Books Archives • Digicult | Digital Art, Design and Culture

Digital Stretch Marks: Bodies, Genders and Technologies

Digital Stretch Marks is a book curated by Carlotta Cossutta, Valentina Greco, Arianna Mainardi and Stefania Voli, which has been published in 2018 by Agenzia X, a publishing house from Milan. The book consists of a series of essays, all of which address various aspects of technologies, from different points of view, using instruments from different disciplines.... READ MORE...

Digital Demagogue. Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter

In his latest work, Digital Demagogue. Authoritarian Capitalism in the Age of Trump and Twitter, published by Pluto Press, Christian Fuchs - critical theorist of communication and society, as well as Professor at the University of Westminster - provides an excellent critical analysis of the current US President, Donald Trump, his social media strategy and the raise of right-wing authoritarianism within the social media era.... READ MORE...

Future Gaming: creative interventions in Video Game Culture

This text is part of the Goldsmiths Press/MIT Press Future Media series, encouraging authors to offer a relatively short, sharp intervention in response to actual or potential short-term, utilitarian and instrumentalist thinking about a particular scenario or performance of media and technological futurism.... READ MORE...

Machine Art In The Twentieth Century: interview with Andreas Broeckmann

Starting from the assumption that machine art is not an artistic genre or category, but rather a “discursive formation”, in “Machine Art in the Twentieth Century” Andreas Broeckmann examines artworks from the twentieth and early twenty-first century in the light of new technologies developments, leading to a deeper investigation about the complex and articulate human-machine engagement.... READ MORE...

Across & Beyond: Post-digital Practices, Concepts, and Institutions

This collection of essays has been conceived and developed by Transmediale festival in Berlin in occasion of its 30th anniversary, and gathers contributions and essays by international theorists and media artists to provide the audience with a critical approach to the so called "post-digital landscape" also representing a further theoretical exploration of themes reflected in the last festival edition.... READ MORE...

The Handbook of Visual Culture

The Handbook of Visual Culture is now available in paperback format, edited by Bloomsbury Publishing. It includes several contributions by scholars and professionals challenging the vitality and complexity of visual culture research with a cross-disciplinary approach and a special interest in cyber and digital culture.... READ MORE...

The Ethics of Inventions, by Sheila Jasanoff

The Ethics of Invention, the latest essay by Sheila Jasanoff, Harvard lecturer and leading scholar in the field of social studies on science and technology, represents a change of perspective on the role of technology in society, inviting us to reflect in a more concrete and multifaceted way on the implications and problems caused today by technological innovation.... READ MORE...

Once Upon an Algorithm: How Stories Explain Computing, by Martin Erwig

Martin Erwig is Professor of Computer Science in the School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Oregon State University. In his recent text, “Once upon an Algorithm”, published for MIT Press, the author proposes an innovative and original approach for introducing computational thinking concepts to general public, while going beyond the strict technical domain.... READ MORE...

Nuove geografie del suono, di Leandro Pisano

Uno dei punti di forza dell'ultimo libro di Leandro Pisano sta nella sua attitudine a mantenere l'impianto teorico in dialogo costante con alcune pratiche della sound art contemporanea. Dall'analisi delle teorie del suono contemporanee fino all'indagine di alcune opere secondo un approccio acustemologico, Pisano apre prospettive di nuove connessioni tra teoria e prassi.... READ MORE...

Sirens: an audio-visual project by Novi_Sad and Ryoichi Kurokawa

Sirens, originally an audio-visual project by Novi_sad and Ryoichi Kurokawa, has taken now the form of a publication, including an audio CD and a Book, released in 2016 for Sub Rosa (BE) and s[edition] (U.K.). The original audio-visual performance - where Kurokawa’s visuals meet the audio work of Kaproulias - took place in 2009, at different festival and venues around the world.... READ MORE...

The age of Electroacustics. Transforming Science and Sound

In his book "The age of Electroacustics", published by MIT Press, Roland Wittje traces the history of acoustics during the interwar period, leading an enquiry theoretically grounded in the physics and its transformation into the so called ‘technical acoustics’ or electroacoustic.... READ MORE...

Digimag Journal: Digital Identities, Self Narratives. Out Now

Curated by Silvia Bertolotti and Marco Mancuso, Digimag Journal | Issue 75 "Digital Identities and Self Narratives" gathers 13 contributions from artists, researchers, theorists and curators from all over the world, who suggest critical insights about the role of digital art and technology in the shaping of identity. Digimag Journal new issue is available for free download in PDF, ePUB, MOBI and PRINT ON DEMAND on Digicult Editions.... READ MORE...

@ is for Activism: Dissent, Resistance and Rebellion in a Digital Culture. Joss Hands, Pluto Press

@ is for Activism, published by Pluto Press represents a remarkable and valuable contribution to media, communication and politics studies, The author, Joss Hands, is Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Studies at the Newcastle University and with this text he provides a critical overview about the reshaping of the political landscape by new media and digital communication tools through a multidisciplinary approach.... READ MORE...

Machine Learning by Ethem Alpaydin, MIT Press, 2016

“Machine Learning” has been released in November 2016 and written by Ethem Alpaydin. The MIT Press Essential Knowledge series offers concise, accessible overviews of compelling topics. Written by leading thinkers, the volumes provide expert syntheses of subjects ranging from the cultural and historical to the scientific and technical, “synthesising specialised subject matter for non-specialists”.... READ MORE...

Network Aesthetics by Patrick Jagoda. Chicago University Press, 2016

In this sense, the text Network Aesthetics, represents a truly valuable contribution to the field of media theory and cultural – but also American - studies, in the effort to understand the role of interconnection structures in contemporary culture and to showing how networks might have also a strong aesthetical connotation, encompassing in particular contemporary artistic productions, like television series, movies and games productions.... READ MORE...

Artificial Darkness: an obscure history of Modern Art and Media

Noam Elcott, an associate professor of art history and archaeology at Columbia University, recently released this new book for MIT press: Artificial Darkness which is an original and pioneering study about artificial darkness, meaning technology controlled darkness, in other words an investigation about the role of “black screens” in shaping arts and media practices from the 19th century onwards.... READ MORE...

The 3D Additivist Cookbook. Edited by Morehshin Allahyari & Daniel Rourke

The 3D Additivist Cookbook, devised and edited by Morehshin Allahyari & Daniel Rourke, is a free compendium of imaginative, provocative works from over 100 world-leading artists, activists and theorists. The 3D Additivist Cookbook contains 3D .obj and .stl files, critical and fictional texts, templates, recipes, (im)practical designs and methodologies for living in this most contradictory of times.... READ MORE...

Not just a matter of nostalgia: loving the vinyl record in the digital age

The return of the use of vinyl is a nostalgic issue or a reaction to the digital world, preferring a specific auditory experience? Vinyl: the Analogue Record in the Digital Age, a book of 2015, written by Dominique Bartmanski and Ian Woodward responds at this question assuming an historical, unique and not at all obvious perspective.... READ MORE...