Endless War (2012)

Real-time Data Processing, Multi-channel Sound and Image Projection 

Endless War is a real-time processing of 76,000 files from the Afghanistan War Archive. The files are categorised by algorithmic methods such as N-gram fingerprints. As the war is fought it produces entries in databases that are in turn analysed by software looking for repeated patterns of events, spatial information, kinds of actors, timings and other factors. Endless War shows how the way war is thought relates to the way it is fought. Both are seen as, potentially endless, computational processes. The algorithmic imaginary of contemporary power meshes with the drawn out failure of imperial adventure. Endless War hints at the existence of an entire sensory and intellectual apparatus of the military body readied for battle. How do we participate in these formations and how do they participate in us? This form of digital archive requires us to join collectively with a complex ensemble of technical objects. It creates an architecture of lists where formal relations have priority over semantics, producing the fields of potential from which new knowledge emerge and with it new forms of power on and off the battlefield.

Biography:

YoHa (English translation 'aftermath') are Matsuko Yokokoji (UK/JP) and Graham Harwood (UK). Living and working together since 1994, their graphic vision, technical tinkering, has powered several celebrated collaborations establishing an international reputation for pioneering critical arts projects, such as Tantalum Memorial (with Richard Wright), and Invisible Airs (2011). Graham Harwood is MA course convenor at the Centre for Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University of London. Matthew Fuller is Professor at Goldsmiths Centre for Cultural Studies and a pioneer of the discouse on Software Studies. Matthew Fuller and YoHa have worked on and off together for over 20 years in their shared interest of software cultures, art and critical thought.