Contagious Architecture

Computation, Aesthetics, and Space

Luciana Parisi (Goldsmiths College)

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English

MIT Press
01 November 2022

Architectural structure & design; Advertising & society

Series: Technologies of Lived Abstraction

"A proposal that algorithms are not simply instructions to be performed but thinking entities that construct digital spatio-temporalities.

A proposal that algorithms are not simply instructions to be performed but thinking entities that construct digital spatio-temporalities.

In Contagious Architecture, Luciana Parisi offers a philosophical inquiry into the status of the algorithm in architectural and interaction design. Her thesis is that algorithmic computation is not simply an abstract mathematical tool but constitutes a mode of thought in its own right, in that its operation extends into forms of abstraction that lie beyond direct human cognition and control. These include modes of infinity, contingency, and indeterminacy, as well as incomputable quantities underlying the iterative process of algorithmic processing.

The main philosophical source for the project is Alfred North Whitehead, whose process philosophy is specifically designed to provide a vocabulary for ""modes of thought"" exhibiting various degrees of autonomy from human agency even as they are mobilized by it. Because algorithmic processing lies at the heart of the design practices now reshaping our world-from the physical spaces of our built environment to the networked spaces of digital culture-the nature of algorithmic thought is a topic of pressing importance that reraises questions of control and, ultimately, power. Contagious Architecture revisits cybernetic theories of control and information theory's notion of the incomputable in light of this rethinking of the role of algorithmic thought. Informed by recent debates in political and cultural theory around the changing landscape of power, it links the nature of abstraction to a new theory of power adequate to the complexities of the digital world."

By: Luciana Parisi (Goldsmiths College)
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 229mm, Width: 152mm,
Weight: 369g
ISBN: 9780262546652
ISBN 10: 0262546655
Series: Technologies of Lived Abstraction
Pages: 392
Publication Date: 01 November 2022
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Luciana Parisi is a Senior Lecturer and runs the MA program in Interactive Media- Critical Theory and Practice at the Centre for Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths University of London.