CITAR Journal, Volume 7, No. 1 – Special Issue: xCoAx 2015

Towards an Ontology of Computational Technologies as Tools for Aesthetic Creation

Rodrigo Hernández-Ramírez Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Lisbon, Portugal ----- [email protected] -----

ABSTRACT 1 | INTRODUCTION

Computational technologies have significantly It took computers approximately 3 decades to evolve expanded the horizons of aesthetic creation; from specialised single-task mainframes for nonetheless, their wider ontological status as tools administrative, financial and scientific tasks, to remains poorly understood. This limitation hinders our personal programmable appliances for the ability to assess their true impact on aesthetic technologically inclined. A couple of decades later, our practices and limits our means to establish the relationship with these systems has become one of relationship between computer generated artefacts dependency, provided that some form of and previous forms of ‘media’. This paper argues that computational technology is now present anywhere understanding and categorising the things from our buildings to our wrists. In the process, it has computational technologies are able to do as transformed everything we do and how we do it; but aesthetic tools also requires understanding what type more importantly, it is changing how we represent of tools they are. Following recent insights from and think about our world and ourselves. Computer of information and post-phenomenology, systems (i.e., the conjunction of hardware and this paper begins by showing computational software) have become our utmost ‘intellectual tools’ technologies are no ordinary mediators, but truly (Dyson, 1997), for they allow us to model and objectify ‘multi-stable’ appliances which are leading us to every single process we are able to formulate reformulate our very notions of reality and self- algorithmically, including aesthetic artefacts. Being understanding. While delivering a fully-fledged truly multi-purpose devices, computer systems have ontological model falls outside of its scope, this paper also become our first ‘metamedium’ (Manovich, 2013) nonetheless suggests that within aesthetic contexts, for audio-visual representation and simulation. computational devices may be initially described as Understandably, many contemporary practitioners information modelling appliances. This have adopted them as their primary tools for creation. characterisation offers an alternative to their But while this change has greatly broadened the increasingly less adequate portrayal as ‘media’. horizons of aesthetic possibilities, our scholarly grasping of this technology remains comparatively KEYWORDS limited. ; Computational Technology; Media; Arguably, the most basic questions summoned by the Modelling; Ontology; Philosophy of Information; Post- entrance of computational technology (i.e., any phenomenology. artefact or process involving computation) into the

