Last fall, I presented a summary of my thesis work at the ACADIA 2017: Disciplines and Disruptions conference held at MIT. It was an exciting entry into the publishing/conference world, and the condensed format of the paper supplies me with a nice, concise version of my thesis. I’ve converted it into a blog post, sansContinue reading “Toward Computational Play”
Tag Archives: computers
Virtual Medium: A History
medium (n): 1580s, “a middle ground, quality, or degree,” from Latin medium “the middle, midst, center; interval,” noun use of neuter of adjective medius (see medial (adj.)). Meaning “intermediate agency, channel of communication” is from c. 1600. – etymonline.com I continually find myself returning to this word. At the risk of oversimplifying things, I’d like to posit the theory that designContinue reading “Virtual Medium: A History”
Irresponsible Indecision
Is the printer the source of our problems? When we create things digitally, they remain eternally editable. They become the “sought-after, mythic unstable object[s]” we have searched for in recent decades (Wes Jones, ‘Big Forking Dilemma’). Printing them out kills that. It crystallizes them, strips them of the strength they achieve through anonymity. It forcesContinue reading “Irresponsible Indecision”
Virtuality
In her writing “Cyberspace, Virtuality, and the Real,” Elizabeth Grosz states that “the concept of virtuality has been with us a remarkably long time. It is a coherent and functional idea already in Plato’s writings, where both ideas and simulacra exist in some state of virtuality…since there has been writing…there has been some idea ofContinue reading “Virtuality”
Computational Neuroscience: Brains vs. Binary
Brains and computers share many similarities in the basic, core structure of their processing methods: Computers utilize the binary system of 1’s and 0’s to encode and organize information, relying on the incredibly rapid method of electrical communication to process data. Patterns of these two digits are compiled in incredibly long strings, providing the varietyContinue reading “Computational Neuroscience: Brains vs. Binary”
“For one can well conceive that a machine may be so made as to emit words, and even that it may emit some in relation to bodily actions which cause a change in its organs, as, for example, if one were to touch it in a particular place, it may ask what one wishes toContinue reading
Scott Penman 