MachineMachine /stream - tagged with book https://machinemachine.net/stream/feed en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss LifePress therourke@gmail.com <![CDATA[Speculative biology: understanding the past and predicting our future | Science | The Guardian]]> https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/30/speculative-biology-understanding-the-past-and-predicting-our-future

In 1981, a remarkable book was published: After Man: A Zoology of the Future, by Dougal Dixon.

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Mon, 11 Jun 2018 05:02:35 -0700 https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/may/30/speculative-biology-understanding-the-past-and-predicting-our-future
<![CDATA[Books after the Death of the Book | Public Books]]> http://www.publicbooks.org/books-after-the-death-of-the-book/

Last summer I decided to assign Ted Chiang’s The Lifecycle of Software Objects in the graduate course I was getting ready to teach.

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Mon, 03 Apr 2017 04:54:32 -0700 http://www.publicbooks.org/books-after-the-death-of-the-book/
<![CDATA[Print on demand in ring binder format?]]> http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/304523

Looking for print-on-demand services that offer a 'ring binder' option (a bit like this... A4 print bound with two or three of these). The book would be offered online, one click print, bound and shipped. Ideally with a cover and back cover of higher quality (hard back?) material. The user would simply be able to order a copy of the book, and it would arrive in a ring binder, each of the 360 sheets would be removable.

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Fri, 06 Jan 2017 05:29:24 -0800 http://ask.metafilter.com/mefi/304523
<![CDATA[The 3D Additivist Cookbook is out now…]]> http://additivism.org/post/154032730836

The 3D Additivist Cookbook is out now…

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Sun, 04 Dec 2016 07:28:08 -0800 http://additivism.org/post/154032730836
<![CDATA[The Block is the Successor to The Book: A Publishing Proposal]]> https://rhizome.org/editorial/2015/nov/17/the-block-is-the-successor-to-the-book-a-publishing-proposal/

In this text, we introduce Txtblock, a decentralized tool for publishing and distribution of digital text in a format called the block—a squarely defined, eternally immutable unit of information. The block is the successor of the book. Cryptographically bound, the block is given a name that is directly derived from its content. In this way it is made tamper-proof and resistant to censorship. We see this proposal as a small contribution to the internet renaissance.

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Sat, 21 Nov 2015 08:45:41 -0800 https://rhizome.org/editorial/2015/nov/17/the-block-is-the-successor-to-the-book-a-publishing-proposal/
<![CDATA[Obfuscation | The MIT Press]]> https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/obfuscation

“By mapping out obfuscation tools, practices, and goals, Brunton and Nissenbaum provide a valuable framework for understanding how people seek to achieve privacy and control in a data-soaked world.

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Sun, 18 Oct 2015 08:10:45 -0700 https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/obfuscation
<![CDATA[This Mess is a Place]]> http://thismessisaplace.co.uk/Book

I am very pleased to have an essay/chapter in This Mess is a Place, a collection on hoarding and clutter, edited, compiled and misfiled by Zoë Mendelson. The book is currently available at Camden Arts Centre, with wider distribution to follow from the very wonderful AND Publishing.

This Mess is a Place: A Collapsible Anthology of Collections and Clutter is a limited edition publication, edited/curated by Zoë Mendelson and published by And Publishing.

This publication looks at the onset of hoarding through the voices of clinicians and expands the theme to examine how relationships to objects in space inform a number of fields in ways that can be seen to interrelate and impact upon each other. The idea behind the form of this anthology is that practice and artistic research can co-exist with more clinical and scientific research. It is hoped this will create overlaps and crises of ‘usefulness’ akin to the submersion of materials within a hoard or the pursuit of order within a collection. The publication itself is unbound – illogical and precarious as an object, containing loose leaves, pamphlets and nominal filing systems, gathered together in no particular order. The reader is ultimately responsible for the order (or dis-order) of the piece. Publication date is October 26th 2013.

