3.0 Code and Expression: Art, Agency and the Programmable Self

05/10/2025 7 min

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Episode Synopsis

About this EpisodeWhat if your personality could be scripted like a computer program? In this opening video of Chapter 3, we explore the human being as a programmable machine capable of playing out “character”—understood here as a kind of transferable behavioural code. Drawing from computing, biology, theatre, and aesthetics, this episode introduces a theory of character as a dual mechanism made up of code and expression. From ghostly dualisms to scripting fictional agents, we begin to unpack how character governs our actions—and how art can be used to reprogram the self.About this SeriesScripting for Agency: An Artistic Enquiry into Selfhood, Character and Agency in the Age of AI is a video lecture series based on Dr Katarina Ranković’s practice-based PhD in Fine Art at Goldsmiths, University of London. Combining philosophy, performance, creative writing, and AI theory, the series explores how our understanding of the self shapes our personal lives, our politics, and our relationship to intelligent technologies.LinksSeries Playlist: https://bit.ly/sfa-seriesPhD thesis (PDF format): https://bit.ly/sfa-pdfThesis artworks: https://bit.ly/sfa-artReferences- Ranković, Miloš. “‘Something like thinking, that is, intervenes:’ ‘The spectral spiritualisation that is at work in any tekhnē.’” Unpublished paper, 2011. https://www.academia.edu/5879590/_Som....