Computation has now been reconfigured by machine learning: those technical processes and operations that yoke together statistics and computer science to create artificial intelligence (AI) by furnishing vast datasets to learn tasks and predict outcomes. In DeepAesthetics, Anna Munster examines the range of more-than-human experiences this transformation has engendered and considers how those experiences can be qualitative as well as quantitative. Drawing on process philosophy, Mu...

In Materializing New Media, Anna Munster offers an alternative aesthetic genealogy for digital culture. Eschewing the prevailing Cartesian aesthetic that aligns the digital with the disembodied, the formless, and the placeless, Munster seeks to “materialize” digital culture by demonstrating that its aesthetics have reconfigured bodily experience and reconceived materiality. Her topics range from artistic experiments in body-computer interfaces to the impact that corporeal interaction and g...

The experience of networks as the immediate sensing of relations between humans and nonhuman technical elements in assemblages such as viral media and databases.Today almost every aspect of life for which data exists can be rendered as a network. Financial data, social networks, biological ecologies: all are visualized in links and nodes, lines connecting dots. A network visualization of a corporate infrastructure could look remarkably similar to that of a terroris...

This is the first interdisciplinary exploration of the philosophical foundations of the Web, a new area of inquiry that has important implications across a range of domains.Contains twelve essays that bridge the fields of philosophy, cognitive science, and phenomenologyTackles questions such as the impact of Google on intelligence and epistemology, the philosophical status of digital objects, ethics on the Web, semantic and ontological changes caused by the Web, and...

Computer science as an engineering discipline has been spectacularly successful. Yet it is also a philosophical enterprise in the way it represents the world and creates and manipulates models of reality, people, and action. In this book, Paul Dourish addresses the philosophical bases of human-computer interaction. He looks at how what he calls "embodied interaction"—an approach to interacting with software systems that emphasizes skilled, engaged practice rather than disembodied rationali...

This book looks at relationships between the organization of physical objects in space and the organization of ideas. Historical, philosophical, psychological and architectural knowledge are united to develop an understanding of the relationship between information and its representation.Despite its potential to break the mould, digital information has relied on metaphors from a pre-digital era. In particular, architectural ideas have pervaded discussions of digital information, fr...

Computer software and its structures, devices and processes are woven into our everyday life. Their significance is not just technical: the algorithms, programming languages, abstractions and metadata that millions of people rely on every day have far-reaching implications for the way we understand the underlying dynamics of contemporary societies.In this innovative new book, software studies theorist Matthew Fuller examines how the introduction and expansion of computational syste...

Half a century into the digital era, the profound impact of information technology on intellectual and cultural life is universally acknowledged but still poorly understood. The sheer complexity of the technology coupled with the rapid pace of change makes it increasingly difficult to establish common ground and to promote thoughtful discussion.Responding to this challenge, Switching Codes brings together leading American and European scholars, scientists, and artists—incl...

This highly-anticipated volume has been extensively revised to reflect changes in technology, digital humanities methods and practices, and institutional culture surrounding the valuation and publication of digital scholarship.A fully revised edition of a celebrated reference work, offering the most comprehensive and up-to-date collection of research currently available in this rapidly evolving disciplineIncludes new articles addressing topical and provocative issue...

The first systematic, comprehensive reference covering the ideas, genres, and concepts behind digital media.The study of what is collectively labeled “New Media”—the cultural and artistic practices made possible by digital technology—has become one of the most vibrant areas of scholarly activity and is rapidly turning into an established academic field, with many universities now offering it as a major. The Johns Hopkins Guide to Digital Media is the first...

Go inside the artistic movement that draws on machine learning as both inspiration—and medium—for creating new media art and music.In this book, transdisciplinary artist-researcher Sofian Audry examines artistic practices at the intersection of machine learning and new media art, providing conceptual tools and historical perspectives for new media artists, musicians, composers, writers, curators, and theorists. Audry looks at works from a broad range of practices, ...

Postdigital Aesthetics is a contribution to questions raised by our newly computational everyday lives and the aesthetics which reflect both the postdigital nature of this age, but also critical perspectives of a post-internet world.