Luciana Parisi: Contagious Architecture: Computation, Aesthetics, and Space (2013)

“In Contagious Architecture, Luciana Parisi offers a philosophical inquiry into the status of the algorithm in architectural and interaction design. Her thesis is that algorithmic computation is not simply an abstract mathematical tool but constitutes a mode of thought in its own right, in that its operation extends into forms of abstraction that lie beyond direct human cognition and control. These include modes of infinity, contingency, and indeterminacy, as well as incomputable quantities underlying the iterative process of algorithmic processing.

The main philosophical source for the project is Alfred North Whitehead, whose process philosophy is specifically designed to provide a vocabulary for “modes of thought” exhibiting various degrees of autonomy from human agency even as they are mobilized by it. Because algorithmic processing lies at the heart of the design practices now reshaping our world—from the physical spaces of our built environment to the networked spaces of digital culture—the nature of algorithmic thought is a topic of pressing importance that reraises questions of control and, ultimately, power. Contagious Architecture revisits cybernetic theories of control and information theory’s notion of the incomputable in light of this rethinking of the role of algorithmic thought. Informed by recent debates in political and cultural theory around the changing landscape of power, it links the nature of abstraction to a new theory of power adequate to the complexities of the digital world.”

Publisher MIT Press, 2013
Technologies of Lived Abstraction series
ISBN 0262018632, 9780262018630
392 pages

For a New Computational Aesthetics: Algorithmic Environments as Actual Objects lecture by Parisi (2012, video, 72 min).

Reviews: Lecomte (Mute, 2013), Ikoniadou (Computational Culture, 2014).

Publisher
WorldCat

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Fibreculture Journal 21: Exploring Affective Interactions (2012)

“The aim of this special issue of the Fibreculture Journal is to address some of the contemporary challenges involved in working with affect across disciplines and practices that centre on the use of interactive- or digital technologies. The issue has a special focus on interaction design, interaction-based art and digital art.” (from Editorial)

With contributions by Adam Nash, Lone Bertelsen, Susan Kozel, Mark Gawne, Andrew Goodman and Erin Manning, and Sher Doruff and Andrew Murphie.

Issue Edited by Jonas Fritsch and Thomas Markussen
Publisher: Fibreculture Publications/The Open Humanities Press, Sydney, Australia, July 2012
ISSN: 1449 – 1443

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Edward R. Tufte: Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative (1997/2005)

Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative is about pictures of verbs, the representation of mechanism and motion, process and dynamics, causes and effects, explanation and narrative. Practical applications and examples include statistical graphics, charts for making important decisions in engineering and medicine, technical manuals, diagrams, design of computer interfaces and websites and on-line manuals, animations and scientific visualizations, techniques for talks, and design strategies for enhancing the rate of information transfer in print, presentations, and computer screens. The use of visual evidence in deciding to launch the space shuttle Challenger is discussed in careful detail. Video snapshots show redesigns of a supercomputer animation of a thunderstorm. The book is designed and printed to the highest standards, with luscious color throughout and four built-in flaps for showing motion and before/after effects.

Publisher Graphics Press, 1997
Seventh printing, with revisions, June 2005
Length 156 pages

author
google books

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