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In this book, Susan Schuppli introduces a new operative concept: material witness, an exploration of the evidential role of matter as both registering external events and exposing the practices and procedures that enable matter to bear witness. Organized in the format of a trial, 'Material witness' moves through a series of cases that provide insight into the ways in(...)
Material witness: Media, forensics, evidence
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In this book, Susan Schuppli introduces a new operative concept: material witness, an exploration of the evidential role of matter as both registering external events and exposing the practices and procedures that enable matter to bear witness. Organized in the format of a trial, 'Material witness' moves through a series of cases that provide insight into the ways in which materials become contested agents of dispute around which stake holders gather.
Archive, library and the digital
$41.99
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Organized by interpretive categories such as space, infrastructure, and imaginaries, this volume uses historical and contemporary examples of how laboratories are fundamentally connected to changes in the contemporary university. The authors cover topics such as the evolution and delineation of lab-based communities, how labs’ tools and technologies contribute to defining(...)
Archive, library and the digital
December 2021
The lab book: situated practices in media studies
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Organized by interpretive categories such as space, infrastructure, and imaginaries, this volume uses historical and contemporary examples of how laboratories are fundamentally connected to changes in the contemporary university. The authors cover topics such as the evolution and delineation of lab-based communities, how labs’ tools and technologies contribute to defining their space, and a glossary of key hybrid lab techniques.
Archive, library and the digital
World brain
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In a series of talks and essays in 1937, H. G. Wells proselytized for what he called a "World Brain," as manifested in a World Encyclopedia--a repository of scientifically established knowledge--that would spread enlightenment around the world and lead to world peace. Wells, known to readers today as the author of "The War of the Worlds" and other science fiction(...)
World brain
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In a series of talks and essays in 1937, H. G. Wells proselytized for what he called a "World Brain," as manifested in a World Encyclopedia--a repository of scientifically established knowledge--that would spread enlightenment around the world and lead to world peace. Wells, known to readers today as the author of "The War of the Worlds" and other science fiction classics, was imagining something like a predigital Wikipedia. The World Encyclopedia would provide a summary of verified reality (in about forty volumes); it would be widely available, free of copyright, and utilize the latest technology. Of course, as Bruce Sterling points out in the foreword to this edition of Wells's work, the World Brain didn't happen; the internet did. And yet, Wells anticipated aspects of the internet, envisioning the World Brain as a technical system of networked knowledge (in Sterling's words, a "hypothetical super-gadget"). Wells's optimism about the power of information might strike readers today as naïvely utopian, but possibly also inspirational.
Archive, library and the digital
Database network interface
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Throughout human history, the library, the archive and the museum have embodied knowledge, information and collective culture to such an extent that it is possible to compare systems of information organisation with spatial and architectural typologies. The publication, conceived in the occasion of the exhibition at Archizoom (EPFL), dives into the relationship between(...)
Archive, library and the digital
October 2021
Database network interface
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Throughout human history, the library, the archive and the museum have embodied knowledge, information and collective culture to such an extent that it is possible to compare systems of information organisation with spatial and architectural typologies. The publication, conceived in the occasion of the exhibition at Archizoom (EPFL), dives into the relationship between architectural and digital culture beyond the pure rhetoric of the digital turn and the digital as architectural style. The hypothesis is that the notions of "database", "network" and "interface"—common in the field of information technology—could be related to architectural issues of a formal, compositional or symbolic nature, of which spatial arrangements, plans or façades are the expression. In this sense, the publication presents a selection of case studies highlighting the possible links between digital and non-digital cultural projects and their architectural counterparts.
Archive, library and the digital
Data feminism
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Today, data science is a form of power. It has been used to expose injustice, improve health outcomes, and topple governments. But it has also been used to discriminate, police, and surveil. This potential for good, on the one hand, and harm, on the other, makes it essential to ask: Data science by whom? Data science for whom? Data science with whose interests in mind?(...)
Archive, library and the digital
March 2020
Data feminism
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Today, data science is a form of power. It has been used to expose injustice, improve health outcomes, and topple governments. But it has also been used to discriminate, police, and surveil. This potential for good, on the one hand, and harm, on the other, makes it essential to ask: Data science by whom? Data science for whom? Data science with whose interests in mind? The narratives around big data and data science are overwhelmingly white, male, and techno-heroic. In ''Data feminism,'' Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren Klein present a new way of thinking about data science and data ethics—one that is informed by intersectional feminist thought. Illustrating data feminism in action, D'Ignazio and Klein show how challenges to the male/female binary can help challenge other hierarchical (and empirically wrong) classification systems. They explain how, for example, an understanding of emotion can expand our ideas about effective data visualization, and how the concept of invisible labor can expose the significant human efforts required by our automated systems. And they show why the data never, ever ''speak for themselves.'' ''Data feminism'' offers strategies for data scientists seeking to learn how feminism can help them work toward justice, and for feminists who want to focus their efforts on the growing field of data science. But ''Data feminism'' is about much more than gender. It is about power, about who has it and who doesn't, and about how those differentials of power can be challenged and changed.
