M. Beatrice Fazi

Proposes a powerful new theoretical approach to the concept of the digitalDigital Theory argues that the digital is theoretical and should be understood not uniquely in terms of consumer electronics but rather more broadly as a form of mediation using discrete units. Building on this definition, the three essays in this volume explore digitality’s relation to thinking, signs, and difference. M. Beatrice Fazi begins the discussion by way of three propositions on the ontological reach and epistemological scope of digital theory. Alexander R. Galloway then defines the necessary conditions for any symbolic order of the digital type, specifying a series of ten simple mathemes. Matthew Handelman and Leif Weatherby conclude by characterizing digital theory through the dialectical relation between quality and quantity. Taken together, these works expound productively and provocatively on the digital’s far-reaching theoretical potential. Retail e-book files for this title are screen-reader friendly with images accompanied by short alt text and/or extended descriptions.

In Contingent Computation, M. Beatrice Fazi offers a new theoretical perspective through which we can engage philosophically with computing. The book proves that aesthetics is a viable mode of investigating contemporary computational systems. It does so by advancing an original conception of computational aesthetics that does not just concern art made by or with computers, but rather the modes of being and becoming of computational processes. Contingent Computation mobilises the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Alfred North Whitehead in order to address aesthetics as an ontological study of the generative potential of reality. Through a novel philosophical reading of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and of Turing’s notion of incomputability, Fazi finds this potential at the formal heart of computational systems, and argues that computation is a process of determining indeterminacy. This indeterminacy, which is central to computational systems, does not contradict their functionality. Instead, it drives their very operation, albeit in a manner that might not always fit with the instrumental, representational and cognitivist purposes that we have assigned to computing.

In Contingent Computation, M. Beatrice Fazi offers a new theoretical perspective through which we can engage philosophically with computing. The book proves that aesthetics is a viable mode of investigating contemporary computational systems. It does so by advancing an original conception of computational aesthetics that does not just concern art made by or with computers, but rather the modes of being and becoming of computational processes. Contingent Computation mobilises the philosophies of Gilles Deleuze and Alfred North Whitehead in order to address aesthetics as an ontological study of the generative potential of reality. Through a novel philosophical reading of Gödel’s incompleteness theorems and of Turing’s notion of incomputability, Fazi finds this potential at the formal heart of computational systems, and argues that computation is a process of determining indeterminacy. This indeterminacy, which is central to computational systems, does not contradict their functionality. Instead, it drives their very operation, albeit in a manner that might not always fit with the instrumental, representational and cognitivist purposes that we have assigned to computing.