Aliens, but definitely not as we know them
In the New Scientist "Big Ideas" column
Are everyday objects, such as apple pies or microchips, aliens? It depends how you think about what it’s like to be a thing. This essay appeared in the
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Write My Missing Chapters
Mark Sample's assignment for How to Do Things with Videogames
I’ve been flattered to see so many courses in media studies and related fields adopt my 2011 book How to Do Things with Videogames so quickly. But my favorite use of the book in a classroom thus far comes from Mark Sample’s Videogames in Critical Contexts course. He’s assigned his students to write a “missing chapter” for the book. Here’s… read more
Rise of the Videogame Zinesters
Anna Anthropy's new book
These days, everybody can make and distribute a photograph, or a video, or a book. Rise of the Videogame Zinesters shows you that everyone can make a videogame, too. But why should they? For Anna Anthropy, it’s not for fame or for profit, but for the strange, aimless beauty of personal creativity. That’s my back cover blurb for Anna Anthropy’s… read more
Alien Invasion
An update on my next book
I talked to my publisher this week and got news that Alien Phenomenology is scheduled to land in the warehouse by March 7. It should be shipping to booksellers immediately thereafter. If you preorder from Amazon.com, you’ll see it ship out that very week. While I can’t make any promises, sometimes these dates move up thanks to happy accident, so… read more
Making Books
It's not the same as writing books
Back when his book The Textual Life of Airports was published in December, Christopher Schaberg reported what most authors do: seeing his book for the first time. “What a weird feeling,” Chris wrote. “It resembles an object from outer space. Vaguely recognizable, yet totally alien at the same time.” This is the experience of most authors. We say we “write… read more
On Technical Agency and Procedural Rhetoric
A quick response to Joshua McVeigh-Schulz
There’s an interesting discussion over at Culture Digitally between Gina Neff, Tim Jordan, and Joshua McVeigh-Schulz on the subject of technical agency, or “how we should (re)theorize the politics of technological systems.” Gina Neff’s opening comments include a welcome statement about the limits of SCOT perspectives on technical systems: Within the social studies of technology, technological determinism is dead. By… read more
This is a Blog Post about the Digital Humanities
A response to Stanley Fish, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, and others
For the first time in five years, I attended the Modern Language Association (MLA) conference. This is the main conference for scholars of language and literature, with about 8,000 attendees at this year’s event in Seattle. Among the big things going down this year: the ongoing clash of cultures between the “traditional humanities”—the scholars who read books and write books… read more
Object-Oriented Answers
Responses to Parikka
Jussi Parikka, author of Insect Media among numerous other books, recently posed a series of questions about object-oriented ontology. Levi Bryant has already responded, as has Paul Caplan, and I like both of their responses. I thought I’d offer my own here, so here goes. (The block quotes are Jussi’s questions.) Is not the talk of “object” something that summons… read more
The Virtues of Long Compiles
Thoughts on the material conditions of programming practice
I was corresponding yesterday with Jock Murphy, a Portland-based photographer, software engineer, and mobile game developer. Jock had read Racing the Beam, and we were talking about the relative differences between the 6502 and the Z80 microprocessors. This subject led us to different programming practices, a topic Nick and I discuss in RtB in relation to the Atari, but for… read more
If the reader clicks the word “cow” then the cows will come.
Wired's online cow clicking game about Cow Clicker
As promised, I’m now linking the iPad and web versions of Wired‘s story on Cow Clicker. There are some interesting features of each. The iPad edition features clickable cows that moo, but the online version of the story really, uhm, sets the moood… it includes a complete Cow Clicker-themed cow clicking game with Facebook integration. So, go try that out.… read more