The Philosophy of Software and the Ontology of Code

Simon Yull & David Berry present @ Goldsmiths

 

Date: 17 March 2011 - 5:30pm - 7:30pm

Venue/Location: Room RHB 309 (Main Building) Goldsmiths, New Cross, London

 

Simon Yuill: The Ontology of Code and the Coding of Ontology

 

David Berry: The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age 

 

more: http://www.furtherfield.org/events/philosophy-software-and-ontology-code-0 

The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age

David Berry
Palgrave Macmillan, May 2011

http://www.amazon.com/Philosophy-Software-Code-Mediation-Digital/dp/0230244181

review on furtherfield:

"As software increasingly structures the contemporary world, curiously, it also withdraws, and becomes harder and harder for us to focus on as it is embedded, hidden, off-shored or merely forgotten about. The challenge is to bring software back into visibility so that we can pay attention to both what it is (ontology), where it has come from (through media archaeology and genealogy) but also what it is doing (through a form of mechanology), so we can understand this ‘dynamic of organized inorganic matter’.  In this talk I want to present some of the arguments of my new book, The Philosophy of Software, but also to think through some of the implications of code/software for the changing nature of the university itself."

Copy, Rip, Burn: The Politics of Copyleft and Open Source

David Berrry,
Pluto Press, 2008


http://www.amazon.com/Copy-Rip-Burn-Politics-Copyleft/dp/0745324142/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpi_1

from: http://stunlaw.blogspot.com/2009_02_01_archive.html

"The production of non-proprietary software, more commonly known as free/libre and open-source software (FLOSS), has taken parts of the academic, activist and governmental world by storm. It has not only forced an intellectual reassessment of theories of human nature and creativity that help justify the expansion of intellectual property regimes, but it has also inspired academics, journalists and activists to craft similar endeavours.

David Berry, mindful of these developments, has written a persuasive account on the politics of copyleft and open source. Copy, Rip, Burn stands apart from its cohort because of its overtly critical bent. Berry offers a rich discursive analysis of FLOSS, but also situates it within the backdrop of capitalist forces that ultimately blunt, he argues, its radical potential. Within this general frame, he also builds - and this is the intellectual heart of his book - a typology drawn from the Roman legal system, which he uses to explode the binaries between private/public and property/commons commonly used to describe FLOSS. Given Berry's fresh intellectual contribution, this book is a must-read for any scholar or activist interested either in FLOSS or the general politics of IP regulation.

read more here...

Media Archaeology. Approaches, Applications, and Implications

Edited by Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka
University of California Press, May 2011

The book introduces an archaeological approach to the study of media - one that sifts through the evidence to learn how media were written about, used, designed, preserved, and sometimes discarded. With contributions from internationally prominent scholars, the essays help us understand how the media that predate today’s interactive, digital forms were in their time contested, adopted and embedded in the everyday. Providing a broad overview of the many historical and theoretical facets of Media Archaeology as an emerging field, the book encourages discussion by presenting a full range of different voices. By revisiting ‘old’ or even ‘dead’ media, it provides a richer horizon for understanding ‘new’ media in their
complex and often contradictory roles in contemporary society and culture.

The introduction is available here.

INSECT MEDIA: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology

By Jussi Parikka, University of Minnesota Press | 320 pages | 2010
Posthumanities Series, volume 11
Book launch /March 4th, 19.00, General Public, Schönhauser Allee 167c, Berlin

Insect Media analyzes how insect forms of social organization - swarms, hives, webs, and distributed intelligence - have been used to structure modern media technologies and the network society. Through close engagement with the pioneering work of insect ethologists, posthumanist philosophers, media theorists, and contemporary filmmakers and artists, Jussi Parikka provides a radical new perspective on the interconnection of biology and technology.

More info at http://www.jussiparikka.com and his blog Cartographies of Media Archaeology.

