[ecrea] new book: Fun and Software: Exploring Pleasure, Pain and Paradox in Computing

I am pleased to announce that Fun and Software: Exploring Pleasure, Pain 
and Paradox in Computing, edited by Olga Goriunova (Bloomsbury, 2014) is 
out now.
About Fun and Software

Fun and Software offers the untold story of fun as constitutive of the 
culture and aesthetics of computing. Fun in computing is a mode of 
thinking, making and experiencing. It invokes and convolutes the 
question of rationalism and logical reason, addresses the sensibilities 
and experience of computation and attests to its creative drives. By 
exploring topics as diverse as the pleasure and pain of the programmer, 
geek wit, affects of play and coding as a bodily pursuit of the unique 
in recursive structures, Fun and Software helps construct a different 
point of entry to the understanding of software as culture. Fun is a 
form of production that touches on the foundations of formal logic and 
precise notation as well as rhetoric, exhibiting connections between 
computing and paradox, politics and aesthetics. From the formation of 
the discipline of programming as an outgrowth of pure mathematics to its 
manifestation in contemporary and contradictory forms such as gaming, 
data analysis and art, fun is a powerful force that continues to shape 
our life with software as it becomes the key mechanism of contemporary 
society.

Including chapters from leading scholars, programmers and artists, Fun 
and Software makes a major contribution to the field of software studies 
and opens the topic of software to some of the most pressing concerns in 
contemporary theory.

- See more at: 
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/fun-and-software-9781623568870/#sthash.4hNuEQhC.dpuf
Reviews

“A serious materialist approach to software inevitably must confront the 
emotional character of programming, in all of its component parts, from 
the thrill of invention to obsession. It must also wrestle with 
entrenched notions that this craft is driven predominantly by a cool, 
calculated rationality. Long overdue, Fun and Software fulfills both 
requirements, providing an exquisite collection of delightful essays 
full of insight about the deep pleasures and frustrations feeding the 
inventive process of coding.” – Gabriella Coleman, Wolfe Chair in 
Scientific and Technological Literacy, McGill University, Canada

“Fun and Software is a unique and very welcome addition to the existing 
work in software studies and history of computing. The book uncovers 
intense emotions at work throughout computing cultures, with geeks, game 
players, inventors of computers and other characters making appearances. 
The range of covered topics is impressive, and the thinking and writing 
in this book are superb.” – Lev Manovich, Professor of Computer Science, 
The Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA, and Director, 
Software Studies Lab


Table Of Contents


Introduction – Olga Goriunova, University of Warwick, UK

Technology, Logistics and Logic: Rethinking the Problem of Fun in 
Software - Andrew Goffey, University of Nottingham, UK

Bend Sinister: Monstrosity and Normative Effect in Computational 
Practice - Simon Yuill, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Always One Bit More, Computing and the Experience of Ambiguity - Matthew 
Fuller, Goldsmiths, University of London, UK

Do Algorithms Have Fun? On Completion, Indeterminacy and Autonomy in 
Computation - Luciana Parisi and M. Beatrice Fazi, Goldsmiths, 
University of London, UK

useR!: Aggression, Alterity and Unbound Affects in Statistical 
Programming - Adrian Mackenzie, Lancaster University, UK

Do (not) Repeat Yourself - Michael Murtaugh, Piet Zwart Institute, The 
Netherlands

Not Just For Fun - Geoff Cox, Aarhus University, Denmark, and Alex 
McLean, University of Leeds, UK

Fun is a Battlefield: Software between Enjoyment and Obsession - Wendy 
Hui Kyong Chun and Andrew Lison, Brown University, USA

Monopoly and The Logic of Sensation in Spacewar! - Christian Ulrik 
Andersen, Aarhus University, Denmark

Human-Computer Interaction, a Sci-Fi discipline? - Brigitte 
Kaltenbacher, Goldsmiths College, UK

A Fun Aesthetic and Art – Annet Dekker, Piet Zwart Institute, The 
Netherlands

Material Imagination: on the Avant-Gardes, Time and Computation - Olga 
Goriunova, University of Warwick, UK


About the Author

Olga Goriunova is an Associate Professor in the Centre for 
Interdisciplinary Methodologies, The University of Warwick, UK. She is 
author of Art Platforms and Cultural Production on the Internet 
(Routledge, 2012) and a co-founder of the Computational Culture journal 
(http://computationalculture.net).

Published: 28-08-2014

Edition: 1st Extent: 296

ISBN: 9781623568870

Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic Illustrations: 15 bw illus

RRP: £68.99

See more at: 
http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/fun-and-software-9781623568870/#sthash.4hNuEQhC.dpuf




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