[spectre] Aesthetic Programming: A Handbook of Software Studies by Winnie Soon and Geoff Cox - available open access

[Gary Hall]

We are delighted to announce the publication of /Aesthetic Programming: 
A Handbook of Software Studies/ by Winnie Soon and Geoff Cox.

Like all Open Humanities Press books, /Aesthetic Programming/ is 
available for free:

http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/aesthetic-programming/

/Aesthetic Programming/explores the technical as well as cultural 
imaginaries of programming from its insides. It follows the principle 
that the growing importance of software requires a new kind of cultural 
thinking — and curriculum — that can account for, and with which to 
better understand the politics and aesthetics of algorithmic procedures, 
data processing and abstraction. It takes a particular interest in power 
relations that are relatively under-acknowledged in technical subjects, 
concerning class and capitalism, gender and sexuality, as well as race 
and the legacies of colonialism. This is not only related to the 
politics of representation but also nonrepresentation: how power 
differentials are implicit in code in terms of binary logic, 
hierarchies, naming of the attributes, and how particular worldviews are 
reinforced and perpetuated through computation. Using p5.js, it 
introduces and demonstrates the reflexive practice of aesthetic 
programming, engaging with learning to program as a way to understand 
and question existing technological objects and paradigms, and to 
explore the potential for reprogramming wider eco-socio-technical 
systems. The book itself follows this approach, and is offered as a 
computational object open to modification and reversioning.

Web: http://aesthetic-programming.net

Repository: https://gitlab.com/aesthetic-programming/book

‘Instructive, imaginative and accessible, this is an introduction to 
programming like no other. /Aesthetic Programming/ opens up the thinking 
in software in a vivid, critical and creative manner; it is a book full 
of procedural pleasures and witty algorithms that also poses a 
remarkable set of questions about contemporary digital life.’

- Matthew Fuller, Professor of Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths, University 
of London

‘Skilfully moving across the instructional, the pedagogic, and the 
critical, Aesthetic Programming makes an expansive contribution to 
computational thinking. Engaging with programming from a practice-based 
approach, this illuminating text demonstrates how critical aesthetics 
can transform programming. Recipe book, code library, poetic manual, 
convivial instructional, and primer to computing imaginaries all 
assemble into this compelling and indispensable addition to software 
studies.’

- Jennifer Gabrys, Chair in Media, Culture and Environment, University 
of Cambridge

Author Bios

Geoff Cox likes not to think of himself as an old white man from a 
parochial island but is clearly in denial. Thankfully other aspects of 
his identity are more ambiguous and fluid. Research interests lie 
broadly across the fields of software studies, contemporary art 
practice, cultural theory, and image politics, reflected in his academic 
position as Associate Professor and co-Director of the Centre for the 
Study of the Networked Image at London South Bank University, UK, and 
Adjunct Associate Professor, Aarhus University, DK.

Winnie Soon was born and raised in Hong Kong, increasingly aware of, and 
confronting, identity politics regarding its colonial legacy and 
postcolonial authoritarianism. As an artist-coder-researcher, she/they 
is interested in queering the intersections of technical and artistic 
practices as a feminist praxis, with works appearing in museums, 
galleries, festivals, distributed networks, papers and books. 
Researching in the areas of software studies and computational 
practices, she/they is currently Associate Professor at Aarhus 
University, Denmark.

Best, Gary, David and Sigi

(Open Humanities Press)

-- 
Gary Hall
Professor of Media
Director of the Centre for Postdigital Cultures, Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Coventry University:
http://www.coventry.ac.uk/research/areas-of-research/postdigital-cultures

http://www.garyhall.info

Latest:
Book: A Stubborn Fury: How Writing Works in Elitist Britain:
http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/a-stubborn-fury/

Chapter: ‘Postdigital Politics’, in Cornelia Sollfrank, Shuhsa Niederberger and Felix Stalder, eds, Aesthetics of the Commons:
https://www.diaphanes.com/titel/aesthetics-of-the-commons-6419




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