Code X Operational Instructions

Code X is an interactive exploration of text, image and sound. Interaction is directed from an exploration of the letters on the keyboard, the mouse, and the space bar. Press any letter on the keyboard to activate your performance. Press another letter and another letter or press the same letter again and again. Press the space bar to erase the screen and begin your performance again. If the keyboard is left untouched for 10 seconds Code X will enter a random automated-mode. Moving the mouse up or down the screen in random automated-mode will change the audio pitch. Pan the audio by moving the mouse from left to right and right to left. While in random automated-mode pressing any letter on the keyboard or the space bar will return the program to the title page. Note: interactive mode is not support on mobile devices, but random automated-mode is support on mobile devices. Change the pitch and pan the audio signal on your mobile device by touching the screen.

Code X History

Code X was conceptualized in 1999 during a residency at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York. A Code X prototype was created by Len Senater upon my return to Toronto, Canada. The project was copy-written at that time, and Coach House Books agreed to the future publication of Code X as a CD Rom. Programming tweaks and platform adjustments in Director file occurred throughout 2000 and 2001. The first public installation and performance of Code X was in the summer of 2002 as part of my Scratch exhibition at the Koffler Gallery in Toronto, Canada. Coach House Books published Code X (ISBN 1-55245-075-9) as a CD Rom in December 2002 — their very first stand-alone new media project. Code X was re-programmed as a Flash web site in 2009 by Jesse Brouse of Interaccess Electronic Media Arts Centre, Toronto, Canada. Jonathan Orsi programmed the latest JavaScript edition of Code X in 2020.

Code X Concept

Code X is a collision of text and voice generating circuits and networks of possible meanings. It is a language game that probes the binary conflict between literature and orality using the computer keyboard, mouse, and the formal characteristics of computer technology: sound, moving image, and interactivity. Structurally, Code X is based on a dichotomy of containment (interactive computer program) and indeterminacy (automated computer program). The title Code X is an obvious pun on the word “codex” which means an ancient manuscript, the title also, refers to the myriad of cultural codes that permeate our lives: linguistic codes, visual codes, computer programming codes, etc. Please note that the text for Code X is composed in "courier": courier was the coded default font for all computers in 1999. Code X, likewise, refers to orality/aurality, the nesting word “ode” found within the word "code". An ode is a lyric poem marked by exaltation of feeling. In keeping with the intermedial integrity of my creative practice, Code X is a sound poem, a visual poem, a bookwork, a gallery installation piece, and a public or private performance vehicle.

Code X Interactivity

Code X is housed within a self-referential paragraph containing every letter of the alphabet. A 10 second phonetic improvisation is recorded on a loop for each letter of the alphabet. By typing words or selecting letters on the computer keyboard the performer can create visual poems and sound poems coding, decoding, mashing and jamming the Code X’s paragraph.

Code X Automated Mode

If the computer keyboard is untouched for 10 seconds Code X will begin to operate in random automated-mode. Code X will replicate interactivity producing sound and visual poems until the keyboard is touched and the program returns to the title page. Also, moving the mouse up or down the screen in random automated-mode will change the audio pitch of Code X. Moving the mouse from left to right and right to left will pan the audio signal in automated mode.

Code X gallery exhibition

Art gallery exhibitions of the Code X installation/performance piece consists of a wall size projection, audio speakers and a computer keyboard on a metal stand with a single light source over the keyboard. Gallery visitors are encouraged to interact with Code X by playing with the computer keyboard in the center of the darkened gallery.

Gallery Exhibitions featuring Code X
2002 Scratch, The Koffler Gallery, Toronto, Canada
2003 Scratch, The Peterborough Art Gallery, Peterborough, Canada
2004 Scratch, The Thames Gallery, Chatham, Canada
2005 Scratch, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa, Canada
2016 Cut With The Kitchen Knife…, Spatiu Intact, Cluj, Rumania

Interview
In Digital Ether, W. Mark Sutherland and Dani Spinoza Jacket2
https://jacket2.org/interviews/digital-ether

Sing

Poem

Code

Word + Hear

Noise

Poem Brut

Poetry Wars

4 Code X Improvisations

Code X In Articulation