the materiality of code: towards an understanding of socio-technical relations
DESCRIPTION
14 Jun 2014 - STS conference in Milan, ItalyTRANSCRIPT
The materiality of code: Towards an understanding of socio-‐technical rela7ons Winnie Soon Aarhus University, Denmark
A MaAer of Design: Making Society through Science and Technology Jun 14, 2014
SoGware • soGware > invisible material • importance of soGware <-‐> social rela7ons • mutable “social object and process” (Mackenzie, 2006, p.1) • produc7on – consump7on – use – circula7on-‐iden7ty (ibid, p.
2)
Program code and sociality • Live happening of data transla7on
– How program code consumes and retrieves data from databases? – How program code accesses data? – How program code interfaces with other systems? – How might we think about code beyond the opera7onal and the
instrumental?
code PlaYorms/Systems Databases
data
Pupufu, 2009
hAps://vimeo.com/6891295 00:18
Mechanics of Pupufu
INTERFACES
(before 2009)
(2009-‐2013) (2009-‐2013)
2013+
Code reading • Close to Cri7cal Code Studies (Marino, 2006)
– Code is a “cultural text” – Not aesthe7cs / efficiency of code – “stress meaning, implica7on, and connota7on…with respect to the
broader social contexts”
• Code (mainly from developer/ar7st’s perspec7ve)
– Source code (as a departure point) – Technical specifica7on – Discussion on code with the ar7st – Developer’s community
Code reading • What is social rela7on of code? • What have been inscribed at the level of code? • How might we interpret socio-‐technical rela7ons through
code discussion?
#1 – social media rela7ons
Ø product life cycle Ø “a range of social factors” which shapes the artwork (Williams and Edge, 1996, p.866)
#2 – The dynamics of the API
-‐ What are the parameters and characteris7cs of an API? -‐ Instability and control ; query of specific data becomes possible -‐ nonhuman par7cipa7on through socio-‐technical dimensions
#3 – Open source and social culture
External library: HTML Agility Pack
-‐ free -‐ open source -‐ “crea7ve labour” (Cox, 2010)
Significance of code
• increasing use of real 7me technology, third-‐party libraries, engines, plugins etc..
• how might we understand the “soGwarized society”? (Berry, 2013)
• suggest tracing program code at a departure point • consider the materiality of code
Thank you
Winnie Soon (ar7st-‐researcher) Aarhus University, Denmark
[email protected] www.siusoon.com