CITAR JOURNAL 7 realm of aesthetic creation are: (a) what are the computer systems as the ultimate ‘modelling artefacts it produces, and (b) how they relate to machines’. Finally, it invites the reader to regard previous forms of representation. Being fundamentally computational technologies not simply as mediators ontological, both problems involve some form of of reality, but as its actual builders, and to ponder the rational description and categorisation. While most potential implications following such shift. contemporary views approach the first problem by 2 | THE IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY classifying computer generated aesthetic artefacts as some form of ‘new media’, the second problem In his 1998 essay, Being Digital, Nicholas Negroponte invokes greater disagreements. The most common declared the ‘Digital Revolution’ was ‘over’, arguing being whether ‘new media’ constitutes a truly computers would become so common as to make (ontologically) distinct form of representation, or a digital technology ‘noticed only by its absence’. mere re-iteration of ‘old media’; and whether its Furthermore, he advised against paying too much widespread adoption and development signals the attention to technicalities such as the exponential debacle of audio-visual tradition. Defending an growth in bandwidth, processing power and storage ontological kinship between old and new media on capacity; claiming instead that the ‘really surprising the basis of their formal resemblance, models such as changes’ would be ‘happening elsewhere’: in how the one developed by Bolter & Grusin (2000) see no these appliances would transform science, industry compelling reason to regard the later as anything but and society. But while many of these predictions have a ‘remediation’. In recent years, however, more crystallised, the revolution is not over; it is thriving. pragmatic approaches (see Fuller, 2008; Manovich, First of all, binary code is not the only digital code: the 2013; Mateas, 2005) argue such misconception is alphabet and the Roman and Arabic numerals are symptomatic of the humanities’ long-standing also digital codes (see Lopes, 2010); therefore, disregard for the material and technical conditions digitisation per se is not necessarily something behind new media, while noting that software has revolutionary. Secondly, the transformations effectively become the medium of a new audio-visual experienced by humanity over the last decades language. cannot be reduced to the fact that our technologies became overwhelmingly digital. The truly revolutionary In this paper I argue that, while acquiring a basic aspect is that information revealed itself as a ’key understanding of how computational technologies resource’ (Floridi, 2010) —as the ‘steam engine of our work is fundamental to comprehend and analyse the times’ (Frank, 2013), and that we realised it holds the artefacts they generate, it is equally important to potential to transform not only our economy and our investigate what kind of instruments they are. By society, but also our long-standing metaphysical showing that computer systems are no ordinary frameworks. ‘tools’, I argue that understanding their ontological nature as an unprecedented form of technology is 2.1 A DIFFICULT NOTION crucial for understanding their impact on aesthetic creation and their place as aesthetic tools. Following Devising and using tools in a systematic manner is a insights from the and distinctive (although not exclusive) human trait; we philosophy of information, the analysis begins by have been doing it for millennia and it would be locating computer systems as a ‘third order’ difficult to overstate its influence over our evolutionary technology (Floridi, 2013) before addressing why we success. But even though ‘technology’ is nominally a need to pay attention to their ‘multi-stabilities’ Greek word, the concept itself is fairly recent both in (Selinger, 2014; Verbeek, 2005) and why they origin and use. Coined in 1802 by Johann Beckmann constitute the ‘quintessential’ (Floridi, 2009a) form of (see Kelly, 2010), the term only became popular in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT). second half of the Twentieth Century[1]. Its Moreover, while challenging the primacy of the notion resurgence coinciding with the dawn of the Space of media as a de facto descriptive category for Race and the ‘Computer Age’, which may explain computational technology in the context of aesthetic why computer systems are so often referred to simply creation, this paper sketches a description of as ‘technology’ – and, more recently, as 'tech'. From

CITAR JOURNAL 8 CITAR Journal, Volume 7, No. 1 – Special Issue: xCoAx 2015 a scholarly perspective, the synecdoche is historically categorising, and making sense of entities (and their and conceptually problematic; a fact which does not relationships) within a particular knowledge system prevent a considerable number of analyses from (see Smith, 2004). Ontology is fundamentally a overlooking it. This tendency, however, cannot be descriptive strategy, which – as hermeneutics – is attributed solely to some scholars’ reluctance to clarify frequently (albeit unknowingly) employed within their understanding of the term, but perhaps to its aesthetic contexts. Nonetheless, for decades, both inherent haziness and – more importantly – to its artists and scholars have outsourced the conceptual complex relationship with culture. frameworks guiding their interpretations of ‘media’ — but also of science and technology – to other regions 2.2 A CULTURAL SHIFT of the humanities (see Wilson, 2002). Therefore, their Over the last decades technology has grown to views have been heavily informed by the outlooks of become the ethos of mainstream cultural expression. ‘social relativism’ (Bogost, 2012), critical theory, and Arguably, the ‘liberation’ of computational technology media philosophy. As a consequence, most analyses into consumer society at the end of the 1970s was of computer generated artefacts coming out of largely responsible for the emergence of what Kelly aesthetic contexts have echoed the same (1998) describes as ‘nerd culture’: ‘a pop culture preoccupations as their theoretical sources: the based on technology for technology’. Somewhat cultural and socio-political impact of the discourses following C. P. Snow’s (2000) lesser-known conveyed through ‘new technologies’. idealisation of a – scientifically literate and yet 3.1 REMEDIATION artistically sensible – ‘third culture’, Kelly argues ‘nerdism’ is more than a mere fad or naïve pop Many of the resulting models privileged the analysis of ‘celebration of engineering’. According to his the formal and discursive elements of audio-visual description, nerdism is an offspring of science and representations, while treating the specialised therefore holds a general respect for its authority. technical knowledge necessary to generate them as Nonetheless, unlike its forefather, the objective of somewhat negligible ‘grey areas’ beyond their nerdism is not to reveal ultimate truths about Nature interests (see Mateas, 2005). When addressing the and the Universe, but to explore the potentially impact of computational technology and attempting to endless novel experiences offered by technology. establish the relationship between computer- Consequently, members of this culture are avid generated aesthetic artefacts and previous forms of testers and tinkerers, they are early adopters of audio-visual representations, their strategy remained gadgets and algorithmic processes; their heroes are virtually unchanged. One of the best-known models contemporary ‘tech’ moguls (e.g., Steve Jobs, Bill following this tradition is ‘remediation’ (see Bolter & Gates, Elon Musk, Stephen Wolfram) and all-around Grusin, 2000), which argues there is no significative ‘geeks’ (Nicola Tesla or Douglas Engelbart). Above all, (ontological) difference between traditional (printed Nerd culture is pragmatic; it does not proceed from and electronic) and ‘new’ (computer-generated) theory, but from practice and improvisation. Its media. In their view, the latter is but the latest members approach problems not through axioms but ‘refashioning’ of old media and therefore has the through adaptive modelling; their willingness to same purpose as all forms of representation since the experiment is endless as long as the potential solution Renaissance: to ‘put the viewer in the same space as involves some form of technological development, the objects viewed’ (p. 11) while simultaneously their haphazard attitude sometimes resembling concealing the factuality of their intermediation. vanguardist unorthodoxy and playfulness. Needless to 3.2 SOFTWARE STUDIES say, many nerds are also designers, developers, creators, and artists. Unlike remediation, the more recent Software Studies approach recognises an ontological distance between 3 | SOME THEORETICAL APPROACHES ‘traditional’ and ‘new media’. Subscribing to the views Oversimplifying, (an) ontology is a method for rationally of early personal computing pioneers, it portrays understanding (see Poli, 2010), describing, defining, computers as a ‘metamedium’ (Kay & Goldberg,