Archive, library and the digital
The smartness mandate
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In this book, the authors suggest that "smartness" is not primarily a technology, but rather an epistemology. Through this lens, they offer a critical exploration of the practices, technologies, and subjects that such an understanding relies upon—above all, artificial intelligence and machine learning. They approach these not simply as techniques for solving problems of(...)
Archive, library and the digital
December 2022
The smartness mandate
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In this book, the authors suggest that "smartness" is not primarily a technology, but rather an epistemology. Through this lens, they offer a critical exploration of the practices, technologies, and subjects that such an understanding relies upon—above all, artificial intelligence and machine learning. They approach these not simply as techniques for solving problems of calculations, but rather as modes of managing life (human and other) in terms of neo-Darwinian evolution, distributed intelligences, and "resilience," all of which have serious implications for society, politics, and the environment.
Archive, library and the digital
$47.00
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The only way to handle data responsibly, says Melanie Feinberg in this incisive work, is to take into account its human character. Though the data she discusses may seem familiar, close scrutiny shows it to be ambiguous, complicated, and uncertain: unruly. Drawing on the tools of information science, she uses everyday events to demonstrate a practical, critical, and(...)
Everyday adventures with unruly data
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The only way to handle data responsibly, says Melanie Feinberg in this incisive work, is to take into account its human character. Though the data she discusses may seem familiar, close scrutiny shows it to be ambiguous, complicated, and uncertain: unruly. Drawing on the tools of information science, she uses everyday events to demonstrate a practical, critical, and generative mode of thinking about data: its creation, management, aggregation, and use. As she reflects on the implications of commonplace events, Feinberg explicates fundamental concepts of data that reveal the many tiny design decisions—which may not even seem like design at all—that shape how data comes to be. Through the themes of serendipity, objectivity, equivalence, interoperability, taxonomy, labels, and locality, she illuminates the surprisingly pervasive role of data in our daily thoughts and lives.
Archive, library and the digital
DNA 14: Archives and Utopia
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Traditional archivism runs the risk of perpetuating hegemonic ways of thinking by anticipating what will be of importance in the future through the framework of present-day realities and power structures. These genre-busting ruminations gather new methods for designing views of potential worlds and forms of archival activism.
Archive, library and the digital
December 2022
DNA 14: Archives and Utopia
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Traditional archivism runs the risk of perpetuating hegemonic ways of thinking by anticipating what will be of importance in the future through the framework of present-day realities and power structures. These genre-busting ruminations gather new methods for designing views of potential worlds and forms of archival activism.
Archive, library and the digital
$25.00
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This volume explores the curious afterlives of the floppy disk in the 21st century through the work of those involved with the medium today. The book reflects on notions of obsolescence, media preservation and nostalgia, and challenges these by showing the endurance and versatility of this familiar piece of technology. From floppy filmmakers to floppy painters and beyond:(...)
Archive, library and the digital
November 2022
Floppy disk fever: The curious afterlives of a flexible medium
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This volume explores the curious afterlives of the floppy disk in the 21st century through the work of those involved with the medium today. The book reflects on notions of obsolescence, media preservation and nostalgia, and challenges these by showing the endurance and versatility of this familiar piece of technology. From floppy filmmakers to floppy painters and beyond: what drives people to continue working with the medium that is typically deemed obsolete? What challenges and affordances does it provide? And what does the future hold in store for the familiar black square? By looking at the current presence of past technology we can assess our present-day situation and speculate on the future developments of our media landscape. After all, the technology of the past is also part of our future. This volume features interviews with key players in the contemporary floppy-disk world, including not only artists and filmmakers using floppy disks in their practice but also businessmen, archivists and museum proprietors working to preserve the medium.
Archive, library and the digital
$23.95
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This book makes available for the first time in English an important interview on the topic of photography that Jacques Derrida granted in 1992 to the German theorist of photography Hubertus von Amelunxen and the German literary and media theorist Michael Wetzel. Their conversation addresses questions of presence and its manufacture, the technicity of presentation, the(...)
Archive, library and the digital
August 2010
Copy, archive, signature: A conversation on photography
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This book makes available for the first time in English an important interview on the topic of photography that Jacques Derrida granted in 1992 to the German theorist of photography Hubertus von Amelunxen and the German literary and media theorist Michael Wetzel. Their conversation addresses questions of presence and its manufacture, the technicity of presentation, the volatility of the authorial subject, and the concept of memory. Derrida offers a penetrating intervention with regard to the distinctive nature of photography vis-à-vis related technologies such as cinema, television, and video. Questioning the divides between so-called old and new media, original and reproduction, analog and digital modes of recording and presenting, he provides stimulating insights into the ways in which we think and speak about the photographic image today.
Archive, library and the digital