Modifying the universal

Modifying the universal: an interim report

In 2014, The Unicode Consortium decided to add five "Skin tone modifiers" to the ISO 10646 standard that encodes more than 800 emoji characters. It was decided to base the modifiers on the Fitzpatrick scale, because "the Fitzpatrick scale was developed for use in dermatology, it is also used in cosmetology and fashion design (and) it has the advantage of being a recognized as an external standard without negative associations" [1] Currently, a new proposal is under discussion for a mechanism that would allow further customizations of Unicode emoji characters. If accepted, this will ensure that gender variants (such as female runners or males raising a hand), hair color variants (a red-haired police woman), and directional variants (pointing a gun or a crocodile to the right, rather than only to the left) can be encoded. [2]

Unicode is a set of standards, an underlying infrastructure that impacts all use of text on computers, mobile devices and the web. The Unicode Consortium that maintains the standard, is made up of public and private members and aims to include all scripts used in the world. The standards do not prescribe particular fonts or specific renderings of characters, but simply provide a number for each character used in a text. The standard was conceived in the early nineties to solve the problem of different encodings, a problem which became apparent as people from across the world started exchanging text documents on the web. A document using a Greek encoding and opened by a machine that uses Japanese encodings for example, would result in a completely different text. This because the Greek encoding would ascribe certain characters to certain memory spaces, whereas the Japanese encoding would ascribe other characters to the same space. The Unicode Standard was an attempt to incorporate all existing encodings into one 'universal' ledger.

Emoji characters where introduced into Unicode in 2010. With the proliferation of smart phones, the illustrative characters that are used to convey 'emotions' in textual messages, have rapidly become popular. The Unicode Consortium felt the need to meet both popular demand and the demands of device vendors. By encoding emoji's into their standards, third parties like Apple and Google could develop compatible apps that can interchange emoji's between different applications and operating systems. For the Unicode Consortium to extend their territory from a ledger of linguistically oriented character encodings into managing the pseudo-visual was predictable, seeing the powerful stakeholders that are active in defining the standard [3]. It meant a shift from characters to representation, slipping from representing the worlds languages into the trouble of skin color and gender variations.

With the addition of "Skin tone modifiers", the Unicode Consortium responded to a public outcry against the perceived lack of diversity in available emoji's. A petition that asked Apple to increase the diversity in its emoji set, attracted thousands of signatures. The petition stated that “the only two resembling people of color are a guy who looks vaguely Asian and another in a turban.” The negative attention to Unicode and its stakeholders put under pressure the universal claim of the always transparent but so far impenetrable and bureaucratic machinery of the Unicode Consortium, and they responded accordingly. Demands like these are reasonable and not without urgency. On-line representations are often a way to make tangible what can not be changed in the physical world. But should we see the addition of the modifiers as an example of successful user-agency, of powerful citizen action?

By immediately implementing the new 'modifiers', Apple showed the world its commitment to diversity. The company could obviously already have made other choices in the generic renderings of their emoji's, but waited for the Unicode Consortium to come up with a solution for outsourcing the responsibility to its users. However flexible the customization options proposed by the Unicode Consortium might seem, they are techno-centric patches in response to the increasing complexity of cross-device and cross-cultural computing that demands a rethinking of compatibility in terms of difference. By tightly keeping the "modifiers" in line with the universalist belief-system of Unicode, at best parametric variations of the same could be made available. In it's shadow we see the re-appearance of the gender-neutral as a norm, and whiteness as the absence of ethnicity. The possible is aligned with what fits the available, and not at any moment are the colonial assumptions underlying the system of encoding being questioned.

It is obvious that technological systems increasingly represent, form and interact with diverse physical bodies. The bankruptcy of the idea that anything is possible and that networked technologies are a-political and colorblind are a space for becoming, means that we need to radically rethink what it means to say 'everyone'. In an era that is apparently "post racial" and "post gender" we can see an actual backlash of racism and sexism, in terms of discrimination on one side, and affirmation on the other side; the new emoji standards reflect this tension.

If we co-exist with software, what generative forms of representation in/through software can we imagine, that not only represent multiplicity but allow us to materialise it, beyond the Modern regime of universality? What are the possibilities of a politics, aesthetics and ethics that is truly generative? How can we think other futures for computing, so that another type of possible becomes possible?

The talk and workshop are developed by Peggy Poirot, Roel Roscam Abbing and Femke Snelting in the context of Possible Bodies, an ongoing collaboration between artists, programmers, performers and activists concerned with the specific entanglements of technology, representation and normativity that (re)-appear through renderings of the virtual. http://possiblebodies.constantvzw.org

[1] http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2014/14213-skin-tone-mod.pdf

[2] http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr52/

[3] http://www.unicode.org/consortium/members.html

Biographies

Peggy Pierrot works on projects linking information, media, activism, radio art and technology. She runs a publishing house, Venus Negra, publishing on popular cultures, Black Atlantic, music and science fiction. A sociologist by training, she holds a postgraduate degree in multimedia engineering. Peggy worked as a journalist (Transfert.net, Le Monde diplomatique, Minorités.org) and as editorial/technical webmaster in media and non-profit projects. She lectures on African-American and Caribbean litterature and culture, science-fiction or related topics.

Roel Roscam Abbing is an artist and researcher with strong interest for the issues and cultures surrounding networked computation. In an often collaborative practice he has worked on projects about the internet's infrastructure, DIY techniques and wireless community networks. Currently he teaches at the Digital Craft department of the Willem de Kooning Academy and is involved in a year long project looking at the possibilities for communication after the death of the WWW.

Femke Snelting (speaking) investigates interrelations between digital tools and creative practice, and develops projects at the intersection of design, feminism and free software. She is a core member of Constant, an association for arts and media active in Brussels since 1997. The collective work of Constant is inspired by the way that technological infrastructures, data-exchange and software determine daily life. Femke co-initiated the design/research team Open Source Publishing (OSP) and coordinated the Libre Graphics Research Unit. She teaches at The Piet Zwart Institute (Rotterdam), a.pass and erg (Brussels).

Modifying the universal: a workshop

We would like to use the workshop to experiment with other ways that compatibility and multiplicity can co-exist. We will experiment with the customisation mechanisms that are already implemented in Unicode, seeing how we can subvert the universal from the inside. Additionally, we will interrogate the technical and political structure of Unicode together through a collective close-reading of documents relevant to the introduction and modification of emoji's. As a possible outcome of the workshop we could formulate a comment to the current proposal for new emoji mechanisms: http://www.unicode.org/review/pri321

Suggested reading list

Tara McPherson, “U.S. Operating Systems at Mid-Century, The Intertwining of Race and UNIX” in: Race After the Internet (2008)

Lisa Nakamura, Digitizing Race: Visual Cultures of the Internet (2008) Introduction + “Avatars and the Visual Culture of Reproduction on the Web”

Karen Barad, "Posthumanist performativity: Toward an understanding of how matter comes to matter" (2003)

Rosi Braidotti, The Posthuman (2013). Chapter: “The Inhuman: Life beyond Death”

Zach Blas and Micha Cardenas, “Imaginary computational systems: queer technologies and transreal aesthetics” (2013) https://www.academia.edu/5349392/Imaginary_computational_systems_queer_technologies_and_transreal_aesthetics

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, “The Enduring Ephemeral, or the Future Is a Memory” (2008)

Wendy Hui Kyong Chun: Programmed Visions. Chapter: “Invisibly Visible, Visibly, Invisible"

Denis Jacquery, Unicodes http://freeze.sh/_/2015/conversations/unicode

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