The Cultures Of Computing

This is one of the first collections exploring the range of cultural practices associated with the design and use of computing. Against the background of the "information revolution", the volume shows how people come to computers as learners, artists, teachers, designers, gatekeepers, or scientists. The contributors cover a range of topics, from the military to gender in cyberspace, from education to multi-national corporate IT use.

Ada’s Legacy illustrates the depth and diversity of writers, thinkers, and makers who have been inspired by Ada Lovelace, the English mathematician and writer. The volume, which commemorates the bicentennial of Ada’s birth in December 1815, celebrates Lovelace’s many achievements as well as the impact of her life and work, which reverberated widely since the late nineteenth century. In the 21st century we have seen a resurgence in Lovelace scholarship, thanks to the growth of interdisciplinary thinking and the expanding influence of women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Ada’s Legacy is a unique contribution to this scholarship, thanks to its combination of papers on Ada’s collaboration with Charles Babbage, Ada’s position in the Victorian and Steampunk literary genres, Ada’s representation in and inspiration of contemporary art and comics, and Ada’s continued relevance in discussions around gender and technology in the digital age. With the 200th anniversary of Ada Lovelace’s birth on December 10, 2015, we believe that the timing is perfect to publish this collection of papers. Because of its broad focus on subjects that reach far beyond the life and work of Ada herself, Ada’s Legacy will appeal to readers who are curious about Ada’s enduring importance in computing and the wider world.

Leading media scholars consider the social and cultural changes that come with the contemporary development of ubiquitous computing. Ubiquitous computing and our cultural life promise to become completely interwoven: technical currents feed into our screen culture of digital television, video, home computers, movies, and high-resolution advertising displays. Technology has become at once larger and smaller, mobile and ambient. In Throughout, leading writers on new media--including Jay David Bolter, Mark Hansen, N. Katherine Hayles, and Lev Manovich--take on the crucial challenges that ubiquitous and pervasive computing pose for cultural theory and criticism. The thirty-four contributing researchers consider the visual sense and sensations of living with a ubicomp culture; electronic sounds from the uncanny to the unremarkable; the effects of ubicomp on communication, including mobility, transmateriality, and infinite availability; general trends and concrete specificities of interaction designs; the affectivity in ubicomp experiences, including performances; context awareness; and claims on the "real" in the use of such terms as "augmented reality" and "mixed reality."

This exciting new book explores the relationship between cultural traditions and computers, looking at how people from very different cultures and backgrounds communicate and how the use of information technologies can support and enhance these dialogues. Historically we developed our understanding of other cultures through traditional means (museums, printed literature, etc.) but the advent of information technologies has allowed us access to a plethora of material. Tosa asks the question “Can we understand other cultures using computers as media to supplement thinking and memorization?” Starting with a survey of art and technology, moving into the area of culture and technology, the book culminates with a vision of a new world based on an understanding of these relationships, allowing cultural creators and viewers the opportunity to reach a better and more profound understanding of the role information technology will play going forward.

This volume contains articles on the Net and Cyberspace. It examines the arrival of E-mail and online discussion groups, and considers the prospects for an "online world" - a playground for virtual bodies in which identities are flexible and disconnected from real-world bodies.

In the light of upcoming global issues, concerning population, energy, the environment, and food, information and communication technologies are required to overcome difficulties in communication among cultures. In this context, the First International Conference on Culture and Computing, which was held in Kyoto, Japan, in February 2010, was conceived as a collection of symposia, panels, workshops, exhibitions, and guided tours intended to share issues, activities, and research results regarding culture and computing. This volume includes 17 invited and selected papers dealing with state-of-the-art topics in culturally situated agents, intercultural collaboration and support systems, culture and computing for art and heritage, as well as culture and computing within regional communities.

Electric Dreams turns to the past to trace the cultural history of computers. Ted Friedman charts the struggles to define the meanings of these powerful machines over more than a century, from the failure of Charles Babbage’s “difference engine” in the nineteenth century to contemporary struggles over file swapping, open source software, and the future of online journalism. To reveal the hopes and fears inspired by computers, Electric Dreams examines a wide range of texts, including films, advertisements, novels, magazines, computer games, blogs, and even operating systems. Electric Dreams argues that the debates over computers are critically important because they are how Americans talk about the future. In a society that in so many ways has given up on imagining anything better than multinational capitalism, cyberculture offers room to dream of different kinds of tomorrow.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Culture and Computing, C&C 2023, held as part of the 25th International Conference, HCI International 2023, which was held virtually in Copenhagen, Denmark in July 2023. The total of 1578 papers and 396 posters included in the HCII 2023 proceedings was carefully reviewed and selected from 7472 submissions. The C&C 2023 proceeding focuses on preserving, disseminating, and creating cultural heritages via ICT (e.g., digital archives), to empower humanities research via ICT (i.e., digital humanities), to create art and expressions via ICT (i.e., media art), to support interactive cultural heritage experiences (e.g., rituals), and to understand new cultures born on the Internet (e.g., net culture, social media, games).

2007 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title In this highly original book, anthropologist F. Allan Hanson reveals an entirely unanticipated but vital link between two of the most widely discussed features of contemporary American society: the computer revolution and the culture wars. Hanson argues that the culture wars stem from a divergence in the evolutionary paths of society and culture. Societies have evolved significantly over the last few millennia from small bands of farmers or hunter-gatherers into huge, internally diverse nation-states, while cultures—the closed systems of meanings and symbols that kept small, face-to-face societies together—have failed to keep pace. If cultures became more open, Hanson contends, then the maladaptive rupture between society and culture would be healed and the clashes that currently beset us would be greatly diminished. Interweaving lucid analysis with concrete case studies of common law, education, and other areas of contemporary life, Hanson demonstrates how the widespread use of computers is, in fact, encouraging more originality and open-mindedness, with the potential to ease polarization and calm the culture wars.

The two-volume set LNCS 12794-12795 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Culture and Computing, C&C 2021, which was held as part of HCI International 2021 and took place virtually during July 24-29, 2021. The total of 1276 papers and 241 posters included in the 39 HCII 2021 proceedings volumes was carefully reviewed and selected from 5222 submissions. The papers included in the HCII-C&C volume set were organized in topical sections as follows: Part I: ICT for cultural heritage; technology and art; visitors’ experiences in digital culture; Part II: Design thinking in cultural contexts; digital humanities, new media and culture; perspectives on cultural computing.