CITAR JOURNAL 9 2003; Manovich, 2013) and software itself as the what kind of tools we are dealing with, and what indisputable location of contemporary media creation. makes them so different from their predecessors. This approach tacitly endorses technological agency 4.1 THE ORDERS OF TECHNOLOGY and chastises the humanities’ traditional disregard for technical knowledge associated with science and As Floridi (2013) points out, one of the most engineering and, in particular, of programming (Fuller, elementary characteristics of technology is its 2008; Mateas, 2005). Authors such as Lev Manovich ‘inbetweeness’: its location between a potential user (2013), a key figure within software studies, argue the (traditionally a human agent) and an ‘affordance’[2] (an constantly evolving language of contemporary audio- item in the world, whether natural or otherwise). Floridi visual artefacts is symptomatic of software’s suggests that according to their level of development idiosyncrasies, in particular, of its ability to simulate and – consequently – to the chain of relationships they not merely all previously distinct forms of media, but enable between users and affordances, technologies also their tools and techniques. What ultimately may be placed within 3 categories or ‘orders’. First characterises this and other recent fields of analysis order technologies are the most elementary kind: (such as studies) is their technologically- those which stand between a user and an (usually centred outlook on ‘media’; their insistence on natural) affordance in the world. Although they may be claiming that acquiring a basic technical knowledge is quite complex and dependent on other technological paramount for understanding the nature of the new systems, first order technologies may be produced by aesthetic artefacts. Such pragmatist outlook is easily other “non-human animals” (p. 112). Second order correlated with ’nerdism’ and, it is symptomatic of the technologies (by far the most common type) require a generalised transdisciplinary ‘empirical’ (see Selinger, higher degree of specialisation; they are those ‘whose 2014) shift in our attitude towards technology. affordances are other technologies’ (p. 112). The most elementary example would be a screwdriver (which 4 | A METHODOLOGICAL ALTERNATIVE stands in between the user and a screw), while its Overall, the remediation model presents an even- paramount form is the engine. Finally, third order tempered counterweight to the hype present in most technologies are those which treat other technologies analyses of 'new technologies' – in particular the early as users; they excise the human subject from the prefiguration of Virtual Reality (VR). However, by chain of interaction and hence become autonomous. concluding that 'new media' is little more than a Information Technologies (IT) and computer systems rehashing of old forms of representation, Bolter & in particular are the utmost example of third order Grusin (2000) overlook the profound ways in which technologies. computational technology has transformed not only 4.2 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY aesthetic creation, but culture itself. This approach does not consider computer generated aesthetic Information technology – also known as ‘Information experiences, which do not necessarily rely on sheer and Communication Technology’ (ICT) – and other audio-visual communication (e.g., haptics). related concepts such as ‘information systems’ and Conversely, software studies grant computer even ‘media technology’ are difficult to characterise generated aesthetic artefacts a new ontological under a single consensual definition. Strictly speaking condition and, most importantly, recognise this is due the concept refers to systems that merge data to their origins in a particular form of technology. But processing and telecommunications (see Mitcham, while their approach offers powerful insights regarding 2004) and thus only emerged when computational what software is capable of accomplishing and why, it technology assumed the roles previously assigned to does not help to understand what kind of technology various forms of electronic communication systems software might be. Both remediation and software (which include everything in between the telegraph studies are ultimately concerned with the ontological and TV). However, under a broader understanding, IT nature of the output (the artefacts) generated by could refer to any system used to communicate and computational technology. But to understand its wider store information – as Floridi (2009a, 2010) argues, impact on aesthetic fields it is also useful to determine this would push its origins back to the invention of

