D. Fox Harrell: Phantasmal Media: An Approach to Imagination, Computation, and Expression (2013)

13 May 2018, dusan

“An argument that great expressive power of computational media arises from the construction of phantasms—blends of cultural ideas and sensory imagination.

In Phantasmal Media, D. Fox Harrell considers the expressive power of computational media. He argues, forcefully and persuasively, that the great expressive potential of computational media comes from the ability to construct and reveal phantasms—blends of cultural ideas and sensory imagination. These ubiquitous and often-unseen phantasms—cognitive phenomena that include sense of self, metaphors, social categories, narrative, and poetic thinking—influence almost all our everyday experiences. Harrell offers an approach for understanding and designing computational systems that have the power to evoke these phantasms, paying special attention to the exposure of oppressive phantasms and the creation of empowering ones. He argues for the importance of cultural content, diverse worldviews, and social values in computing. The expressive power of phantasms is not purely aesthetic, he contends; phantasmal media can express and construct the types of meaning central to the human condition.

Harrell discusses, among other topics, the phantasm as an orienting perspective for developers; expressive epistemologies, or data structures based on subjective human worldviews; morphic semiotics (building on the computer scientist Joseph Goguen’s theory of algebraic semiotics); cultural phantasms that influence consensus and reveal other perspectives; computing systems based on cultural models; interaction and expression; and the ways that real-world information is mapped onto, and instantiated by, computational data structures.

The concept of phantasmal media, Harrell argues, offers new possibilities for using the computer to understand and improve the human condition through the human capacity to imagine.”

Publisher MIT Press, 2013
ISBN 9780262019330, 0262019337
xix+420 pages

Reviews: John Harwood (Artforum, 2014), Brian Reffin Smith (Leonardo, 2015).

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Donna Haraway: How Like a Leaf: An Interview with Thyrza Nichols Goodeve (1999)

5 October 2015, dusan

A lengthy interview-conversation that covers aspects of both Haraway’s life and work.

Publisher Routledge, 1999
ISBN 0415924022, 9780415924023
197 pages

Reviews: Tony Scott (Kairos, 2000), Erika Bourguignon (NWSA Journal, 2001).
Commentary: McKenzie Wark (Public Seminar, 2015).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (2 MB, updated on 2018-5-11)

Peter Steiner: Russian Formalism: A Metapoetics (1984)

18 August 2015, dusan

“Thirty years after its first publication, Peter Steiner’s erudite, thoughtful book remains a classic study of Russian Formalism. His “metapoetic” analysis offers a simple, clear schema for apprehending the unity of action and dynamic configuration of the Russian formalists’s program, while fully respecting the diversity of the cluster of theories they put forward. As such, it also serves as one of the best introductions to a movement that still exerts considerable influence on literary study.”

Publisher Cornell University Press, 1984
Digital edition by sdvig press, Geneva/Lausanne, 2014
Formalisms series, 1
Open access
ISBN 9782970082934
245 pages

Reviews: Richard F. Gustafson (Slavic Review, 1985), Rene Wellek (Poetics Today, 1986), Milton Ehre (Comparative Literature, 1986).

WorldCat

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multiple formats (Internet Archive, added on 2018-6-23)
PDFs (added on 2018-9-23)