Compiled Binary Studies

Compiled Binary Studies makes the silent, hidden parts of machine programs, which we often interact with, visible. Moving from human-readable code to machine code, we obfuscate our ability to communicate with the machine into their language. However, by turning machine code back into something we can observe, and study, we open up possibilities to communicate, and analyse the machines, and the software on them from a different perspective.

Influenced by media archaeology and software poetics, I ask what is so beautiful about code, when it’s not a tool but an artifact of contemporary culture. By reframing the binary code into compositions to observe, we refuse the code’s execution and highlight the staticness of software, exposing the program and code for its materiality.