CITAR JOURNAL 10 CITAR Journal, Volume 7, No. 1 – Special Issue: xCoAx 2015 writing and, therefore, of history. It follows the so- the tools are ‘divorced of human practice’ they called ‘information age’ did not begin with computers become but ‘junk lying about’ (cited in Verbeek, 2005, but some 5,000 years ago and, consequently, that p. 112). This context-dependency clause determining humanity has experienced not one but many the identity of technological artefacts is what Ihde information societies (see Floridi, 2010). Throughout refers to as ‘multi-stability’ (in Selinger, 2014; see also its existence, IT has served three basic functions Verbeek, 2005). And it implies that, ontologically (Floridi, 2009a); each one associated with a particular speaking, the ultimate nature of technological historical stage. The period spanning from the earliest artefacts is necessarily undetermined because they written records to the arrival of the printing press may be ‘many things at once’ (Verbeek, 2005, p. represents the evolution of recording. The next stage, 112); they may be ‘stable’ in multiple and communication, began with the invention of simultaneous ways [5]. telegraphy and continued through subsequent 5 | THE LARGER LIFE OF COMPUTATIONAL TECHNOLOGY electronic technologies or ’media’: cinema, radio, and television. The third stage began with the arrival of Through its unprecedented flexibility (its ability to computers, the moment where ‘IT acquired its new simulate virtually all forms of audio-visual meaning, the one we currently associate with it, as it representation or ‘media’), computational technology came to refer to a technology used to elaborate has undoubtedly broadened the horizons of aesthetic information by processing data electronically and practices. But our understanding of the ways this automatically’ (p. 228). Contrary to what some media technology is transforming not only this particular scholars stipulate, with each iteration, IT did not realm but also our entire metaphysical frameworks replace its predecessors, but rather incorporated their (the way we think about the world and ourselves) functions [3]. In the last three decades, computational remains comparatively poor. Contemporary aesthetic technology has been steadily assuming virtually every interpretation of the artefacts generated by computer function that was previously scattered throughout systems recognise the role tools play in shaping various dedicated technologies and, in the process, experience. But most analyses continue to overlook has developed new ways to implement them. the fact that computers are no ordinary mediators, Computational technology thus constitutes the and therefore tend to engage them as if they were ‘quintessential IT appliance’ (p. 228). another second order technology. To overcome this handicap it is necessary to analyse its larger life and 4.3 TECHNOLOGY’S ‘MULTI-STABILITY’ how its ‘inbetweeness’ is in fact an unprecedented Also underlining technology’s ‘inbetweeness’, ‘post- reshaping of our metaphysical commitments. phenomenology’ – the phenomenological take on 5.1 COMPUTATIONAL DEVICES ARE NO ORDINARY TOOLS ‘post-humanism’ as Italian and game designer Stefano Gualeni (2014) describes it – Computer systems are ‘universal machines’ (see contends that technologies are the inescapable Turing, 2004); they are (at least theoretically) capable interlocutors between humans and the world, of automatically solving any problem that can be first because all human perceptions are already mediated translated into algorithmic form. As such, their by some form of technology [4] (see Gualeni 2014). architecture is permanently extendible. From a Showing a pragmatist vein, post-phenomenology technological standpoint, both automation and their argues technological artefacts do not have intrinsic truly multi-purpose nature make computer systems properties or essence because their meanings as extra-ordinary and complex [6] tools. But objects are entirely dependent on the context of their computational technology is also unprecedented use. Following Bruno Latour’s (1993) ‘actor-network because, to borrow Floridi’s (2010) words, it theory’, post-phenomenology sees the technology as constitutes a ‘radical new form of engineering’, which mutually constitutive with human users. Given the is ‘re-ontologising’ our world. Being the biconditional nature of this relationship, philosopher ‘quintessential’ implementation of Information Don Ihde, a key figure in the development of post- Technology, computer systems are changing our phenomenology, argues we cannot speak about knowledge, our ethics, our self understanding and our technology independently of the humans using it, for if

