Contagious Architecture: Computation, Aesthetics and Space (Technologies of Lived Abstraction Series) 1st edition hardback in very good dust jacket

Parisi, Luciana; Massumi, Brian; Manning, Erin

ISBN 10: 0262018632 / ISBN 13: 9780262018630

Published by MIT Press, 2013

About this Item

Published by The MIT Press in 2013, here is the first hardback printing of Luciana Parisi's Contagious Architecture: Computation, Aesthetics and Space. Black cloth binding, silver spine lettering, 370 pages, illustrations the book is in near fine condition. The dust jacket is very good with a modicum of shelf wear. Seller Inventory # 12877

Bibliographic Details

Title: Contagious Architecture: Computation, ...

Publisher: MIT Press

Publication Date: 2013

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Near Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

A proposal that algorithms are not simply instructions to be performed but thinking entities that construct digital spatio-temporalities.

In Contagious Architecture, Luciana Parisi offers a philosophical inquiry into the status of the algorithm in architectural and interaction design. Her thesis is that algorithmic computation is not simply an abstract mathematical tool but constitutes a mode of thought in its own right, in that its operation extends into forms of abstraction that lie beyond direct human cognition and control. These include modes of infinity, contingency, and indeterminacy, as well as incomputable quantities underlying the iterative process of algorithmic processing.

The main philosophical source for the project is Alfred North Whitehead, whose process philosophy is specifically designed to provide a vocabulary for “modes of thought” exhibiting various degrees of autonomy from human agency even as they are mobilized by it. Because algorithmic processing lies at the heart of the design practices now reshaping our world―from the physical spaces of our built environment to the networked spaces of digital culture―the nature of algorithmic thought is a topic of pressing importance that reraises questions of control and, ultimately, power. Contagious Architecture revisits cybernetic theories of control and information theory's notion of the incomputable in light of this rethinking of the role of algorithmic thought. Informed by recent debates in political and cultural theory around the changing landscape of power, it links the nature of abstraction to a new theory of power adequate to the complexities of the digital world.

About the Author:

Luciana Parisi is a Senior Lecturer and runs the MA program in Interactive Media: Critical Theory and Practice at the Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University of London.