On 08/22/2013 02:58 AM, Lee Azzarello wrote:
Alexander Galloway wrote a wonderful text on decentralized control titled Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization. Worth the read.
Really? From the MIT Press's blurb: "In Protocol, Alexander Galloway argues that the founding principle of the Net is control, not freedom, and that the controlling power lies in the technical protocols that make network connections (and disconnections) possible. He does this by treating the computer as a textual medium that is based on a technological language, code. Code, he argues, can be subject to the same kind of cultural and literary analysis as any natural language; computer languages have their own syntax, grammar, communities, and cultures. Instead of relying on established theoretical approaches, Galloway finds a new way to write about digital media, drawing on his backgrounds in computer programming and critical theory. "Discipline-hopping is a necessity when it comes to complicated socio-technical topics like protocol," he writes in the preface." Oh dear. Stephan