Nick Lambert's thesis: "The Status of Computer Art"

check out the online version of Nick Lambert's thesis "the status of computer art", submitted in 2003. amazing work, both in content and presentation.
see also his proposed timeline / diagram of digital art (its only missing my dearest Xenakis;)

book on visitor research

> This major new 500-page handbook distils the exceptional insights and
> advice
> of one of the world's leading thinkers in the field of visitor studies,
> Stephen Bitgood, a pioneer in the field of social design.
>
> Spanning both theory and practice, it is guaranteed to have cultural
> professionals thinking afresh about the fundamentals of their
> organisation's
> interface with the public. Its insights are crucial to understanding the
> learning process in museums and cultural organisations - and an essential
> step towards enhancing their effectiveness.
>
> For all the information about the book, the author, the full contents list,
> and to order, please visit: museumsetc.com/products/social-design
>
> Among the many key topics covered in the book's highly practical,
> advice-packed 46 chapters are:
> * An Overview of the Methodology of Visitor Studies
> * Designing Effective Exhibits: Criteria for Success
> * Assessing the Readability of Text
> * Sampling for a Visitor Survey
> * Practical Guidelines for Developing Interpretive labels
> * Principles of Orientation and Circulation
> * The Role of Simulated Immersion in Exhibitions
> * Social Influences on the Visitor Museum Experience
> * Suggested Guidelines for Interactive Exhibits
> * The Effects of Instructional Signs on Museum Visitors
> * Multicultural Pluralism and Visitor Evaluation
> * Ten factors that influence your visitors
>
> Throughout, the emphasis is on achieving better real-world results and on
> effective implementation

JAR - a new magazine on artistic research

this sounds interesting for publishing your artistic research!

The Journal for Artistic Research (JAR) is a new international,
online, Open Access and peer-reviewed journal for the identification,
publication and dissemination of artistic research and its
methodologies.

With the aim of displaying and documenting practice in a manner that
respects the artist's modes of presentation, JAR abandons the
traditional journal article format and offers its contributors a
dynamic online canvas where text can be woven together with image,
audio and video material. The result is a journal which provides a
unique ‘reading’ experience while fulfilling the expectations of
scholarly dissemination.

The inaugural issue of JAR is released on 17 February 2011.

Visit: www.jar-online.net

This issue presents work by:
Bertha Bermudez, Scott deLahunta, Marijke Hoogenboom, Chris Ziegler,
Frederic Bevilacqua, Sarah Fdili Alaoui, Barbara Meneses Gutierrez,
Amsterdam
Richard Blythe, Melbourne
Sher Doruff, Amsterdam
Cathy van Eck, Zürich
Mark Fleischman, Cape Town
Abhishek Hazra, Bangalore
Anders Hultqvist, Gothenburg
Daniel Kötter, Constanze Fischbeck, Berlin
Tuija Kokkonen, Helsinki
Elina Saloranta, Helsinki
Sissel Tolaas, Berlin
Otto von Busch, Gothenburg

Editor-in-Chief: Michael Schwab, London

Artistic research is a newly emergent and rapidly evolving field,
whose status is still hotly debated. Until now there have only been
limited publication channels making it difficult to stay informed
about the development of the many topics pertinent to artistic
research. JAR aims to provide a focal point that brings together
different voices, facilitates discourse and adds to the artistic
research community.

Part of JAR's mission is to re-negotiate art's relationship to
academia and the role and function of research in artistic practice.
JAR embraces research practices across disciplines, thereby
emphasising the transdisciplinary character of much artistic research.

JAR is guided by an Editorial Board that works with a large panel of
international peer reviewers from the field of artistic research. JAR
is published by the Society for Artistic Research.

We welcome submissions for future issues through our Research
Catalogue, which will be launched in March 2011.

next step publishing

(For those not yet inscribed) there is a very interesting discussion taking place at
the yasmin list on "Next Step Publishing".
Here's the introductory statement by moderator Salvatore Iaconesi:

"In 2003 Antoni Abad and Eugenio Tisselli, artists and educators, created
"Zexe" (later called "Megafone"). In the project members of fringe
communities in Algeria, Spain, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil were invited to
"express their experiences and opinions through face-to-face meetings and
mobile phones". http://megafone.net/


Mobile phones, GPS technologies and convergent media were used to go beyond
classical anthropological writing, to create a disarticulated, ever-evolving
book that was disseminated in space, time and media, and that was designed
ethnographically, with the whole technological ecosystem that was gently
layered onto the social anthropological systems formed by the invited
communities.
What came out was a beautiful, disseminated, emergent,
multi-author, ubiquitous, open-ended narrative that represents a new form of
publication that has incredible value.

This example (among the other possible ones) shows a scenario which is
progressively rising in significance and effectiveness.

