The Philosophy of Software ─ Code and Mediation in the Digital Age

This book is a critical introduction to the subject of algorithms, code and software that develops an understanding of the social and philosophical implications. This book has been written specifically for people interested in the subject from a non-technical background and provides a lively and interesting analysis of these new media forms. Software is a tangle, a knot, which ties together the physical and the ephemeral, the material and the ethereal, into a complete system that can be controlled and directed. However, software exceeds our ability to place limits on its entanglement, for it has in the past decade entered the everyday home through electronic augmentation that has replaced the mechanical world of the 20th Century. From washing machines to central heating systems, to children's toys, television and video; the old electro-magnetic and servo-mechanical world is being revolutionised by the silent logic of virtual devices. It is time, therefore, to examine our virtual situation.

David M. Berry is Reader in the School of Media, Film and Music at the University of Sussex and affiliated researcher at Institutt for Medier og Kommunikasjon (IMK), University of Oslo.