CITAR JOURNAL 11 conceptualisation of reality – which has gone from 5.3 THE ULTIMATE MULTI-STABLE MODELLING MACHINE being that which could be measured or empirically Computational technology is the most ‘multi-stable’ perceived, to anything which might be experienced technology we have ever witnessed. To paraphrase (see Floridi, 2009b). Through these appliances we are Manovich (2013), computer systems (or rather, their able to access other possible worlds and interact with software) are permanently extendible. They are other (not necessarily) human agents; computational communication devices, memory devices; they are technology is thus ‘augmenting’ our reality. As a our 'analytical engines', and our tools for 'clear consequence, argues Floridi, our world is being thinking' as the British polymath Freeman Dyson increasingly populated by objects (cars, buildings, (1997). Depending on its configuration, the same tools) that we previously regarded as ‘dead’, but are appliance may be used to analyse statistical data, to now becoming ‘a-live’ (artificially ‘alive’) and able to control a drone, to watch a film, or to edit a interact. This paradoxical reminder of pre-modern and photograph. Like writing, computer systems are not non-western ontologies is perhaps the most visible only means to enhance our memory, but also to example of why computational technology is forcing externalise it; they are technologies meant to process us to re-evaluate our modern ‘Newtonian’ and communicate our thinking. But unlike writing, the metaphysics (see Floridi, 2010). results of this thinking may be objectified beyond 5.2 COMPUTATIONAL TECHNOLOGY AS INFORMATION interpretable code. Computers are modelling TECHNOLOGY appliances that rely on information – i.e., well-formed, meaningful and truthful data (Floridi, 2004) – as their While the multi-stable character of technological raw material. Computers allow us to experience and artefacts implies that their identity as particular objects interact with other possible worlds; the depends largely on the context of their use, it does epistemological and aesthetic possibilities of such not follow that we cannot categorise them in terms of 'augmented ontologies' (see Gualeni, 2014) are some shared set of characteristics. When engaging beyond anything we ever imagined. Computers are computational technology, most contemporary the ultimate tinkering devices. They are the aesthetic analyses identify some formulation of pragmatists' dream machines. ‘media’ as the common denominator for both the tools and the artefacts they generate. But if we agree 6 | A LOADED CONCEPT that a fundamental aspect of all forms of technology is For decades, the go-to category to describe both to stand ‘in-between’ agents and affordances, using computer systems and their outputs has been either mediation as a defining category results in a trivial, if ‘media’ or one of its multiple variations. But while not tautological description. A more appropriate mediation is certainly a core function of computational alternative would be to regard computers as a technology, so it is of all technologies. Media is a high technology that, above all, generates, stores and frequency but low content term; as a conceptual tool communicates information. Now, replacing ‘media’ its own ‘multi-stability’ plays against its descriptive with a much fuzzier term would seem unwise, power. Understanding what kind of tools nonetheless, despite all the semantic instability of the computational technologies are from the perspective term, describing computers as prime examples of of aesthetic creation requires both a theoretical and a Information Technology (IT) does helps to distinguish methodological shift away from the constant them from other ‘mediating’ technological artefacts rehashing of media-centred theories. A good starting (e.g., a screwdriver, which mediates the relationship point would be to ask what is it that we mean when between a human hand and a screw). Furthermore, we talk about media and whether the concept is this apparently innocuous shift of perspective also theoretically sufficient for describing the tools and allows us to relate computational technology with artefacts produced by computational technology. other technologies whose purpose is handling From a methodological perspective it would be useful information, i.e., electronic communication systems to expand our research of computational technology and writing. beyond its particular use as an aesthetic tool, for it is in its wider multi-stable life that the clues leading to its

