Fun and Software

Olga Goriunova is an Assistant Professor in the Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, The University of Warwick, UK. She is author of Art Platforms and Cultural Production on the Internet (2012) and a co-founder of the Computational Culture journal.

A serious materialist approach to software inevitably must confront the emotional character of programming, in all of its component parts, from the thrill of invention to obsession. It must also wrestle with entrenched notions that this craft is driven predominantly by a cool, calculated rationality. Long overdue, Fun and Software fulfills both requirements, providing an exquisite collection of delightful essays full of insight about the deep pleasures and frustrations feeding the inventive process of coding.

• AcknowledgementsIntroduction – Olga Goriunova, University of Warwick, UKTechnology, Logistics and Logic: Rethinking the Problem of Fun in Software - Andrew Goffey, University of Nottingham, UKBend Sinister: Monstrosity and Normative Effect in Computational Practice - Simon Yuill, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK Always One Bit More, Computing and the Experience of Ambiguity - Matthew Fuller, Goldsmiths, University of London, UKDo Algorithms Have Fun? On Completion, Indeterminacy and Autonomy in Computation - Luciana Parisi and M. Beatrice Fazi, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK useR!: Aggression, Alterity and Unbound Affects in Statistical Programming - Adrian Mackenzie, Lancaster University, UK Do (not) Repeat Yourself - Michael Murtaugh, Piet Zwart Institute, The NetherlandsNot Just For Fun - Geoff Cox, Aarhus University, Denmark, and Alex McLean, University of Leeds, UKFun is a Battlefield: Software between Enjoyment and Obsession - Wendy Hui Kyong Chun and Andrew Lison, Brown University, USAMonopoly and The Logic of Sensation in Spacewar! - Christian Ulrik Andersen, Aarhus University, DenmarkHuman-Computer Interaction, a Sci-Fi discipline? - Brigitte Kaltenbacher, Goldsmiths College, UKA Fun Aesthetic and Art – Annet Dekker, Piet Zwart Institute, The Netherlands Material Imagination: on the Avant-Gardes, Time and Computation - Olga Goriunova, University of Warwick, UKNotes on Contributors