[-empyre-] Digital Objects

[Ashley Scarlett]

Dear --empyre-- members and invited discussants,


Thank you for an engaging start to this month's conversation!


I have a bit of a follow-up question that I feel engages several of the
entries thus far and that, I hope, might get us talking about how to
reconcile function and appearance. After posing my question, I will provide
some context for it.


***


Is framing digital phenomena as "objects" worthwhile? What work can the
concept of "digital object" do for us, that an acknowledgement of perpetual
processuality cannot?


***


Because computer programs are largely founded upon the “presupposition of
representation” (Hui 2012:345), much of the scholarship on digital objects
has been limited to things that could be made visible to a user (Ange’s
comment regarding his reason for back-end “crafting” seems relevant here).
As several of the recent posts (Dragan, Andres, Hannah...) have
articulated, this is a regrettably limited approach that is not able to
account for the depth and processual complexity of digital
objects/things/stuff/whatever.