Listening to Machines:

They talk in a Language Not Our Own

Rosser, Laura (2023) Listening to Machines:. In: 3d3 Digital Flow/s: interdisciplinary digital arts and humanities practice-based research, 23rd September 2023, Watershed and Sparks in Bristol.

[thumbnail of Exhibition Guide for Digital Flow/s: Interdisciplinary Digital Arts & Humanities Practice-Based Research. An exhibition celebrating the 3D3 doctoral training partnership.]
Preview
Text (Exhibition Guide for Digital Flow/s: Interdisciplinary Digital Arts & Humanities Practice-Based Research. An exhibition celebrating the 3D3 doctoral training partnership.)
exhibition guide.pdf - Supplemental Material

Download (853kB) | Preview
[thumbnail of Slides for my paper 'Listening to Machines: They talk in a Language Not Our Own' for the Digital Flow/s: Interdisciplinary Digital Arts & Humanities Practice-Based Research. A symposium celebrating the 3D3 doctoral training partnership.]
Preview
Slideshow (Slides for my paper 'Listening to Machines: They talk in a Language Not Our Own' for the Digital Flow/s: Interdisciplinary Digital Arts & Humanities Practice-Based Research. A symposium celebrating the 3D3 doctoral training partnership.)
3d3 Bristol event_Laura Rosser.pdf - Presentation

Download (3MB) | Preview
[thumbnail of Documentation of presentation on 'Listening to Machines: They talk in a Language Not Our Own', 3d3 Legacy event at Digital Flow/s, Watershed Bristol]
Preview
Image (Documentation of presentation on 'Listening to Machines: They talk in a Language Not Our Own', 3d3 Legacy event at Digital Flow/s, Watershed Bristol)
7e923898-f6ee-4c6f-adf4-70b309f337de.jpeg

Download (80kB) | Preview
[thumbnail of Documentation of presentation on 'Listening to Machines: They talk in a Language Not Our Own', 3d3 Legacy event at Digital Flow/s, Watershed Bristol]
Preview
Image (Documentation of presentation on 'Listening to Machines: They talk in a Language Not Our Own', 3d3 Legacy event at Digital Flow/s, Watershed Bristol)
2661ebde-b1aa-4e02-bb1f-4349af48f69f.jpeg

Download (254kB) | Preview
[thumbnail of Documentation of panel discussion at Digital Flow/s sympsium, Watershed Bristol]
Preview
Image (Documentation of panel discussion at Digital Flow/s sympsium, Watershed Bristol)
e45f3e88-f24e-44db-a99e-895920c9ccf6.jpeg - Supplemental Material

Download (135kB) | Preview

Abstract / Summary

The 3d3 Legacy event at Bristol consisted of a symposium and exhibition.

ABSTRACT
In his elaboration of the post-digital, the theorist Florian Cramer suggests that artists favour the misbehaviour of failing analogue and digital technologies (2014, p.20). Laura Rosser applies this theory to the expanded field of printmaking where errors created using analogue and digital print equipment co-exist as creative tools in artistic practice. From a post-digital perspective, and departing from information theory (Shannon and Weaver, 1948) errors and technologies begin to develop their own voices, which she refers to as cross-talk. Drawing additionally on actor–network theory (Latour), new materialism (Barad and Bennett) and the power of cognitive nonconscious (Hayles), she considers error to be an active agent in the printmaking process, where any notion of the artist’s intention is part of a wider network of relations.
In Laura’s projects there is a dialogue between printers, paper, and technologies. The dialogue between the raw material of the practice is the language of the work, consisting of networks, traffic, and tweets. Cross-talk is the term she uses to tie these elements together. As a material exchange between humans and machines, cross-talk has a different modality to a language associated with linguistics; an example of the latter exchange is the social media platform Twitter. When Twitter asks, ‘what’s happening now’ (the Twitter tag line), it prompts a human-centred conversation distinct from the machine dialogue Laura pursues, which broadly asks the same question of ink, paper, and printers. Cross-talk is used to capture this machine and print chatter and encounter across platforms, paper, electricity, and so forth. In this paper Laura will unpack how this is distinct from language or discourse which have strong human associations, and rather how it expresses the breaking down of a conversation or network, and thereby creating space for repair and refresh.

EXHIBITION TEXT:
Work in the show consisted of two interlinked projects created as part of Laura’s PhD problematise binary understandings of error through a post-digital print-based practice.

'[mis]Folding' is a process which generates duplication. The fold, according to the philosopher Gilles Deleuze, is the process of doubling which I perceive as creating new relationships. The fold has flexibility and can be rearranged, or refolded, which blurs binary ideas of inside-outside, visible-not visible, known-unknown, connected- disconnected. Acts of folding can make something discoverable: the action of fold ing, back and forth, in and out, both creates and obscures error.

In the project 'Reading Enchiridion', Laura examines how error provides a mechanism of resistance to representational thought and informational logic, and acts as a disruptive device against the logic of online instruction sets. Error is used in the project as a creative tool to navigate our increasingly automated society where there is little room for mistakes or unpredictability.

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords: post-digital print, 3d3, more-than-human, agency, diagramming, practiceasresearch, analogue
Subjects: Art History & Theory
Creative Art & Design > Fine Art
Research
Department: Falmouth School of Art
Depositing User: Laura Rosser
Date Deposited: 31 Jul 2025 15:25
Last Modified: 31 Jul 2025 15:25
URI: https://repository.falmouth.ac.uk/id/eprint/6123
View Item View Record (staff only)