Uncomputable

Verso

2021

xv, 263 p.

9781839763984

contents: A Letter from Paris -- Part one. Photography. Petrified photography -- Dimensions without depth -- The parallel image -- Photographic modeling -- Our best machines are made of sunshine -- Part two. Weaving. Spider work -- The Crumb Machine -- Regular irregularity -- Algebraic weaving -- Webs rewoven -- Part three. The digital. From one to two -- The cybernetic hypothesis -- Latticework -- A regular discrete framework -- Part four. Computable creatures. Experiments in bionumeric evolution -- Conjectural biology -- Intensity and survival -- Parallel causality -- Part five. Crystalline war -- Times of crisis -- The Game of War -- A nostalgic algorithm? -- Some problems with the data -- Crystal aesthetics -- Part six. Black Box. Black box cypher -- Black box function -- The tyranny of structurelessness -- The tragedy of interactivity -- Toward a practical nonexistence -- Afterword: A note on method.

Narrating some lesser known episodes from the deep history of digital machines, Galloway explains the technology that drives the world today, and the fascinating people who brought these machines to life. With an eye to both the computable and the uncomputable, Galloway shows how computation emerges or fails to emerge, how the digital thrives but also atrophies, how networks interconnect while also fray and fall apart. By re-building obsolete technology using today's software, the past comes to light in new ways, from intricate algebraic patterns woven on a hand loom, to striking artificial-life simulations, to war games and black boxes. A description of the past, this book is also an assessment of all that remains uncomputable as we continue to live in the aftermath of the long digital age.

Английский