Adrian MacKenzie – författare

Software has often been marginalized in accounts of digital cultures and network societies. Although software is everywhere, it is hard to say what it actually is. Cutting Code: Software and Sociality is one of the first books to treat software seriously as a full-blown cultural process and as a subtly powerful material in contemporary communication. From deCSS to Java, from Linux to Extreme Programming, this book analyses software artworks, operating systems, commercial products, infrastructures, and programming practices. It explores social forms, identities, materialities, and power relations associated with software, and it asks how software provokes the re-thinking of production, consumption and distribution as entwined cultural processes. Cutting Code argues that analysis of code as a mosaic of algorithms, protocols, infrastructures, and programming conventions offers valuable insights into how contemporary social formations invent new kinds of personhood and new ways of acting.

What do the patented data structures embedded deep in the code of an online computer game or the massively complicated architecture of the latest supercomputer used to simulate nuclear explosions have to do with culture, life or meaning? Why does technology attract such wildly differing responses - from fervour to boredom to distrust? Transductions explores these questions by drawing on science and technology studies, contemporary critical theory and corporeal theory. An exploration of complex technologies such as online computer games, genomic databases and the global positioning system reveals how the borders between bodies and machines, between what counts as social and what counts as technical, are no less diverse and complicated than culture itself. Indeed, they constitute a crucial dimension of contemporary culture. Through a critical analysis of the widely accepted notion that technology speeds everything up, Transductions argues that there are only ever differences in speed. The question for us now is how can such differences be represented? Transductions was originally part of the Technologies: Studies in Culture and Theory series.

As individuals increasingly seek ways of accessing, understanding and sharing data about their own bodies, this book offers a critique of the popular claim that ‘more information’ equates to ‘better health’. In a study that redefines the public, academic and policy related debates around health, bodies, information and data, the authors consider the ways in which the phenomenon of self-diagnosis has created alternative worlds of knowledge and practises which are often at odds with professional medical advice. With a focus on data that concerns significant life changes, this book explores the potential challenges related to people’s changing relationships with traditional health systems as access to, and control over, data shifts.

As individuals increasingly seek ways of accessing, understanding and sharing data about their own bodies, this book offers a critique of the popular claim that ‘more information’ equates to ‘better health’. In a study that redefines the public, academic and policy related debates around health, bodies, information and data, the authors consider the ways in which the phenomenon of self-diagnosis has created alternative worlds of knowledge and practises which are often at odds with professional medical advice. With a focus on data that concerns significant life changes, this book explores the potential challenges related to people’s changing relationships with traditional health systems as access to, and control over, data shifts.

In today’s digital world, platforms are everywhere, shaping our social and cultural landscapes. This groundbreaking book shows how platforms are not just technical systems, but complex networks involving diverse people, practices and values. It explores a wide range of digital platforms, using insights from science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology and cultural theories to offer fresh perspectives on how platforms, media and devices function and evolve.Blending ethnographic work with technical analysis, this is essential reading for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the digital age.

In today’s digital world, platforms are everywhere, shaping our social and cultural landscapes. This groundbreaking book shows how platforms are not just technical systems, but complex networks involving diverse people, practices and values. It explores a wide range of digital platforms, using insights from science and technology studies, anthropology, sociology and cultural theories to offer fresh perspectives on how platforms, media and devices function and evolve.Blending ethnographic work with technical analysis, this is essential reading for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of the digital age.

Transductions explores the nature of technological speed and how technology becomes part of living bodies.Drawing on deconstruction and corporeal theory, Transductions re-examines the borders between bodies and machines, between what counts as social and what counts as technological. Using examples which include online computer games, military supercomputers, genomic databases, performance art and the global positioning system, Mackenzie critiques the widely accepted notion that technology speeds everything up, arguing instead that there are only ever differences in speed.