The book I speak myself into an object is also a computer program by the same name. They contain each other. The book contains the computer program as text spread over its pages. The computer program contains the book as the potential result of its process: when the program is run it lays out its own code as a book. Apart from giving form to and presenting the code/text, the program create all paratext including the list of content, pagination, cover and references. The references are code libraries1 written by others that I speak myself into an object build on. The book contain six such reference libraries presented in binary form (as columns of black and white pixels) in the book’s final part. The story of the cover is presented in the chapters Cover and ScreenTools. There it is told how the program chooses a small area of the screen on the computer running the program, and expands it. How the title and name of the author are positioned on the spine and front through a number of operations. Additionally how a thin grey surface cover what will become the book’s spine, and how a light noise is applied to the whole cover. All of this is revealed to the reader. The text speaks of nothing but the construction of the book, but it is written in a language rarely seen in print: C++. It is one of the most popular programming languages, read and written by thousands around the globe. Precisely read and written, because it lacks common pronunciation. It is primarily a written language, and it is through digital writing that its potential as agent and transformer is considered to be realized. As spoken language or analogue writing (as in I speak myself into an object) the language is shifted outside the typical context. When the text is read (both quietly and aloud) we have the opportunity to understand the code differently, beyond efficiency and function. Carl-Johan Rosén is an artist working with programming languages and digital units inspired by the discourses often referred to as posthumanism and object-oriented ontology. I speak myself into an object is his first book and part of an ongoing research effort exploring what it is like to be a computer based process.
