Driven by capital, the algorithmic exhausts subjects and spaces. But these encounters also reveal that force is never guaranteed; control gives way to contingency.

Ferocious Logics

Unmaking the Algorithm

Contemporary power manifests in the algorithmic. And yet this power seems incomprehensible: understood as code, it becomes apolitical; understood as a totality, it becomes overwhelming. This book takes an alternate approach, using it to unravel the operations of Uber and Palantir, Airbnb and Amazon Alexa. Moving off the whiteboard and into the world, the algorithmic must negotiate with frictions—the ‘merely’ technical routines of distributing data and running tasks coming together into broader social forces that shape subjectivities, steer bodies, and calibrate relationships. Driven by the imperatives of capital, the algorithmic exhausts subjects and spaces, a double move seeking to both exhaustively apprehend them and exhaust away their productivities. But these on-the-ground encounters also reveal that force is never guaranteed. The irreducibility of the world renders logic inadequate and control gives way to contingency.

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Publishing Year
2018
Language
English
Pages
172
Print Edition Price
€ 19.90 RRP
License
CC-BY-SA 4.0
ISBNs
978-3-95796-140-2 (Print)
978-3-95796-141-9 (PDF)
DOI
10.14619/1402
Available as
Print (Paperback), PDF

The Author

Luke Munn uses both practice-based and theoretical approaches to explore the intersections between technology and capital, body and code. His projects have been exhibited throughout Europe, North America, and Oceania. He is a Studio Supervisor at Whitecliffe College of Art & Design and a current PhD Candidate at the Institute for Culture & Society, Western Sydney University.

Luke Munn's Author Profile