Author Biography

Aden Evens is Associate Professor of English at Dartmouth College, USA.

Table of Contents

Introduction1. From Bits to the Object2. From Objects to the Interface3. On the Interface- Input- Mediation- Output 4. From the Interface to the Web5. Abstraction and Its ConsequencesBibliographyIndex

Review

In pointing a finger at the digital, Aden Evens is neither skeptical nor enthusiastic, but offers a careful tracking of the logic described in his title. Careful in the meticulous and informed argument, written in lucid and downright enjoyable prose; but also careful in how far to lament or grieve future outcomes, and here Evens is reasoned and balanced in weighing the potentials of the digital; and finally, care in assessing the burden or weight of the digital on us - how much care we need to take. In this, Evens pulls off the feat of arguing the digital is defined by its abstraction and showing this abstraction in the most pragmatic and everyday ways possible. We feel the digital's weight in all we do today, and Evens' book is a wise and necessary guide. -- Sandy Baldwin, Professor of English, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Evens (Dartmouth College) argues that something is lost in our interactions with digital technologies. Clearly, much is changed, but is the loss more than the gain? Evens … develops the argument … as a critique of abstraction, an etymological deconstruction of language used to talk about abstraction, and prescriptive critical analyses of Smalltalk, the user interface, and the World Wide Web. … It may well be that digital objects have a more austere logic than physical objects, but this makes it even more important to understand how they have nevertheless transformed human activity and experience so rapidly and thoroughly. Useful for graduate students, primarily to provoke critical discussions about digital technology. Summing Up: Recommended. Graduate students. * CHOICE *

Promotional

An ontological study of how the digital works and the characteristics it lends to the technologies and cultures that surround it.

Long Description

Building a foundational understanding of the digital, Logic of the Digital examines it as a unique ontology. Starting with its formal and technical characteristics, captured by the binary code, Aden Evans asks how the digital domain of abstract logic encounters a material, human world...Focusing on the formal, universal code and the elements of creative production, Evans shows how any encounter between the actual and the digital must cross an ontological divide: the gap between the productive materiality of the human world and the reductive abstraction of this binary code. Evans traces the distortions of this ontological crossing, looking directly at formal abstraction as well as analyzing exemplary digital technologies such as the mouse, the internet, and the concept of software. He also raises the paradoxical issue of creativity in relation to digital technologies: ontology of abstraction leaves little room for the unpredictable or accidental that is essential to creativity, but digital technologies are nevertheless patently creative. Evans tackles how the ostensibly sterile binary code can lend itself to such fecund cultural production. Through clarification of the digital's ontological foundation, Evans points to a significant threat to creativity lurking in the nature of the digital and explains the importance of creating a digital ethics. ..Constructing a map of the ontology of the digital, exploring the potentials of programming and using gaming as the ideal test of digital ontology, Logic of the Digital guides future practices and shapes academic research in digital technologies.

Review Quote

In pointing a finger at the digital, Aden Evens is neither skeptical nor enthusiastic, but offers a careful tracking of the logic described in his title. Careful in the meticulous and informed argument, written in lucid and downright enjoyable prose; but also careful in how far to lament or grieve future outcomes, and here Evens is reasoned and balanced in weighing the potentials of the digital; and finally, care in assessing the burden or weight of the digital on us - how much care we need to take. In this, Evens pulls off the feat of arguing the digital is defined by its abstraction and showing this abstraction in the most pragmatic and everyday ways possible. We feel the digital's weight in all we do today, and Evens' book is a wise and necessary guide.

Promotional "Headline"

An ontological study of how the digital works and the characteristics it lends to the technologies and cultures that surround it.

Feature

Presents a new philosophical understanding of the foundations of the digital

Details