It includes articles, artworks, interviews and fiction. Alongside This Mess is a Place's own collaborators from psychiatric and archival fields there are contributions of artistic projects from Jim Bay (UK); Michel Blazy (FR); Carrie M Becker (USA); Marjolijn Dijkman (NL); Nat Goodden (UK), Jefford Horrigan (UK); Dean Hughes (UK); Mierle Laderman Ukeles (USA); Robert Melee (USA); Zoë Mendelson (UK); Florence Peake (UK); Michael Samuels (UK); Kathryn Spence (USA); Tomoko Takahashi; Robin Waart (NL); Julian Walker (UK) and Laura White (UK).

The publication contains essays and documents by Dr. Colin Jones (Senior Lecturer/Researcher in Applied Health and Social Sciences, UK); Dr. Haidy Geismar (lecturer in digital anthropology and material culture, US/UK); Jeremy Gill (urban planner and theorist, AUS); Cecilie Gravesen (artist, curator and writer, UK/Den); Dr. Alberto Pertusa (consultant psychiatrist, UK); Daniel Rourke (artist and researcher, UK); Isobel Hunter (archivist and Head of Engagement at the National Archives, UK); Satwant Singh (nurse practitioner and cognitive behavourial therapist, UK); Nina Folkersma (curator and critic, NL); Alberto Duman (artist, writer, UK). A full list of essay titles can be seen here. The publication also includes documentary photography by Paula Salischiker (ARG) and an interview with an anonymous hoarder's daughter

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Sat, 26 Oct 2013 23:52:33 -0700 http://thismessisaplace.co.uk/Book
<![CDATA[Computer glitch may have led to Deep Blue's historic win over chess champ Kasparov | The Verge]]> http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/29/3426484/computer-glitch-deep-blue-garry-kasparov

Earlier this year, IBM celebrated the 15-year anniversary of its supercomputer Deep Blue beating chess champion Garry Kasparov. According to a new book, however, it may have been an accidental glitch rather than computing firepower that gave Deep Blue the win. At the Washington Post, Brad Plumer high

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Sat, 29 Sep 2012 07:09:00 -0700 http://www.theverge.com/2012/9/29/3426484/computer-glitch-deep-blue-garry-kasparov
<![CDATA[A Shot to the Arse]]> http://machinemachine.net/text/arts/a-shot-to-the-arse

I have some work in A Shot to the Arse, an exhibition coming August 14th at Michaelis Galleries, Cape Town. Many thanks to Belinda Blignaut!

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Wed, 08 Aug 2012 01:50:00 -0700 http://machinemachine.net/text/arts/a-shot-to-the-arse
<![CDATA[The Trouble with Scientism]]> http://www.tnr.com/print/article/books-and-arts/magazine/103086/scientism-humanities-knowledge-theory-everything-arts-science

The conflict between the Naturwissenschaften and the Geisteswissenschaften goes back at least two centuries, and became intensified as ambitious, sometimes impatient researchers proposed to introduce natural scientific concepts and methods into the study of human psychology and human social behavior. Their efforts, and the attitudes of unconcealed disdain that often inspired them, prompted a reaction, from Vico to Dilthey and into our own time: the insistence that some questions are beyond the scope of natural scientific inquiry, too large, too complex, too imprecise, and too important to be addressed by blundering over-simplifications. From the nineteenth-century ventures in mechanistic psychology to contemporary attempts to introduce evolutionary concepts into the social sciences, “scientism” has been criticized for its “mutilation” (Verstümmelung, in Dilthey’s memorable term) of the phenomena to be explained.

