This essay is the introduction to a book by Gerald Raunig on the theory of machines, to be published in German language in early 2007 (cf. http://transform.eipcp.net/transversal/1106/raunig/en).


Excerpt from "The Poetics of Interactivity" by Margaret Morse from the anthology –Women, Art and Technology, edited by Judy Malloy, forthcoming from MIT Press June 13th, 2003. This excerpt discusses interactivity and the interface as concepts and omits discussion of meta-interactive art as a feminist strategy as well as various examples of specific pieces by women artists that foreground interactivity.

How to define nonhumans?
Let us start with the obvious problem -the impossibility of giving an adequate definition of the term “nonhumans”. There are three obstacles that stand in the way of such a definition.
The first is that the negative does not correspond to any unifying category since we cannot use any longer the category of “object”. Objects, as opposed to subjects, will indeed lead us back to problems of knowledge, while we need to deal with nonhumans as existents.

ABSTRACT
In this paper I argue that by any major definition of art many modern video gamesshould be considered art. Rather than defining art and defending video games based on a single contentious definition, I offer reasons for thinking that video games can be art according to historical, aesthetic, institutional, representational and expressive theories of art. Overall, I argue that while many video games probably should not be considered art, there are good reasons to think that some video games should be classified as art, and that the debates concerning the artistic status of chess and sports offer some insights into the status of video games.

KEY WORDS
video games, technology-based art, gamers, game design, game designers, narrative art

For some of us, as cultural producers[1] the idea of a permanent job in an institution is something that we do not even consider, or at most for a few years. Afterward, we want something different. Hasn’t the idea always been about not being forced to commit oneself to one thing, one classical job definition, which ignores so many aspects; about not selling out and consequently being compelled to give up the many activities that one feels strongly about? Wasn’t it important to not adapt to the constraints of an institution, to save the time and energy to be able to do the creative and perhaps political projects that one really has an interest in? Wasn’t a more or less well-paying job gladly taken for a certain period of time, when the opportunity arose, to then be able to leave again when it no longer fit? Then there would at least be a bit of money there to carry out the next meaningful project, which would probably be poorly paid, but supposedly more satisfying.

William E. Connolly has in a recent book addressed relations between current brain science and philosophy. In this text he brings a short summery relating to the 0.5 seconds that we live after life...

In this text Charles Esche, curator and director of Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven, propose a few visions brought to us from Joy Division and their New Dawn Fades

This text propose that we can only change notions of architecture through a shift of its processes and organizational set up. Open source become a key word, as well as hacker and relational aesthetics

In this text Borradori address virtuality in resepct of first of all Henri Bergson, addressing how virtuality has been trapped in the grip of digital representations.

Philosophers seem peculiarly indifferent to the notion of virtuality, which has been discussed by sociologists and theorists in the humanities mostly in connection to the question of virtual space. But is virtuality reducible to the rise of the digital media, in all its various configurations? If so, should the question of virtuality be limited to the way in which we perceive space and time? Or should we grant it a constitutive role with respect to the intersubjective sphere? If this were true, would any externalist account of personal identity impinge on it and how?