The fantasy of the algorithm and, by extension, artificial intelligence imagines that each performs by executing an operational task. Yet, based on its inherent computational structure, the digital performance fails to live up to its instrumental promise. This failure foregrounds an occasion for artistic intervention. “The Wager of the Algorithm: Towards a Performatic Gesture” presents a theoretical statement (illustrated via artwork by the author) in which the overall exposition underscores a dialectic within instrumental reason itself. The “prompt” names are a shorthand for the fulcrum of this problematic.
The article is published on Research Catalog Platform under this link:
Published: July 15, 2025 Show citation
EXPOSITION IN RESEARCH CATALOGUE
References
Arns, Inke. 2005. “Code as Performative Speech Act.” Artnodes, issue 4 (July). Universitat Oberta de Catalunya.
Barr, Stephen. 1964. Experiments in Topology. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell.
Benjamin, Walter. 2015. Walter Benjamin's Archive: Images, Texts, Signs. Translated by Esther Leslie. New York: Verso.
Davis, Martin, ed. 1965. The Undecidable: Basic Papers on Undecidable Propositions, Unsolvable Problems and Computable Functions. New York: Raven Press.
Estampa, El mal alumne – Pedagogia crítica per a intel•ligències artificials. Institut de Cultura de Barcelona.
Freud, Sigmund. 2003. The Uncanny. Translated by David McLintock. London: Penguin Classics.
Gödel, Kurt. 1940. The Consistency of the Axiom of Choice and of the Generalized Continuum Hypothesis with the Axioms of Set Theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Kornbluh, Anna. 2024. Immediacy: or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism. New York: Verso.
Lacan, Jacques. 1997. Seminar VII: The Ethics of Psychoanalysis. Edited by Jacques-Alain Miller. Translated by Dennis Potter. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
Lacan, Jacques. 1998. Seminar XX: Encore: On Feminine Sexuality: The Limits of Love and Knowledge. Translated by Bruce Fink. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
LeWitt, Sol. 1969. “Sentences on Conceptual Art” and “Paragraphs on Conceptual Art.” Art-Language (1.1).
Malabou, Catherine. 2012. The Ontology of the Accident: An Essay on Destructive Plasticity. Translated by Carolyn Shread. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Mallarmé, Stéphane. 1982. “Variations on a Subject.” Selected Poetry and Prose. New York: New Directions.
Manetti, Antonio. 2008. The Fat Woodworker. Translated by Robert L. Martone and Valerie Martone. New York: Italica Press.
Miller, Jacques-Alain. 2011. “Two Clinical Dimensions: Symptom and Fantasm.” The Symptom, no. 11 (Spring).
Penrose, Roger. 2016. The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smithson, Robert. 2011. Hotel Palenque. Mexico City: Alias Editorial.
Taylor, Diana. 2016. Performance. Durham: Duke University Press.
Terry, Philip, ed. 2020. The Penguin Book of Oulipo. London: Penguin Modern Classics.
Turing, Alan M. 1965 [1936]. “On Computable Numbers with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem (Halting Problem).” In The Undecidable: Basic Papers on Undecidable Propositions, Unsolvable Problems and Computable Functions, edited by Martin Davis, 115−153. New York: Raven Press.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
