I work and think in code a lot, and while to professional programmers I may be a dabbler, being able to write programs that do things for me allows me to see the world in a different way. But what is code? "Code is described as many things: it is a cultural logic, a machinic operation or a process that is unfolding. It is becoming, today's hegemonic metaphor; inspiring quasi-semiotic investigations within cultural and artistic practice... it has become a narrative, a genre, a structural feature of contemporary society, an architecture for our technologically controlled societies (e.g. Lessig) and a tool of technocracy and of capitalism and law (Ellul/Winner/Feenberg). It is both metaphor and reality, it serves as a translation between different discourses and spheres, DNA code, computer code, code as law, cultural code, aristocratic code, encrypted code (Latour)." It is all of these, and yet none of these. I'm really hesitant to read too much into code - much of its mysticism, to me, derives from the power those who code wield over those who cannot, and as such, is a mysticism easily dissolved though education. Like most mysticisms.
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