a journal of software studies
Since the WTO protests in Seattle and in particular the 2003 Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) meeting in Miami Florida, police agencies around the world have assembled a set of practices and protocols to constrain and immobilize political protestors. Dubbed the Miami Model of protest policing – in recognition of the FTAA summit …
Continue reading “Peer-to-Peer Protesting: Evading the Police Kettle”
Introduction Algorithms are mathematical and thus abstract structures, but should not be mistaken for algebraic formulae, since assignments or instructions operated by algorithms are non-reversible. They are vector-dependent and have built-in time functions. Their ties to machinic reality and operability make algorithms time-based and as such part of rhythmic procedures, which are able to cause …
Continue reading “Algorhythmics: Understanding Micro-Temporality in Computational Cultures”
Given the number of texts that follow in this, the second issue of Computational Culture, it is, for the sake of readers, at least, incumbent upon an editorial to attempt the virtues of celerity and concision. We will do our best to satisfy such a requirement. The developing field of software studies aims to engage …
Environmental Sensing Surrounded by the San Bernardino National Forest and situated within the San Jacinto Mountain Range in California, there is one particular patch of woods that is distinct in its ecological processes. This forest is equipped with embedded network sensing that digitally detects and processes environmental phenomena, from microclimates to light patterns, moisture levels …
‘To govern, it is necessary to render visible the space over which government is to be exercised’ (Rose, 1999). ‘From the national postal service to the public telephone to the license plate on every registered vehicle, media are at work replacing people with their addresses.’ (Kittler, 1996). Introduction Long before the arrival of popular geo-services …
Continue reading “The Order of Places: Code, Ontology and Visibility in Locative Media”
1. Introduction When asking the question ‘what is an algorithm?’, computer science offers numerous definitions, such as Knuth’s classic ‘a finite set of rules which gives a sequence of operations for solving a specific type of problem’1. From there, we are frequently directed to the underlying principles of mechanical computation, and to the foundational work …
The literature on Google has exploded in the last few years. To the extend of my overview, much of it falls into two categories. The first treats Google as the paradigmatic Internet company, active across a large number of domains. Its tone is either celebratory – lauding innovation and creative destruction 1 – or alarmist …
Every couple of weeks, when I walk into a bookstore (or rather, click through www.amazon.com), I am confronted with a rather massive amount of new books with keywords in their titles ranging from "network", "web", "internet", "social media", "digital" to the simplest and most direct amongst them, with "Facebook", "Google", "Twitter" that act as a …
Continue reading “Review of: Networks Without a Cause: A Critique of Social Media”
In 1886, two notorious New York shysters Howe and Hummel published a curious tome entitled Danger!,1 bearing the salacious subtitle A True History of a Great City’s Wiles and Temptations. The Veil Lifted, and Light Thrown on Crime and its Causes and Criminals and Their Haunts. Facts and Disclosures.2 The text starts off with a …
Continue reading “Notes from the Digital Underground: Cyber Illegalism and the New Egoists”
The public access to the web is twenty years old. Through it, digital society has developed throughout the entire world. But has this society become mündig, that is, mature, in the sense that Immanuel Kant used this term to define the age of Enlightenment as an exit from minority, from Unmündigkeit? Certainly not: contemporary society …
Continue reading “Die Aufklärung in the Age of Philosophical Engineering”
As computer software has become increasingly central to commerce and creativity, lawmakers have retrofitted it into preexisting legal regimes to regulate its production and distribution. Currently in the United States, software is eligible for protection under patent law, copyright law, trade secret law and the First Amendment. Legal determinations of technology such as software do …
Continue reading “Text, Speech, Machine: Metaphors for Computer Code in the Law”
The foreword to MIT’s Software Studies series suggests its purpose is to "make critical, historical, and experimental accounts of (and interventions via) the objects and processes of software."1 Methodologically diverse, the international field of software studies welcomes perspectives from the arts and humanities, the social sciences, as well as computer science and engineering. Recent proposals …
Chile’s Cybersyn project has long needed a thorough, critical history, and now we have one. Eden Medina’s carefully researched book lays out the project’s origins, structure and struggles as a "case study for better understanding the multifaceted relationship of technology and politics." If there’s a lesson in Medina’s account, it’s that the task of designing …
Continue reading “Review of Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile”
Everyday life relies heavily on networked technologies that allow for a wide range of actions to take place, from the management of medical devices to the withdrawal of money from a cash point. Despite this, what lies behind these technological assemblages – data, code, and software – has received little attention, effectively remaining an off-limits …
Continue reading “Working Towards a Definition of the Philosophy of Software”
Computational Culture is now inviting contributions for the second issue. We seek articles, book, project and software reviews, and also indications of interest for future special issues focusing on databases and social media. Please submit a completed paper by the deadline of 30th of March or contact the editors via the website to express an …