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Thu, 17 May 2012 03:42:13 -0700 http://www.tnr.com/print/article/books-and-arts/magazine/103086/scientism-humanities-knowledge-theory-everything-arts-science
<![CDATA[Interview with Umberto Eco: 'We Like Lists Because We Don't Want to Die']]> http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,659577,00.html

"What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible"

The list is the origin of culture. It's part of the history of art and literature. What does culture want? To make infinity comprehensible. It also wants to create order -- not always, but often. And how, as a human being, does one face infinity? How does one attempt to grasp the incomprehensible? Through lists, through catalogs, through collections in museums and through encyclopedias and dictionaries. There is an allure to enumerating how many women Don Giovanni slept with: It was 2,063, at least according to Mozart's librettist, Lorenzo da Ponte. We also have completely practical lists -- the shopping list, the will, the menu -- that are also cultural achievements in their own right.

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Wed, 21 Mar 2012 09:35:40 -0700 http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,659577,00.html
<![CDATA[“God,” Eldritch said, “promises eternal life....]]> http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/19544911616

“God,” Eldritch said, “promises eternal life. I can do better; I can deliver it.”

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Sun, 18 Mar 2012 17:17:47 -0700 http://tumblr.machinemachine.net/post/19544911616
<![CDATA[Classic Movies Subtitled for Bros]]> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA9FVi7Cqjc&feature=youtube_gdata

"On The Bro'd," all of Kerouac's "On The Road" translated into bro-speak, is available wherever books are sold. http://onthebrod.com Purchase info below.

Preorder from Amazon: http://amzn.com/144052906X Preorder from Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/on-the-brod-mile-lacher/1105051171 Preorder from Adams Media: http://www.adamsmediastore.com/product/on-the-brod

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Wed, 07 Mar 2012 02:24:00 -0800 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HA9FVi7Cqjc&feature=youtube_gdata
<![CDATA[The Democracy of Objects]]> http://openhumanitiespress.org/democracy-of-objects.html

Since Kant, philosophy has been obsessed with epistemological questions pertaining to the relationship between mind and world and human access to objects. In The Democracy of Objects, Bryant proposes that we break with this tradition and once again initiate the project of ontology as first philosophy. Drawing on the object-oriented ontology of Graham Harman, as well as the thought of Roy Bhaskar, Gilles Deleuze, Niklas Luhman, Aristotle, Jacques Lacan, Bruno Latour and the developmental systems theorists, Bryant develops a realist ontology that he calls “onticology”. This ontology argues that being is composed entirely of objects, properties, and relations such that subjects themselves are a variant of objects. Drawing on the work of the systems theorists and cyberneticians, Bryant argues that objects are dynamic systems that relate to the world under conditions of operational closure. In this way, he is able to integrate the most vital discoveries of the anti-realists within a realist ontology that does justice to both the material and cultural. Onticology proposes a flat ontology where objects of all sorts and at different scales equally exist without being reducible to other objects and where there are no transcendent entities such as eternal essences outside of dynamic interactions among objects.

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Mon, 05 Mar 2012 15:44:45 -0800 http://openhumanitiespress.org/democracy-of-objects.html
<![CDATA[Life after Papyrus: The Swerve]]> http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/17762040844/life-after-papyrus

Books. They have an almost alarming corporeality. Stephen Greenblatt, esteemed Harvard professor and founder of New Historicism, tells us that between the eras of papyrus and paper, books were often made of the pumice-smoothed skins of sheep, goats, deer, or, most luxuriously, of an aborted calf. The act of writing required rulers, awls, fine pens, and weights to keep the surfaces flat. Ink was a mix of soot, water, and tree gum; it was revised with knives, razors, brushes, rags, and page-restoring mixtures of milk, cheese, and lime. Squirming black creatures called bookworms liked to eat these pages, along with wool blankets and cream cheese. In the silence of monastery libraries, even the books’ contents were indicated by bodily gestures. Monks copying pagan books requested them by scratching their ears like dogs with fleas, or, if the book were particularly offensive, shoving two fingers in their mouths, as if gagging. In Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How the World Became Modern, these objects, offensive or sacred, are the primary players.

