Load (Obama) Cruft
This CRUFT is the result of my consuming and digesting the words of President Barak Obama as well as the associated images offered up by the Internet. This algorithm begins by downloading the transcript from Obama's weekly video address, and passing his individual words as search terms into Altavista Image Search. The results are processed using a genetic algorithm, creating a cruft of text and image.
Cook On Cannabilism
This custom of eating their enemies slain in battle (for I firmly believe they eat the flesh of no others) has undoubtedly been handed down to them from earliest times; and we know it is not an easy matter to wean a nation from their ancient customs, let them be ever so inhuman and savage; especially if that nation has no manner of connexion or commerce with strangers......For, said they, ‘Can there be any harm in eating our enemies, whom we have killed in battle? Would not those very enemies have done the same to us?’ I have often seen them listen to Tapia with great attention, but I never found his arguments have any weight with them. When Oedidee and several of our people showed their abhorrence of it, they only laughed at them.
~ Captain CookA General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 14 by Robert Kerr
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13381
The code used in this work was originally developed for American Dream Cycle (Payload), presented at the Generative Art International Conference, GA2009, at the Politecnico di Milano University, Milan, Italy in December of 2009.
What is CRUFT?
cruft /kruhft/ [back-formation from {crufty}]
1. n. An unpleasant substance. The dust that gathers under your bed is cruft; the TMRC Dictionary correctly noted that attacking it with a broom only produces more.
2. n. The results of shoddy construction.
3. vt. [from `hand cruft', pun on `hand craft'] To write assembler code for something normally (and better) done by a compiler (see {hand-hacking}).
4. n. Excess; superfluous junk; used esp. of redundant or superseded code.
5. [University of Wisconsin] n. Cruft is to hackers as gaggle is to geese; that is, at UW one properly says "a cruft of hackers".
The Jargon File, version 4.4.7 http://catb.org/jargon/html/C/cruft.html
I am interested in how the ideas and images presented to us by the media affect our world view. As the ever present cable news cycle pushes a daily message of fear, filled with political polarization; domestic and foreign terrorism; recent kidnapped white girls; celebrity scandals; and the imminent threat of hurricane, earthquake or flood, I began to think about how these digital images and text operated, one day influencing our daily discourse, the next day vanishing without a trace. Digital leftovers reminded me of redundant computer programming. Code that was once useful, but later forgotten and obsolete.
For my current work I have borrowed the computer hacker term 'Cruft', defined as an unpleasant substance; excess; superfluous junk; and redundant or superseded computer code. To create this work I call CRUFT, I write simple algorithms that an automated computer system follows. The instructions outline what websites to target, and the system then downloads selected images and text, which are then used as source material, and remixed to create new artwork on a schedule that imitates the 24 hour cable news cycle.