Naturally interconnecting arts, sciences, design, architecture, engineering,
and living across local and global scales, this scenario shows how we can
proficiently envision publications under the forms of social networks,
architectures, geographical spaces, economic systems, environments,
processes and design objects by creating "books" that are natively
cross-medial and that use technologies such as augmented reality, wide
tagging, spime, sensors, networks, mobile devices, wearable technologies.

Future scenarios, both near and far, raise interesting questions.

Can bodies, architectures, geographies, relationships, emotions, cities,
information, research processes represent proper spaces for new kinds of
publications?

Questions like these highlight fascinating, uncertain areas and a discussion
stemming from the list can contribute to shape the future research agenda.


In this discussion, titled "Next Step Publishing", we wish to investigate
these new forms of publication, and the transformations which they imply,
including:
* the mutation of the roles of publishers, editors, researchers, authors,
readers and the general society;
* the mutation of cities, of social ecosystems and of the networks of
knowledge and relation;
* the creation of suitable research, production and distribution models;
* and the use of means of presenting information that are accessible at
cognitive, anthropological and technical levels, using infoaesthetic
representations, knowledge and content sharing infrastructures, natural
interfaces and innovative forms of interaction."

I ve been following the discussion and wanted to point out a link
that was posted today. It is an article by John Wilbanks of the creative
commons, discussing how the internet is transforming scientific publishing and
science itself.

CFP - radical aesthetics / radical art (book)

Book series – call for proposals - as part of a commissioned series of books RadicalAesthetics-RadicalArt. Contact series editors for more details - Dr Jane Tormey J.Tormey@lboro.ac.uk and Dr Gillian Whiteley G.Whiteley@lboro.ac.uk

Deadline: March 31st 2011

Description: This new series of books, to be published by I.B.Tauris, explores what aesthetics might mean in the twenty first century. We use the term 'radical' to promote debate, confront convention and formulate alternative ways of thinking about art practice. The fundamental premise of the series is to reconsider the relationship between practising art and thinking about art.

The series aims to liberate the notion of aesthetics from visual traditions and to expand its parameters in a creative and meaningful way. It aims to examine those multisensory, collaborative, participatory and transitory practices that have developed in the last twenty years. For further information about the RaRa project see website: www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/sota/research/groups/politicised/rara.html

The first title commissioned for the series is Eco-Aesthetics by Malcolm Miles. Further titles may include for example Socio-political aesthetics, Global aesthetics, Inter-relational aesthetics. The commissioning editors invite submissions from authors/co-authors who can make a provocative contribution to these debates.
www.ibtauris.com/Highlights/Radical%20Aesthetics%20Radical%20Art.aspx

The series aims to:
• critique conventional approaches to thinking about art practice and aesthetics
• reconsider the interrelationships between theories and art practice on equal terms
• provide a useful resource to assist research and provoke discussion
• address current issues in response to contemporary contexts
• encourage an interdisciplinary approach to discussion
• survey recent and current material and debate

Content:
Each book (60-70,000 words) aims to provide a challenging critique as a useful resource to assist research and to generate discussion. In the case of each theme authors will:
• address its contemporary relevance
• outline relevant and key concepts
• provide historical and cultural background
• interrogate different theoretical positions
• address theory and practice
• provide comprehensive bibliography and glossary of terms

Market
The series aims to provide a comprehensive discussion of developments in contemporary art practice, its interface with other disciplines in the humanities and the consequent re-evaluation of the term 'aesthetics'. The core readership would be an academic audience in the broad field of the fine arts, history of art, media and aesthetics. The secondary readership would be visual culture, philosophy and politics and extending across the humanities more generally. The book series will address international examples of practice and will therefore be global in scope.

Submission
Proposals should be 3 to 5 sides A4 and include:
• A statement outlining your theoretical position and interpretation of the theme
• Detailed synopsis
• Outline of each chapter content with reference to specific theories and examples of practice
• Indicative bibliography

Author details should include:
• CV –1 page A4 maximum
• Brief description of academic interests and professional affiliations
• A list of publications
• A sample of recent publication (e.g. article or chapter in book)

Proposals should be e-mailed to both series editors by the end of March and for further information regarding submission please contact:
J.Tormey@lboro.ac.uk and G.Whiteley@lboro.ac.uk

URL: www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/sota/research/groups/politicised/rara.html