Christian Ulrik Andersen
Associate Professor, PhD
Dept. of Digital Design & Information Studies
Aarhus University, Denmark
https://cuandersen.wordpress.com
http://person.au.dk/en/[email protected]
I teach and research software as a culture and a means of expression (aka “software studies”) and I have a special interest in the increased role of computer interfaces in our culture and society – both the ones that we see and touch everyday, and the ones that we don’t (aka “interface criticism”). Topics I deal with range from e-readers, digital/hybrid publishing, video conferencing, gaming, design, smart cites, cloud computing, platforms, data/algorithms, and much more. But the perspective never changes: my ambition is to bring the knowledge and practices found in the underbelly of digital culture and art to the fore.
I believe that digital art and activism (net art, software art, critical making, creative coding, electronic literature, and other critical technical practices) may help us understand how software (including its various interfaces and infrastructures) sustains and automatizes processes of both labor and cultural activities. Algorithms and computation may influence anything from the work-place, self-driving cars to the ways images, text, movies, music/sound, games and much more are produced, distributed and consumed. We create software in the image of how we imagine these processes, but at the same time software also affect the ways these processes take place. Digital art and activism provides a perspective in the unintended glitches, the transformations that lead to conflicts or repressions, as well as the new and innovative excess energies. Therefore I research the role of software in these processes through both analytical/theoretical and practical/experimental work
Dept. of Digital Design & Information Studies
Aarhus University, Denmark
https://cuandersen.wordpress.com
http://person.au.dk/en/[email protected]
I teach and research software as a culture and a means of expression (aka “software studies”) and I have a special interest in the increased role of computer interfaces in our culture and society – both the ones that we see and touch everyday, and the ones that we don’t (aka “interface criticism”). Topics I deal with range from e-readers, digital/hybrid publishing, video conferencing, gaming, design, smart cites, cloud computing, platforms, data/algorithms, and much more. But the perspective never changes: my ambition is to bring the knowledge and practices found in the underbelly of digital culture and art to the fore.
I believe that digital art and activism (net art, software art, critical making, creative coding, electronic literature, and other critical technical practices) may help us understand how software (including its various interfaces and infrastructures) sustains and automatizes processes of both labor and cultural activities. Algorithms and computation may influence anything from the work-place, self-driving cars to the ways images, text, movies, music/sound, games and much more are produced, distributed and consumed. We create software in the image of how we imagine these processes, but at the same time software also affect the ways these processes take place. Digital art and activism provides a perspective in the unintended glitches, the transformations that lead to conflicts or repressions, as well as the new and innovative excess energies. Therefore I research the role of software in these processes through both analytical/theoretical and practical/experimental work
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Papers by Christian Ulrik Andersen
Computer games are cultural software, meaning that not only are they an example of play as a particular cultural behaviour, other cultural forms and behaviours are also accessed through computer games. In this way, computer games have been the scene for exploring new forms of identity construction, new narratives, new forms of human computer interaction and so forth. Today, many games explore the possibilities of staging games within social networking services. In other words, they at once explore the social network as a game and transform the cultural significance of the social network. Investigating the significance of this transformation, the article will analyze the network game Vampires, an application for the social networking service Facebook. The article argues that the coupling of game and social networking service in Vampires first and foremost changes the properties of the game by blurring the borders between game and network. This is all but insignificant from a cultural perspective. By changing the game, basic cultural behaviours are transformed, predominantly the notion of sociality, productivity and the distinction between public and private. In this way, the analysis of Vampires will reveal a manifestation of immaterial labour, late capitalism and network culture.
How the interface has moved from the PC into cultural platforms, as seen in a series of works of net art, software art and electronic literature.
The computer interface is both omnipresent and invisible, at once embedded in everyday objects and characterized by hidden exchanges of information between objects. The interface has moved from office into culture, with devices, apps, the cloud, and data streams as new cultural platforms. In The Metainterface, Christian Ulrik Andersen and Søren Bro Pold examine the relationships between art and interfaces, tracing the interface's disruption of everyday cultural practices. They present a new interface paradigm of cloud services, smartphones, and data capture, and examine how particular art forms—including net art, software art, and electronic literature—seek to reflect and explore this paradigm.
Andersen and Pold argue that despite attempts to make the interface disappear into smooth access and smart interaction, it gradually resurfaces; there is a metainterface to the displaced interface. Art can help us see this; the interface can be an important outlet for aesthetic critique. Andersen and Pold describe the “semantic capitalism” of a metainterface industry that captures user behavior; the metainterface industry's disruption of everyday urban life, changing how the city is read, inhabited, and organized; the ways that the material displacement of the cloud affects the experience of the interface; and the potential of designing with an awareness of the language and grammar of interfaces.
Computer games are cultural software, meaning that not only are they an example of play as a particular cultural behaviour, other cultural forms and behaviours are also accessed through computer games. In this way, computer games have been the scene for exploring new forms of identity construction, new narratives, new forms of human computer interaction and so forth. Today, many games explore the possibilities of staging games within social networking services. In other words, they at once explore the social network as a game and transform the cultural significance of the social network. Investigating the significance of this transformation, the article will analyze the network game Vampires, an application for the social networking service Facebook. The article argues that the coupling of game and social networking service in Vampires first and foremost changes the properties of the game by blurring the borders between game and network. This is all but insignificant from a cultural perspective. By changing the game, basic cultural behaviours are transformed, predominantly the notion of sociality, productivity and the distinction between public and private. In this way, the analysis of Vampires will reveal a manifestation of immaterial labour, late capitalism and network culture.
How the interface has moved from the PC into cultural platforms, as seen in a series of works of net art, software art and electronic literature.
The computer interface is both omnipresent and invisible, at once embedded in everyday objects and characterized by hidden exchanges of information between objects. The interface has moved from office into culture, with devices, apps, the cloud, and data streams as new cultural platforms. In The Metainterface, Christian Ulrik Andersen and Søren Bro Pold examine the relationships between art and interfaces, tracing the interface's disruption of everyday cultural practices. They present a new interface paradigm of cloud services, smartphones, and data capture, and examine how particular art forms—including net art, software art, and electronic literature—seek to reflect and explore this paradigm.
Andersen and Pold argue that despite attempts to make the interface disappear into smooth access and smart interaction, it gradually resurfaces; there is a metainterface to the displaced interface. Art can help us see this; the interface can be an important outlet for aesthetic critique. Andersen and Pold describe the “semantic capitalism” of a metainterface industry that captures user behavior; the metainterface industry's disruption of everyday urban life, changing how the city is read, inhabited, and organized; the ways that the material displacement of the cloud affects the experience of the interface; and the potential of designing with an awareness of the language and grammar of interfaces.