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Fri, 17 Feb 2012 05:05:50 -0800 http://lareviewofbooks.org/post/17762040844/life-after-papyrus
<![CDATA[It's time for science to move on from materialism]]> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/28/science-move-away-materialism-sheldrake?CMP=twt_fd

Today we live in the 21st century, and it seems that we are still stuck with this narrow and rigid view of the things. As Rupert Sheldrake puts it in his new book, published this week, The Science Delusion: "The belief system that governs conventional scientific thinking is an act of faith, grounded in a 19th-century ideology."

That's provocative rhetoric. Science an act of faith? Science a belief system? But then how else to explain the grip of the mechanistic, physicalist, purposeless cosmology? As Heisenberg explained, physicists among themselves have long stopped thinking of atoms as things. They exist as potentialities or possibilities, not objects or facts. And yet, materialism persists.

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Sat, 28 Jan 2012 10:35:54 -0800 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/28/science-move-away-materialism-sheldrake?CMP=twt_fd
<![CDATA[Re:Thinking Games]]> http://www.furtherfield.org/researchpublicatios/artists-rethinking-games

Digital games are important not only because of their cultural ubiquity or their sales figures but for what they can offer as a space for creative practice. Games are significant for what they embody; human computer interface, notions of agency, sociality, visualisation, cybernetics, representation, embodiment, activism, narrative and play. These and a whole host of other issues are significant not only to the game designer but also present in the work of the artist that thinks and rethinks games. Re-appropriated for activism, activation, commentary and critique within games and culture, artists have responded vigorously.

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Wed, 25 Jan 2012 03:50:56 -0800 http://www.furtherfield.org/researchpublicatios/artists-rethinking-games
<![CDATA["How to Do Things with Videogames" by Ian Bogost]]> http://www.creativeapplications.net/games/how-to-do-things-with-videogames-by-ian-bogost-books-review-games/

From Roger Ebert’s pedantic proclamation that “video games can never be art” to the clichéd fawning over the truckloads of revenue generated by each new release in the Modern Warfare series, gaming consistently inspires overarching conversations about media and culture. At this point, these ‘big conversations’ should surprise no one, as with each passing year gaming becomes less esoteric and permeates more and more demographic groups (e.g. the popularity of social games on Facebook, senior citizens embracing the Wii as an exercise platform, etc.). So while gaming may be everywhere, it is strange that it is often difficult to locate conversations about it that speak to how we actually integrate play and simulation into our everyday experience. What can games tell us about relaxation, work and routine? What do they have to say about movement and the body? How might we subvert gaming conventions through pranks and humour? Ian Bogost’s recent book How To Do Things With Videogames thoughtfully considers questions like these while endeavouring to re-frame the medium through a series of focused, topical texts that draw on familiar and engaging points of reference.

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Fri, 13 Jan 2012 02:50:57 -0800 http://www.creativeapplications.net/games/how-to-do-things-with-videogames-by-ian-bogost-books-review-games/
<![CDATA[On A History of the World in 100 Objects]]> http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Objects-101-7212

Objects 101 by Roger Sandall

What interests me here however is something else—the profoundly paradoxical position of MacGregor himself. When resisting Greek calls for the return of the Elgin Marbles, he is on record as saying that it is his museum’s duty to “preserve the universality of the marbles and to protect them from being appropriated as a nationalistic political symbol.” They belong to mankind, they are part of the human heritage, and though the Greeks may wish to regard them as an integral part of their national identity, the Greeks, alas, must be seen here as the deluded victims of an unfortunate parochial obsession. Now this may be right or it may be wrong, but the curious thing is that when MacGregor deals with a number of other museum items in his possession he invariably treats them as representing the enduring national “identities” of this or that cultural group that should be respected and preserved.

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Mon, 14 Nov 2011 06:59:54 -0800 http://www.newcriterion.com/articles.cfm/Objects-101-7212
<![CDATA[Threshold science]]> http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post/12236448007/how-walking-through-a-doorway-increases

How walking through a doorway increases forgetting

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Wed, 02 Nov 2011 06:51:34 -0700 http://aminotes.tumblr.com/post/12236448007/how-walking-through-a-doorway-increases