for-word, but with every phrase footnoted with the url where it was found in other texts. ### [قلب](https://nas.sr/%D9%82%D9%84%D8%A8/) by Ramsey Nasser (2013) A bespoke programming language exploring the role of culture and cultural biases in coding. Code in قلب (or Qalb) is written entirely in Arabic, highlighting longstanding biases in computer science and challenging the assumptions we make about programming. Qalb, meaning "heart" in Arabic, is also a recursive acronym for Qlb: a programming language (قلب: لغة برمجة). ### [Social Turkers](https://lauren-mccarthy.com/Social-Turkers) (2013) by Lauren Lee McCarthy In 2013, Lauren Lee McCarthy went on twenty dates with people she met on an online dating site called *OkCupid*. She streamed these dates to the Internet and paid remote workers on *Amazon's Mechanical Turk* to watch, interpret what was happening, and direct her with what to do and say next. These directions were communicated to her via text message and she performed them immediately. ### [AdNauseam](https://adnauseam.io) (2013) by Daniel Howe & Helen Nissenbaum A web browser extension that clicks on every ad in order to subvert the system of surveillance capitalism founded on targeted advertising. The software computes the estimated amount paid by advertisers for these ads (which no human has seen), and presents them to the user as an interactive portrait of how they are seen by advertisers. ### [Social Roulette](https://adnauseam.io) (2013) by McDonald, Jongejan & Lund Social Roulette is a Facebook game where players have a 1-in 6-chance of having their Facebook account deleted, Referencing the famed 'Russian Roulette' game played with a single bullet in a 6-shot gun, the project was almost immediately blocked by Facebook. ### [Facebook Demetricator](https://bengrosser.com/projects/facebook-demetricator/) (2012) by Ben Grosser A web browser extension that hides all the metrics on Facebook. It aims to disrupt the prescribed sociality that quantification produces, enabling a network society that isn’t dependent on quantification. ### [Surfcave](http://surfcave.com/) (2012) by Brad Troemel & Jonathan Vingiano What if every image that ever passed through your web browser was published for all to see? In *Surfcave*, a Chrome browser plugin and website, surfing the internet becomes a relentlessly public, voyeuristic, and hypnotic activity, in which every image you view is visible to every other participant, and vice versa. ### [Error_in_time](http://sister0.org/?error-in-time/) (2012) by Nancy Mauro-Flude Sitting with her back to the audience, the artist opens up the insides of the operating systems behind our daily computer interactions, giving us a compelling insight into the geek space from the perspective of a female hacker. The performance uses sound, documentation, performance and live code manipulation to explore the intimate ways in which human-computer interfaces, surveillance and social media work. ### [Wearlog](https://caidavies302.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/seminar-01/) (2012) by Jonnet Middleton The *Wearlog* project is a disruptive innovation in smart wardrobes which logs, via embedded RFID tags, the wearing, washing and mending to promote longer lasting clothes. Wearlog doubles as a critical research tool to investigate the agency of things and to ask how human and nonhuman can conspire together to prolong nonhuman life. ### [Face to Facebook-Hacking Monopolism Trilogy](https://paolocirio.net/work/face-to-facebook/) (2011) by Paolo Cirio This artwork appropriated one million Facebook profiles and posted 250,000 of them on a custom-made dating website with profiles sorted by social temperament, which was estimated through trained artificial intelligence analyzing facial expressions. ### [NewsTweek](https://julianoliver.com/projects/newstweek/) (2011) by Julian Oliver & Daniil Vasiliev *Newstweek* is a device for manipulating the news read by other people on wireless hotspots. Built into a small and innocuous wall plug, the device attacks wireless networks, routeing all traffic through itself: a ‘man in the middle’ attack. ### [A Charge for Privacy](https://brangerbriz.com/portfolio/charge-for-privacy) (2011) by Ramon Banger & Nick Briz A project that transforms your data into currency and “charges” users for it when they recharge their phones at a custom charging booth. Users “pay” for the service by uploading all of their photos to the installation and legally relinquishing the rights to the artists, ironically using Facebook’s own Terms of Service, word for word, to establish the legal ground for this. ### [Jailbreak the Patriarchy](https://www.daniellesucher.com/2011/11/11/jailbreak-the-patriarchy-my-first-chrome-extension/) (2011) by Danielle Sucher What would the world be like if we reversed the way we speak about women and men? *Jailbreak the Patriarchy* genderswaps the world for you by swapping gendered words. For example: "he loved his mother very much" would read as "she loved her father very much", "the patriarchy also hurts men" would read as "the matriarchy also hurts women"... ### [Viral Capital](https://robertlisek.com/CAPITAL.html) (2011) by Robert B. Lisek Exploring topics such as viruses, biology, identity and technology, the program generates a new class of non-human objects with human DNA and virus DNA (Lloviu virus, Polio virus, Marburg virus and Ebola virus). The audience can see the process of their DNA being manipulated with virus DNA, showing how computational processes remain in relation with biological and chemical