Ghost in the Shell
Digital works compilation curated by Imbécil.
Part of the Sonar a la Carta exhibition. Sónar festival, Barcelona, Spain. 16.06.05 - 18.06.05

Wikipedia defines a command line as “a method of interacting with a computer by giving it lines of textured commands”. Yet UN*X shells could be something more than just a “functional” tool. At a time when hyper-complex interfaces, three-dimensional animations and an unstoppable graphic frenzy dominate, these eight pieces of software stake a claim for the command line as a powerful vehicle or a source of inspiration. An idea that, combined with the spirit that has driven imbecil.net since 2002 results in a ludic and absurd vision of those magical windows devised by Ken Thompson in the early 70s.

Written in several languages (Perl, BASIC, Python or simply sh), the programs of this menu exploit different aspects of the interaction (or lack thereof) with the user and, above all, of the functional nature of the software itself: the principle on which all computer applications “must” be based. At the end of the day, the motto of Larry Wall, the father of Perl, was always “there’s more than one way to do it”. From Imbécil they add “and there’s no reason why it has to be the easiest”.
Making things unnecessarily complicated, or abstaining from the idea of usefulness, Imbécil and their allies attempt to contribute to the lengthy tradition of the absurd technology of crazy illustrators/inventors like Rube Goldberg or Heath Robinson, the culture of Kenji Kawakami’s Chindogu or the esoteric computing of languages such as Intercal, Brainfuck and their long list of relatives.

A presumptuous therapist that would have difficulties in overcoming the Turing test (“Eliza.bas”); a reproduction of Star Wars in Ascii art; a program that provides constant updated weather data in countries on the Axis of Evil – including the USA and Israel (“Tyrant Weather”); a VJ tool that turns the command line into a graphic poltergeist (“Extreme Whitespace”), or the famous “videogame” that allows you to buy and sell drugs on the streets of New York (“Dopewars”). All great examples of that half sarcastic, half obscurantist attitude that tries to add magic and a ghost to the good old shell.

List of works:
Extreme Whitespace, by Amy Alexander
Eliza.bas, by Lee Davison
Asciimation, by Simon Jansen / Snore
Fortune , by various authors / Bell Labs
Dopewars, by Ben Webb
foo-food.pl, by Imbécil
Tyrant Weather, by Imbécil
ShellQuake, by Imbécil

Talk/presentation of the Ghost in the Shell selection at Centre d'Art Santa Mònica, Barcelona, 16.06.05. Photo by Javier Tles.

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