Antonymic Exchange

(Short paper)

Keywords: antonymic, algorithmic, dark data.

Antonymic Exchange is an artist-run operating system, an idiosyncratic means of developing “algorithmic literacy,” and an engine capable of generating rich swathes of cultural dark data. In this ongoing project, artists Carl Diehl and Lindsey French carry out a conversation through a daily exchange of images, retrieved using search engines, then shared over electronic mail. Exactly what aspects of an image will be decoded antonymically remains unspecified, and either artist might, at different times, respond in opposition to formal aspects, conceptual connections, cultural cues, or other vectors of antonymic analysis. Querying contemporary and non-traditional instantiations of “algorithmic culture,” the artists cast a wide net. Along with information theory and cultural analytics, the artists draw inspiration from the “writing machines” of the Oulipo, the estrangement of urban networks as envisioned by the situationist practice of dérive, and the “intimate bureaucracies” of mail-art. Quarterly reports are compiled every three months, exploring the relationships between images, the search terms and other terms of negotiation that each artist employed.