What Has the Digital Era Done to Us?

capitalism , digital , hacking

Books & Ideas is slowing down for the summer and will be offering weekly selections of reviews and essays published over the last year. This week’s selection focuses on digital tools, their relationship to political power and capitalism.

Dominique Cardon & Maxime Crépel, “Algorithms and Territorial Regulation”
Uber, Waze, Airbnb… The algorithms that control these platforms are based on an optimisation of the service provided to the user rather than any collective, political or moral norms. The accusations against these algorithms expose the way technical architectures implicitly govern our lives.

Sébastien Broca, “Surveil and Predict”
A new capitalist era has begun, with companies ready to use every means available to know, predict and transform individual behaviour. S. Zuboff warns us of the dangers this represents for individual autonomy and democratic sovereignty.

Emilie Frenkiel, “China’s Digital Nationalism and the Hong Kong Protests. An Interview with Florian Schneider”
Nationalist discourses take the lion share of politics-related discussions on the Chinese Internet. In the context of intense struggles over the interpretation of the Hong Kong protests, this interview with Florian Schneider sheds light on the complexity of online political and identity expression in China and elsewhere.

Clément Canonne, “Hacking Through Contemporary Electronic Music. An interview with Nicolas Collins”
With electronic music comes the possibility of hacking instruments. How does hacking affect musical instruments and the ways of playing them? In this interview, Nic Collins, a pioneer in musical hacking, describes his journey at the crossroads of experimental music, computer music and sound art.

by The editorial team, 24 August 2020

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The editorial team, « What Has the Digital Era Done to Us?. A Summer Selection, Part VI », Books and Ideas , 24 August 2020. ISSN : 2105-3030. URL : https://booksandideas.net./What-Has-the-Digital-Era-Done-to-Us

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