Thomas Bartscherer, Roderick Coover (eds.): Switching Codes: Thinking Through Digital Technology in the Humanities and the Arts (2011)

“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—including Charles Bernstein, Ian Foster, Bruno Latour, Alan Liu, and Richard Powers—to consider how the precipitous growth of digital information and its associated technologies are transforming the ways we think and act. Employing a wide range of forms, including essay, dialogue, short fiction, and game design, this book aims to model and foster discussion between IT specialists, who typically have scant training in the humanities or traditional arts, and scholars and artists, who often understand little about the technologies that are so radically transforming their fields. Switching Codes will be an indispensible volume for anyone seeking to understand the impact of digital technology on contemporary culture, including scientists, educators, policymakers, and artists, alike.”

Publisher University of Chicago Press, 2011
ISBN 0226038319, 9780226038315
448 pages

Publisher

PDF (updated on 2012-9-3)

Jason Brownlee: Clever Algorithms: Nature-Inspired Programming Recipes (2011)

“This book provides a handbook of algorithmic recipes from the fields of Metaheuristics, Biologically Inspired Computation and Computational Intelligence that have been described in a complete, consistent, and centralized manner. These standardized descriptions were carefully designed to be accessible, usable, and understandable. Most of the algorithms described in this book were originally inspired by biological and natural systems, such as the adaptive capabilities of genetic evolution and the acquired immune system, and the foraging behaviors of birds, bees, ants and bacteria. An encyclopedic algorithm reference, this book is intended for research scientists, engineers, students, and interested amateurs. Each algorithm description provides a working code example in the Ruby Programming Language.”

First Edition. LuLu. January 2011
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License
ISBN 9781446785065
436 pages

Author (incl. source code and additional resources)
lulu.com

PDF (updated on 2013-3-24)
HTML

Stuart Mealing (ed.): Computers and Art (1997-)

“Computers & Art gathers together contributions from a broad, international spectrum of experts concerned with the computer as a tool for artists.

The approaches vary, with contributors looking at the historical, philosophical and practical implications of the use of computer technology in art practice. The variety of their approaches is matched by the diversity of backgrounds of the contributors who are artists, critics, educators, philosophers and researchers. Following the success of the first edition, this revised version includes three new chapters.”

Publisher Intellect Books, Exeter, 1997
ISBN 058520246X, 9780585202464
188 pages

Second edition, 2002
ISBN 1841500623, 9781841500621
159 pages

Publisher

PDF (80 MB, added on 2023-7-8)
PDF (2nd ed., updated on 2012-9-17)