----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
*Welcome to October, 2014 on --empyre-- soft-skinned space: *
*DIGITAL OBJECTS *
Moderated by Quinn DuPont (CA), Anais Nony (FR), and Ashley Scarlett (CA)
with invited discussants to include: Ange Albertini (US); Dragan Epstein
(DE); Andres Ramirez Gaviria (CO/At); Yuk Hui (DE-based); Jan Robert Leegte
(NL); Kristie MacDonald (CA); Mark C. Marino (US); Nicholas O’Brien (UK);
Christian Pentzold (DE); Ben Roberts (UK); Dani Robison (US); Daniel Rourke
(UK); Sean Rupka (CA/US); Phil Thompson (UK); Hannah Turner (CA); Alexander
Wilson (CA); and others to be announced as the weekly subthemes are posted.
October 6th to 12th Week 1: *PRACTICE*
October 13th to 19th Week 2: *MATTER*
October 19th to 25rd Week 3: *PROCESS*
October 26th to 31st Week 4: *MEMORY*
*Welcome! *
During the month of October, --empyre—soft_skinned_space will be discussing
DIGITAL OBJECTS as our over-arching theme, with Practice, Matter, Process,
and Memory as weekly sub-themes intended to facilitate an intersectional
approach to this emerging area of scholarship. We would be thrilled if you
joined us!!
Please find our introduction to the month’s conversation below, followed by
a few provocations for your consideration! (Introductions to the weekly
sub-themes will be posted on Sundays, along with the bios of the invited
participants.)
*ON DIGITAL OBJECTS*
Deciphering the ontological underpinnings of digital objects has become an
increasingly pressing line of inquiry within numerous disciplines, spanning
the humanities, social and hard sciences. Informed by the terms and
political impetus of (digital) Materialism, investigations into the status
of digital objects offer grounded means through which to conceptualize the
“submedial space” of 21st century media. To date, these projects have been
driven in large part by such questions as: what kind of thing is: a digital
file? (Kirschenbaum 2010; Vismann 2008); metadata? (Hui 2012); the
selection tool? (Leegte 2010); or 3D scans and prints? (Sportun 2013). As
this list suggests, developing a rich and reliable understanding of digital
things has theoretical implications for how contemporary computing is being
conceptualized, while also posing practical consequences within fields such
as copyright legislation and digital repatriation.
This current interest in digital objects mirrors a recent and overarching
academic reorientation around objects and materiality more generally
(Morton 2013; Harman 2011; Bennett 2009). While a considerable amount of
this scholarship asserts the historical necessity of an object-oriented
(re)turn to the material realm, these projects have been unable to contend
with digitality, focusing instead on the physically robust supports of
computer interaction (screens, hard-drives, network wires). According to
Jussi Parikka (2012), the recent turn to object-oriented inquiry has
emerged at precisely the moment when a series of mediatic phenomena, such
as ubiquitous computing and algorithmic futures (Hansen 2015), are
systematically undermining established perceptions of what an object is at
all. Complicating the matter of objects further is the sense that
digitality has given rise to new forms of techno-relational substance that
philosophy is not yet equipped to account for (Bryant 2014). While 20th century
philosophy incorporated an analysis of technical objects into the long
history of meditations on natural substance, we are now contending with the
digital by-products of technical objects. To this end, the emergence of
digital objects does not only pose significant implications for digital
culture at large, but it also marks a novel moment in the history of
philosophy, as we navigate new (and increasingly hybrid) notions of
objectivity (Hui 2012).
While a number of scholars, artists and practitioners have begun to account
for the status of digital objects, their performative suspension, between
software and hardware, as well as the processual and cascading grounds from
which they perpetually emerge, greatly complicates efforts at developing a
solid account of their underlying parameters.
During the month of October, we are hoping to engage a multi-scalar,
intersectional approach to Digital Objects. In an effort to ground the
conversation in practice and existing literature, we will begin the month
with discussions of PRACTICE and MATTER. During the 3rd week, we will
explore PROCESS as both an essential and seemingly insurmountable component
of digital objects; the processuality of digital objects poses one of the
most significant challenges to developing a stable analysis of their
ontological underpinnings. In the 4th and final week, we will analyze how
the intersection of MEMORY and digital objects problematizes matters of
memorialization and rationalization. Our hope is to assess how digital
objects might necessitate an altered conceptualization of memory.
Through our overarching topic, subthemes, and contributors, we are hoping
to begin tackling such questions as:
· What kind of a thing is a digital object? And why does it matter?
· What happens to the notion of object once it enters (or exits) the
digital realm?
· Much has been made of the “post-digital” and the “post-internet” –
how might we talk about digital objects without asserting historical
contiguity?
· How might we begin to build a rigorous account of digital
(techno-relational) substance? What are the broader implications of this
mode of substance?
· How do we experience digital objects? What are the phenomenological
implications of digital objects?
· What are the critical and analytical tools we need to discuss
further the ontological challenges launched by digital object?
*Moderator Biographies:*
*Quinn DuPont *Quinn DuPont studies the intersections of code, new media,
philosophy, and history, with particular attention to the role of
cryptography in contemporary life. Using the approaches and methodologies
of critical code studies, software studies, digital humanities, and new
media studies, Quinn has published on a wide range of issues, including
e-poetry, cryptocurrencies, retrocomputing, theories of reading and
writing, and Edward Snowden. Further information about Quinn is available at
iqdupont.com
*Anais Nony *A native of France, Anaïs Nony is a scholar working in the
field of philosophy of technics, critical media, and performance. She holds
a B.A. and a M.A. in Arts, Theater, and Modern Society from the New
Sorbonne University in Paris. Her research residencies include NYU, Cornell
University, and she is currently finishing her Ph.D. in French and moving
image studies at the Institute for Advanced Study at the University of
Minnesota. Anaïs Nony has collaborated as an author with several journals
in France, Italy, Romania, Belgium, and the U.S. She is the co-founder of
the international collective Noötechnics <http://nootechnics.org/> and has
been studying with philosopher Bernard Stiegler for several years.
*Ashley Scarlett* Ashley Scarlett is currently a doctoral candidate in the
Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. Working in
collaboration with Semaphore, a UofT based new media maker and research
cluster, her doctoral research sits at the intersection between media
theory, contemporary media art and arts-based research. Ashley’s
dissertation, *On the Matter of Digital Objects, *advances a series of
claims about the phenomenological parameters of digital objects and
materials through a critical analysis of media artworks and making
practices. Ashley has presented widely on this work, is in the process of
authoring two articles on the topic, and has acted as a visiting scholar in
this regard at both Humboldt University Berlin and Cornell. In addition to
her doctoral work, Ashley is also a regular lecturer at OCAD University,
where she teaches courses on the history of new media art and critical
theory.
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