[-empyre-] week two - MATTER - introduction

[Ashley Scarlett]

Dear --empyre-- community,


While I hope that our conversation on PRACTICE will continue, (there are
still several engaging threads on the go,) I would like to circulate the
introduction for our second sub-theme, MATTER.


Please do join in on the conversation, if you feel so inclined!


Kindly,


A.




*ON MATTER*

“Without a basic understanding of the material constraints under which
computing systems operate, essential dynamics that animate the built
environment of the virtual will remain invisible and unaccounted for”
(Blanchette 2011: 1055).



According to Matthew Kirschenbaum, digital materiality refers to “the
multiple behaviors and states of digital objects and the relational
attitudes by which some are naturalized as a result of the procedural
friction, or torque, … imposed by different software environments” (2012:
132-133). Distinguishing between forensic (physical) materiality and formal
(symbolic-digital) materiality, Kirschenbaum explains that the formal
materiality specific to digital objects is one of durable appearance – it
involves the “simulation or modeling of materiality via programmed software
processes” (9). Reading Kirschenbaum across Johanna Drucker, this
formulation of formal materiality suggests that digital materiality emerges
through “a process of interpretation rather than a positing of the
characteristics of the objects” (Drucker 1994: 43).