CITAR JOURNAL 12 CITAR Journal, Volume 7, No. 1 – Special Issue: xCoAx 2015 understanding rest. Moreover, given the constantly [3] It is fair to remember that McLuhan (1994) and evolving nature of information technology at large, and Bolter & Grusin (2000) have more or less made the same point. the permanently extendibility of computer systems, a potential ontological model would require the same [4] A view shared by Kittler (1999, p. 203) who, degree of flexibility and extendibility. This requires a quoting Nietzsche, reminds us that 'our tools are also strong ontological commitment, a core architecture working on our thoughts'. over which to proceed and build future analyses; a [5] In a sense, aesthetic examples of multistable kind of flexible ‘source code’ able to withstand artefacts are appropriation art pieces; since they extreme ‘debugging’ without falling apart. A good acquire entirely different meanings through what starting point would be to situate computational anthropologist Granés (2011) calls 'discursive alchemy'. technology within a larger critique of its extended form: information technology. [6] As McLuhan (1994, p. 356) argued, complexity is inversely proportional to specialisation. 7 | CONCLUSIONS REFERENCES Computers are no ‘ordinary’ tools for art because they are no ‘ordinary’ technology at all. As a third order Bogost, I. (2012). Alien phenomenology, or what it’s technology en route to acquire exponentially more like to be a thing (E-book). Minneapolis: University of autonomy (if not true intelligence), these tools are no Minnesota Press. longer passive mediums for conveying aesthetic http://dx.doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816678976 information, but actual agents capable of generating .001.0001 novel forms of experience. Computational technology Bolter, J. D., & Grusin, R. (2000). Remediation. cannot continue to be regarded as a mere understanding new media (First paperback). intermediary between our supposedly pristine gazes Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. and the world, but as the actual entities responsible for shaping it. Computer systems are not the first, nor Bush, V. (1945). As we may think. The Atlantic. will they be the last form of information technology. Retrieved from Our ‘smart’ devices substituted 1990s PCs, and they http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1945/0 in turn will be replaced by increasingly more 7/as-we-may-think/303881/ sophisticated third order technologies (i.e. artificial Dyson, F. (1997). Imagined worlds. Cambridge, intelligence, biorobotics, etc.). The challenge is thus to Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. develop not an ontology of computer systems as artefacts, but one that encompasses computational Floridi, L. (2004). Information. In L. Floridi (Ed.), technology at large as a modeller of information. From Philosophy of computing and information (First, Vol. the point of view of aesthetic analysis this provides a 14, pp. 40–61). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. twofold advantage: on the one hand it offers a means to understand what kind of tools are we dealing with Floridi, L. (2009a). Information technology. In J. K. B. (modellers, not simple mediators); on the other, it hints Olsen, S. A. Pedersen, & V. F. Hendricks (Eds.), A the ‘stuff’ this tools transform: information itself. companion to the philosophy of technology (pp. 227– 231). Massachusetts; Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. ENDNOTES http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781444310795.ch41

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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION photography, new media, videogames, software studies and philosophy of technology. His current Rodrigo Hernández-Ramírez ( City, 1982) is a research focuses on the ontological nature of PhD candidate in the Faculty of Fine Arts at the computational technology and its impact on aesthetic University of Lisbon, Portugal. He is a member of the practices, as seen through the lens of philosophy of Centre for Research and Studies in Fine Arts (CIEBA) information. at the same institution. His research interests include

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