Nine(9) essay by matt fuller

from the 9 project by graham harwood, which is just launching –
http://9.waag.org/

GRID UNLOCKED Matthew Fuller

9 = 3

Nine(9) is given its name from the difference in the number of years of
healthy life expectancy from birth between a woman born in Jamaica in 2001
and a woman born in Sweden in the same year [1] ; the length in months of
human gestation regardless of where you're slotted in the market of freedom;
or the number of jellied eels it takes to change a light bulb? Numbers join
things in ways that are absolutely arbitrary, but at the same time, they
provide some of the most concrete and supple tools that we have for talking
about things and relations between them. Their palpable abstraction is what
makes numbers useful: 9 groups = 81 archives = 729 maps = 6561 images with
59049 links to any of the 2125764 files on a server.

You on the guest list?
What would a nice friendly artist want to do with what people who run
computer networks call permissions structures? Underlying Nine(9) is a
complex sequence of rules for who can do what to what: change the contents
of an archive, add text, make a link. Instead of 'free expression' which
embeds its laws in vague secrets, here, the lists of what you can do are up
front. It's a bit daunting, filling in a Nine(9) archive. Perhaps the
software is aimed at people with the most experience at form-feeding, those
of us who keep the welfare state well nourished with our lives; people who
shift from one regulatory zone to another without a lawyer in tow? Those
forms, they lower the blood sugar a little. But, it being a program, you got
to love the upgrade path potential.

Linker
Nine(9) is, in some senses, a reversion of an earlier programme by Mongrel :
Linker. [2] This is a stand alone programme that is used offline. It is
usable only if you have the programme and the files provided by the maker of
a particular map. Nine(9) takes the basic principles of Linker, extends them
and moves them onto the web. This makes it more generally available. It
means it doesn't have to rely on running on a particular kind of operating
system. It does mean you need an internet connection to use it, at least for
now.

That Nine(9)
That Nine(9) is on the net also has distinct advantages in the way it makes
different kinds of connection occur. When you make a map, it's possible to
link to a file in another map. Linking is a normal part of the function of
the world wide web. The difference with Nine(9) is that the underlying
software makes the link, but also uses it to make a connection between you
and the other map's maker. An email is automatically sent notifying them of
the use. Multiple layers of connection run through Nine(9), they form its
underlying principle. Links are made by users, by people who make the maps,
but also automatically, by the software.

Shuffle
Each Nine(9) map has nine spaces for images to be included. Along with the
structure of permissions built into the software, this is one of the
constraints around which it is organised. Nine images is enough to tell a
story, but few enough to make you choose which of them mean enough together
to be worth combining. Shuffling pictures, arranging them into sequences,
making connections. It's difficult to take one photograph which takes upon
itself the function of a masterpiece here, three's a crowd. Even if one or
two of your photos doesn't work on its own, it will get mobilised by
conjunction with others.

Random fandom
How do these patterns of images make of themselves anything more than what
you'd get by random collision out of an image search engine? Some of them
don't. It takes skill to be truly random. In Nine(9) archives, thing work by
clusters, by association. They can be boring as well as brilliant. That's
permissible.

Software and Autonomy
If something has autonomy to the extent that it is able to exist separately
from its representation, the extent that images and systems cannot be
imposed upon it, how autonomous is a user of Nine(9)?
It's not quite as simple as saying the rules are up-front, users choose the
software they want. Not all the software that could be made gets made.
Nine(9) belongs to a current of software which aims to put what is missing
somehow into view, part of the way this is done is by being clear about what
it demands. But it also operates with others by opening up a gap between the
applications and companies that economically and conceptually dominate
software and the spaces and processes by which software might develop.
A piece of software doesn't guarantee you autonomy. What it is, what it's
mixed with, how it's used are all variables in the algorithms of power and
invention that course through software and what it connects to. Mongrel
designed Nine(9) to be used primarily in workshops and in collaboration with
others. The conditions by which users come to the software, what previous
computer skills they have, whether they can use an image editor to make
pictures to include in Nine(9); the way in which the workshop is run; the
reputations and usability of the space it's being held in; all these things
connect to and shape how well the software can be said to work.

Collaborative data
A further way in which Nine(9) generates more room to maneuver is because of
the stuff it is made of. Nine(9) is a combination of, XML parsed as HTML;
Perl scripts; image manipulation and formatting tools such as Imagemagick
and the Gimp; and a MySQL database. HTML is the basic way of organising the
structure and style of web-sites. Perl is a scripting language which codes
how the data is processed and arranged. MySQL organises the data so that it
can be retrieved.
All of these elements are used not only in Nine(9), but also contribute to a
growing mass of resources available online that are used, shared, changed
and developed. Copyright, where it exists, gets bent out of whack.
Otherwise, code runs like the river of lemonade down sugar rock candy
mountain: it's a free-for-all. So long as you don't fancy cherryade instead.
Coding gets easier and, with attention, it gets better.

Word knots
Any text that is fed into Nine(9) is filtered by the computer. The program
looks for words that are shared across parts of a Nine(9) map or -
depending, of course, on the permissions structure - across archives. The
words appear as links to another appearance of that word, or a variant of
the word, a plural for instance. [3] On a normal website, links are
hard-coded. That mean that they have to be specifically chosen to operate as
links. In its use of text, Nine(9) allows links to occur as a natural
outcropping of their commonality of usage. This doesn't mean of course that
the same ideas are linked together. People might use the same words to say
different things. The messy richness of words and the unsane rigour of
computer logic mix here to trick each other up, make new conjunctures.



[1] World Health Organisation, World Health Report 2002, Annex Table 4,
Healthy Life Expectancy (HALE) in all member states, estimates for 2000 and
2001
[2] www.linker.org.uk
[3] In the word linking function of nine plurals are spotted, not treated as
separate words, thanks to a Perl module, Lingua, available at
http://search.cpan.org/src/DCONWAY/Lingua-EN-Inflect-1.88