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In the essay The Art of Encoding, Slovenian media theorist and philosopher Maks Valenčič proposes to call on media theory for a more refined understanding of some branches of contemporary art, like object-oriented art. Media theory offers a more refined starting point, as it is concerned with the very way in which patterns are encoded. Here, art is modelled as a specific register or, more precisely, a mode of encoding that differs from alternative approaches, e.g. in science. In other words: while science encodes, art recodes, since it deals with all possible ways of encoding patterns, including those that do not strive for optimality or the possibility of optimisation. It softens patterns or encodes the same pattern in different ways, thereby establishing alternative functions (or models) for such approximation of input data. Artistic encoding is therefore by definition concerned with another, alternative world or mode of encoding, which is most clearly highlighted by contemporary world-building narratives and various theory-fiction attempts at understanding one’s own practice.

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