processes. ### [Artvertiser](https://julianoliver.com/projects/newstweek/) (2010) by Oliver, Stewart & Castro A software platform to replace billboard advertisements with art in real-time, *Artvertiser* works by teaching computers to 'recognise' advertisements so they can be easily replaced with alternative content. Rather than refering to this as a form of Augmented Reality (AR) technology, the artists call it *Improved Reality*. ### [My Little Piece of Privacy](https://www.niklasroy.com/project/88/my-little-piece-of-privacy) (2010) by Niklas Roy An automated physical curtain that uses computer vision to attempt to shield the artist's workspace from the view of passersby. As people walk past, the curtain races to stay in front of them but can never quite catch up, making explicit the Sisyphean nature of privacy preservation in an of rampant surveillance. ### [Google Alarm](https://jamiedubs.com/googlealarm/) (2010) by Jamie Wilkinson & FAT Lab. A browser extension that sounds an alarm, visually and audibly alerting you when your personal information is being sent by your browser to Google servers. The addon clearly shows how we are constantly sending information to Google through their vast network of tracking bugs: Google Analytics, Google AdSense, YouTube embeds, API calls... all of this data used to monitor and track us. ### [SnapScouts](https://snapscouts.org) (2010) by MiniTru LLC & David Philipps An agitprop Android app for children that makes reporting your neighbors to ICE into a fun game. _Want to earn tons of cool badges and prizes while competing with you friends to see who can be the best American? Download the SnapScouts app and get started patrolling your neighborhood. It’s up to you to keep America safe!_ ### [A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter](https://rhizome.org/editorial/2010/mar/01/a-tool-to-deceive-and-slaughter-2009-caleb-larsen/) (2009) by Caleb Larsen A physical sculpture that is perpetually attempting to auction itself on eBay. Every ten minutes the black box pings a server on the internet to check if it is for sale on the eBay. If its auction has ended or it has sold, it automatically creates a new auction of itself. When purchased on eBay, the current owner is required to send it to the new owner. The new owner must then plug it into the ethernet, and the cycle repeats itself. ### [Physiognomic Scrutinizer](https://www.marnixdenijs.nl/physiognomic_scrutinizer.htm) (2008) by Marnix de Nijs Equipped with biometric video analysing software, the installation scrutinizes the faces of the people wishing to pass through the gate and enter the exhibition. The software probes for facial features and characteristics similar to a database of people chosen for controversial or infamous acts. Visitors are then accused according to the disrepute of their match and an audio fragment regarding the controversy played aloud. ### [Feral Robotic Dogs](https://01sj.org/2010/artworks/feral-robotic-dog/) (2006) by Natalie Jeremijenko Hacked versions of the popular Sony AIBO robot toy dog are retrofitted with the ability to sense pollutants. A “pack” of such dogs are then released into the environment to both sense contamination and bring community and media attention to a known problem site. *Feral Robotic Dogs* are designed to “exploit the popular culture references of these toys to involve youth in the interpretation of environmental conditions and a critique of the corporate imagination.” ### [The Invisible Hand Machine](https://runme.org/project/+handmachine/index.html) (2006) by Wieser & Rohrhuber The artists search here for the *invisible hand* — the self-organisation of individuals which, as Adam Smith argues, reaches a state of balance through self-interest and competition. Their approach uses generative audio to re-explore contemporary neo-liberal thought via the ironic use of the visualisation tools from Microsoft Excel. ### [They Rule](http://www.theyrule.net/) (2005) by Josh On Aiming to make visible the relationships of the U.S. ruling class, _They Rule_ allows visitors to browse the networks of influence and power that exist across the boards of some of the most powerful companies. Users can browse pre-designed maps, browse existing networks, or create their own. A pioneering project that makes visible the relationships between those who constitute the power class. ### [Nuage Vert à Ivry (Green Cloud)](http://hehe.org2.free.fr/?page_id=162&language=en) (2005) by Evans & Hansen (HeHe) A city scale art project which uses the vapor emissions of a power plant as a projection surface. The chimney and its emissions become a collective space and community measuring tape that both aestheticizes industrial pollution and draws the viewer’s critical attention to it. ### [The Interstitial Space Helmet](https://v2.nl/works/interstitial-space-helmet) (2004) by James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau Consisting of two vacuum formed halves of A.B.S. individually fitted to the user, the ISH has one A/V output, an internal LCD screen and an internal microphone. A product for the Otaku generation, it acknowledges new forms of social interaction that often preclude traditional modes, and that, for some, these places are more comfortable than the physical world. ### [Khan Artist](https://www.osmankhan.com/works/khanartist) (2004) by Osman Khan A direct appropriation of the act and systems of credit consumption: registering as a validated merchant with a fully operational credit processing machine and account, Khan asks the visitor to make a purchase - though no product or service is returned. The visitor's purchase card will be charged an amount of money (minimum $1.00 though the visitor can offer a higher amount). The artist's name then shows up on the visitor's monthly credit card statement. ### [Super Mario Clouds](https://whitney.org/collection/works/20588) (2002) by Cory Arcangel A “hacked” cartridge of Super Mario Brothers, the original version of the blockbuster Nintendo video game released in the United States in 1985. By tweaking the game’s code and replace the chip on the cartridge, Arcangel erased all of the sound and visual elements from the game, with the exception of the iconic scrolling clouds. ### [Auto-Illustrator](https://runme.org/project/+auto-illustrator/) (2002) by Adrian Ward *Auto-Illustrator* is an experimental, semi-autonomous, generative software artwork and a fully functional vector graphic design application that poses questions regarding authorship and the role of creativity in the use of digital systems. As a commercial available piece of software, Auto-Illustrator also critiques the traditional notions that artworks must obey the art-world institution. ### [forkbomb.pl](https://zkm.de/en/artwork/forkbombpl) (2001) by Alex McLean In this ten-line Perl script, Alex McLean’s creates an unusually complex forkbomb (a program that follows a simple procedure, creating further procedures simultaneously until the system is overwhelmed and crashes). When executed it gradually overloads and disables the host computer, printing out a series of 0s and 1s that, through pattern, visualizes the state of the system during its descent into disorder. ### [London.pl](https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/948/) (2001) by Graham Harwood One of the first artistically advanced examples of Perl poetry written since the invention of the form, *London.pl* transcribes William Blake's 19th century poem "London" into both code and a social-political reading of Blake's poem. The partially functioning Perl code describes an algorithm to “find and calculate the gross lung-capacity of the children screaming from 1792 to the present." ### [Netomat™](https://www.streamingmuseum.org/post/evo1-netomat) (1999) by Maciej Wisniewski Unlike traditional web interfaces such as web browsers, which rely on the model of the web page and retrieve preconfigured content, *Netomat™* engages an Internet that is alive and unpredictable. In response to words and phrases typed in by the viewer, the software queries the Internet to retrieve text, images, and audio, and to merge them simultaneously onto the screen without regard to the display design of the data source, taking visitors for a ride into the Internet's subconscious. ### [Web Stalker](https://v2.nl/works/the-web-stalker) (1997) by I/O/D A free, software application for reading and manipulating information on the Web, *Web Stalker* scans the hyperlinks on WWW-pages, displays their HTML code as the Web Stalker agent is analysing the pages, and maps the hyperlink structure in evocative graphics. As an example of the re-visualisation of data-space, the project was a very early suggestion that a speculative engagement with software as a key locus of contemporary culture was relevant and important. -------------- _Many thanks to all those who have contributed to the collection above, especially my students and colleagues at the School of Creative Media in Hong Kong and UAL's Creative Computing Institute in London._33:[] 30:{"id":"9db230c69f038984","slug":"critical-software-art-projects","title":"A Critical Software Art Collection","thumbnail":"c447f917baac3aacb0517b58ac45279ea35df5da1ea5872b4c41695f11f89601","access_level":"public","create_time":"$D2022-03-03T15:51:18.335Z","update_time":"$D2026-09-14T15:23:56.825Z","view_time":null,"first_public_time":"$D2022-03-03T15:53:09.766Z","has_unpublished_edits":null,"fork":false,"stars":1,"starred":false,"owner":{"type":"team","id":"636cf123a07db681","login":"dhowe","name":"Daniel Howe","avatar_url":"https://avatars-next.observableusercontent.com/a5081aaa56ae9990aa27642040dc61de3ce8cea67f6f778a5b864e41111ba7a3","tier":"starter_2024"},"version":197,"publish_version":null,"role":null,"authored":false,"authors":[{"type":"individual","id":"32869872eb6f2f82","login":"dhowe","name":"Daniel Howe","avatar_url":"https://avatars-next.observableusercontent.com/a5081aaa56ae9990aa27642040dc61de3ce8cea67f6f778a5b864e41111ba7a3","tier":null}],"members":[{"type":"individual","id":"32869872eb6f2f82","login":"dhowe","name":"Daniel Howe","avatar_url":"https://avatars-next.observableusercontent.com/a5081aaa56ae9990aa27642040dc61de3ce8cea67f6f778a5b864e41111ba7a3","tier":null,"role":"editor"},{"type":"team","id":"636cf123a07db681","login":"dhowe","name":"Daniel Howe","avatar_url":"https://avatars-next.observableusercontent.com/a5081aaa56ae9990aa27642040dc61de3ce8cea67f6f778a5b864e41111ba7a3","tier":"starter_2024","role":"viewer"}],"comments":[],"custom_thumbnail":true,"trashed":false,"lapsed":null,"subscribed":null,"forks":1,"collection":null,"type":"notebook","body":{"titling":"auto","title":"A Critical Software Art Collection","cells":[{"id":10,"value":"md`# A Critical Software Art Collection`","pinned":false,"hidden":false,"mode":"ojs","author":"$undefined","summary":"$undefined","providerMetadata":"$undefined","attachments":"$undefined","output":"$undefined","database":"$undefined"},{"id":5,"value":"html`

\n\n\nDescription: A provisional and non-authoritative collection of critical software art projects
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