Initializing

Hello, World

The birth of social media was expressed in two words. This greeting and salutation reveals a great deal about the nature of computed, programmatic discourse, such as it is. The voice of the machine does not address me, in particular, yet I read "Hello, World" and in doing so am personally of the world the machine is extending itself into, through two words, which indicate a language complex as open-ended and sophisticated as the expression is simple. Consider for a moment the translational path and iconography of "Hello, World." The life of the phrase, its reproductive potency, is conceivably inexhaustible and could possibly outlive humanity, itself. Is art - and all human expression - derivative of language, as Benjamin framed it, long before he composed his seminal essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction?" Is "Hello, World" art, or at least the ideal Benjaminian artwork?