GOLEM TODAY.
PROGRAMMING EXCESSES
Jana Horáková, Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

COMPUTER /NETWORK/ IS A GOLEM
OF TODAY
•I have run through a number of essays… from God to the machine … That machine … is a modern
counterpart of the Golem of the Rabbi of Prague.
•Norbert Wiener: God & Golem, Inc.:  A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impingnes on
Religion. 1964.

GOLEM OF PRAGUE & FIGURE/S/ OF EXCESS
•Programming of excess 01 /  Artistic virus
•Alex McLean
•Forkbomb.pl (2002)
•

GOLEM OF PRAGUE & FIGURE/S/ OF EXCESS
•Programming of excess 01 /  Artistic virus
•Jaromil
•ASCII Shell forkbomb (2002)
•

GOLEM OF PRAGUE & FIGURE/S/ OF EXCESS
•Programming of excess 02 /  Aesthetics of glitch
•Jodi
•http://text.jodi.org
•http://wwwwww.jodi.org
•

GOLEM OF PRAGUE & FIGURE/S/ OF EXCESS
•Programming of excess 02 /  Aesthetics of glitch
•“Functional machines, robots, mechanized people (from Judaism`s Golem, Frankenstein`s monster) to
the rebellious computers of the twentieth century) are interpreted as alien to human nature, sooner
or later becoming ‘evil’ as they stop functioning correctly.”
•Olga Goriunova, Alexei Shulgin: Glitch. In Software Studies / A Lexicon (ed. M. Fuller),  2008, p.
104.

GOLEM OF PRAGUE & FIGURE/S/ OF EXCESS
•Programming of excess 03 /  Interrogability (reflexivity of the system)
•Loops and feedbacks
•Andrew Spitz: Me doing this (2012)
•http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qt_pAhExHM&feature=related
•

GOLEM OF PRAGUE & FIGURE/S/ OF EXCESS
•Programming of excess 03 /  Interrogability (reflexivity of the system) The excess of
self-portrait
William Anastasi: Maintenance III (Self Portrait), 1967.  / Georges Braque: Woman Reading, 1911.
/  Andrew Spitz: Me doing this, 2012.

GOLEM TODAY.
PROGRAMMING OF EXCESS
GOLEM
https://www.pond5.com/sound-effects/1/walk-earth.html#1/2080/walk,earth

Thank you for your attention.
horakova@phil.muni.cz