I Think That Conversations Are the Best, Biggest Thing That Software Has to Offer its User (2015)
Filed under book | Tags: · art, collaboration, design, floss, free software, graphic design, libre graphics, peer production, print, software, standards, typography
“I think that conversations are the best, biggest thing that free software has to offer its user.
An extensive collection of conversations between developers and designers involved in the wider ecosystem of Libre Graphics. Speaking to each other about tools for typography, lay-out and image processing they render a portrait of a community gradually understanding the interdependencies between Free Software and design. Conversations is edited by Femke Snelting in collaboration with Christoph Haag.”
In conversation with: Agnes Bewer, Alexandre Leray, An Mertens, Andreas Vox, Asheesh Laroia, Carla Boserman, Christina Clar, Chris Lilley, Christoph Haag, Claire Williams, Cornelia Sollfrank, Dave Crossland, Dmytry Kleiner, Denis Jacquery, Dmytri Kleiner, Eleanor Greenhalgh, Eric Schrijver, Evan Roth, Femke Snelting, Franziska Kleiner, George Williams, Gijs de Heij, Harrisson, Ivan Monroy Lopez, John Haltiwanger, John Colenbrander, Juliane De Moerlooze, Julien Deswaef, Larisa Blazic, Ludivine Loiseau, Manuel Schmalstieg, Matthew Fuller, Michael Murtaugh, Michael Terry, Michele Walther, Miguel Arana Catania, momo3010, Nicolas Malevé, Pedro Amado, Peter Westenberg, Pierre Huyghebaert, Pierre Marchand, Sarah Magnan, Stéphanie Vilayphiou, Tom Lechner, Urantsetseg Ulziikhuu, Xavier Klein.
Concept, development and design by Christoph Haag, Xavier Klein, and Femke Snelting
Edited by Thomas Buxó, Loraine Furter, Maryl Genc, Pierre Huyghebaert, and Martino Morandi
Publisher Constant, Brussels, January 2015
Free Art License 1.3
ISBN 9789081145930
351 pages
PDF, PDF (30 MB, updated on 2018-6-20)
Git
Luciana Parisi: Contagious Architecture: Computation, Aesthetics, and Space (2013)
Filed under book | Tags: · abstraction, aesthetics, algorithm, architecture, cognition, computation, computing, cybernetics, design, evolution, feedback, infinity, information, interaction design, knowledge, media, metaphysics, networks, neural networks, philosophy, processing, randomness, sensors, software, space, temporality, time, topology, variation
“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).
PDF (24 MB, updated o 2021-10-28)
Comments (2)Garnet Hertz (ed.): Critical Making (2012)
Filed under artist publishing | Tags: · 3d printing, art, contemporary art, critical making, design, diy, diy biology, engineering, hacker culture, hackerspace, machine, maker culture, manifesto, open source, science, technology
“Critical Making is a handmade book project by Garnet Hertz that explores how hands-on productive work ‐ making ‐ can supplement and extend critical reflection on technology and society. It works to blend and extend the fields of design, contemporary art, DIY/craft and technological development. It also can be thought of as an appeal to the electronic DIY maker movement to be critically engaged with culture, history and society: after learning to use a 3D printer, making an LED blink or using an Arduino, then what?
The publication has 70 contributors ‐ primarily from contemporary art and academia ‐ and its 352 pages are bound in ten pocket-sized zine-like volumes. The project takes the topic of DIY culture literally by printing an edition of 300 copies on a hacked photocopier with booklets that were manually folded, stapled and cut. The 300 finished copies were primarily given away for free to project contributors, individuals and institutions important to them. Some of the handmade copies were traded for reviews, photographs, videos, lectures and were given to library archives.
Due to the large demand for this content, the entire collection had been scanned and released on conceptlab.com/criticalmaking and through the Twitter account @criticalpdfs.”
Publisher Telharmonium Press, Hollywood/CA, November 2012
Open Access
10 booklets, 352 pages total
Reviews: Debatty (We Make Money Not Art, 2013), Blue (Engine Institute, 2013).
single PDF (36 MB)
PDF contributions (67 pieces)