Beautiful Data

Orit Halpern is Assistant Professor of History at the New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College.

"Overall... this is quite an interesting read, illustrating how a single idea (cybernetics) can permeate all walks of life, at least for a time." - Alexander von Lünen (British Journal for the History of Science) "...Halpern’s brilliant and blow-by-blow exposition on the transformation of our sense and reason in Beautiful Data certainly enriches our critical and historical understanding of important parts of contemporary society. This book contributes to the fields of communication studies, media studies, and science, technology and society (STS), as well as the history of science." - Yasuhito Abe (International Journal of Communication) "Bringing together the history of science with studies of media, affect, and aesthetics, Beautiful Data offers a compelling account of the epistemological infrastructures of the digital that have, since 1945, radically changed the ways we see, interpret, and think." - Jessica Hurley (American Literature) "Beautiful Data is an innovative, informative and highly enjoyable read for those who often find themselves hovering between disciplinary fields, offering a reflective history of early cybernetics, art, design, psychology and political science. Halpern guides her readers gracefully thorugh a history of interactivity between humans and machines, the archive and the interface." - Amanda Tully (Science & Technology Studies) "Beautiful Data will no doubt comprise a critical touchstone for future reflections on 'big data' and where it is taking us." - Hallam Stevens (Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences) "Beautiful Data is a significant work of contemporary theory . . . [that] lends difficult, rich new insights to unthought histories of digital perception, and to possible futures we might not only long for but actively build." - Jackie Orr (Isis)

• Acknowledgments viiPrologue. Speculating on Sense 1Introduction. Dreams for Our Perceptual Present 91. Archiving. Temporality, Storage, and Interactivity in Cybernetics 392. Visualizing. Design, Communicative Objectivity, and the Interface 793. Rationalizing. Cognition, Time, and Logic in the Social and Behavioral Sciences 1454. Governing. Designing Information and Reconfiguring Population circa 1959 199Conclusion 239Epilogue 251Notes 271Bibliography 307Index 327