Software Studies: A Lexicon

by David Gee Reader in Digital Media Matthew Fuller (Editor)

A cultural field guide to artists, computer scientists, designers, cultural theorists, programmers, and others define a new field of study and practice. This collection of short expository, critical, and speculative texts offers a field guide to the cultural, political, social, and aesthetic impact of software. Computing and digital media are essential to the way we work and live, and much has been said about their influence. But the very material of software has often been left invisible. In Software Studies, computer scientists, artists, designers, cultural theorists, programmers, and others from a range of disciplines each take on a key topic in the understanding of software and the work that surrounds it. These include algorithms; logical structures; ways of thinking and doing that leak out of the domain of logic and into everyday life; the value and aesthetic judgments built into computing; programming's own subcultures; and the tightly formulated building blocks that work to make, name, multiply, control, and interweave reality. The growing importance of software requires a new kind of cultural theory that can understand the politics of pixels or the poetry of a loop and engage in the microanalysis of everyday digital objects. The contributors to Software Studies are both literate in computing (and involved in some way in the production of software) and active in making and theorizing culture. Software Studies offers not only studies of software but proposes an agenda for a discipline that sees software as an object of study from new perspectives. Contributors
Alison Adam, Wilfried Hou Je Bek, Morten Breinbjerg, Ted Byfield, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, Geoff Cox, Florian Cramer, Cecile Crutzen, Marco Deseriis, Ron Eglash, Matthew Fuller, Andrew Goffey, Steve Goodman, Olga Goriunova, Graham Harwood, Friedrich Kittler, Erna Kotkamp, Joasia Krysa, Adrian Mackenzie, Lev Manovich, Michael Mateas, Nick Montfort, Michael Murtaugh, Jussi Parikka, Søren Pold, Derek Robinson, Warren Sack, Grzesiek Sedek, Alexei Shulgin, Matti Tedre, Adrian Ward, Richard Wright, Simon Yuill

Genres: Philosophy

334 pages, Hardcover

First published June 30, 2008

Reviews

[Wendy Liu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most of the essays weren't especially memorable, but there were a few standouts. More generally, I think applying critical theory et al to something like software development is an excellent idea, and there should be more books in this genre.

[Margaret Heller · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of essays on concepts around software, some of which are highly theoretical, others more practical. I truly enjoyed the programming poetry, which I didn't realize existed until about a year ago, and found it cool here. I photocopied (yeah, I know, I know) the essay on Functions, which I think is beautifully written and worth much study.

But I did not read a feminist theory critique of object orientation. I mean seriously.

[Ilias · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recently I read in one of Manovich's texts that in order to understand new media we have to shift our focus from media studies to software studies. Fuller's book is the way to do this shift in the most comprehensive way.

[Zhoel13 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is definitely the book you have to have if you're interested in studying software/code from the perspective of the humanities. The variety of the contributors from a wide range of academic backgrounds adds to the strength of this edited collection.