The Automatic Production of Space

The Automatic Production of Space Author(s): Nigel Thrift and Shaun French Reviewed work(s): Source: Transactions of the
Institute of British Geographers, New Series, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2002), pp. 309-335 Published by: Wiley on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3804486 . Accessed: 06/01/2013 05:38
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The automatic production of space

and Shaun Frencht Nigel Thrift*
This paper is concernedwiththe changingnatureof space. More and more of the lines of code thatare spaces of everydaylifecome loaded up with software, reproducedbackgroundand whose natureis a installing new kind of automatically to to only now starting become clear.This paper is an attempt map out this Subsequently, the The paper begins by considering natureof software. background. to is of a simple audit is undertaken where software chiefly be foundin the spaces of everydaylife.The nextpart of the paper notes the way in which more and more so to of thissoftware written mimiccorporealintelligence, as to produce a better is The paper thensets out threedifferent fit and moreunobtrusive withhabitation. and the way in which theyare implicatedin the geographiesof software of of reproduction everydaylifebeforeconcludingwitha consideration the degree as to whichwe mightconsiderthe rise of software an epochal eventor something much moremodest. key words software code timespace everydaylife automatic
of *School of Geographical Sciences,University Bristol,BristolBS8 lSS email: N.J.Thrift@bristol.ac.uk NottinghamNG7 2RD of tSchool of Geography,University Nottingham, email: Shaun.French@nottingham.ac.uk revised manuscriptreceived 6 February2002
[The]co-implicationdiscourse referentmore 50 years or so, the technicalsubstrateof Euroof and is than metaphorical becausethelinguistic system not Americansocietieshas changed decisivelyas softis from world,but as technology, an ware has come to intervene nearlyall aspectsof separate the as in articulationlife, a natural of is extension it.(Johnson everydaylifeand has begun to sinkintoits takenof 1993, 199) background. But simply registering for-granted this change is not enough. Our second goal is to One thingis forsure. In the domainof the text, And here we imaginationking. a king is But subject laws,lawsof explain why it has been so effective. to point to software'sabilityto act as a means of thestory. (Appelbaum 1995, ix) providinga new and complexformof automated and of complexethologies software other spatiality, entitieswhich, too oftenin the past, have been Introduction studied as ifhuman agencyis clearlythe directive This paper is an attempt to document the force. In other words, what we believe we are seeing is the automaticproductionof major change thatis takingplace in the way that increasingly consequencesforwhat Euro-American Societies are run as they increas- space, whichhas important new ingly become interwovenwith computer 'softwe regardas theworld's phenomenality, landware'.' Though thischangehas been pointedto in scapes of code that are now beginningto make ways. many writings, has only rarelybeen systemati- theirown emergent it But it has to be said that the description callyworkedthrough. is This,then, thefirst goal of is this paper - to systematically this change 'software' not an easy one to workwithbecause, register meaningsof all and its extent.We hope to show how, in only in the literature, kinds of different
TransInst Br GeogrNS 27 309-335 2002 ISSN 0020-2754(? Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute BritishGeographers)2002 of
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Nigel Thrift Shaun French and
'software'are routinely conflated, with the result that different kinds of efficacy muddled up. are Thus, at the most general level, softwareis often consideredto be partofa moregeneralstructure of writing, vast Derrideanintertext has gradua that ally become a system without edges and that includesall mannerof 'coded' writings rootedin a base cybernetic metaphor(Johnson1993; Hayles 1999; Kay 2000). In such a conception, software is botha measureof how writing now done, and a is new kind of cultural memorybased upon discourses of information pure digital technique as (Hobart and Schiffman 1998). In a second guise, software can be consideredas anotherstep in the history writing a supplementto spoken lanof as guage: here we have Derrida's critiqueof phonocentrismand logocentricsm made flesh (Derrida 1998;Aarseth1997).
whichall show thatthere work(CSCW) literatures, observable exchange is no straightforwardly between discretepurifiedentitiescalled 'human' a and 'machine',but rather seriesof conversations that softwareis not a simple which demonstrate but rather a Latourian 'mediary' intermediary, with its own powers (see, for example, Thomas has 1995). Then software one moreguise. It can be couched as the guts of a set of commodities: websites, software packages, games, animated movies, and so on, which are dispensed via the medium of the screenand have become part of a more general culturalambience. The ubiquityof the screen (see McCarthy2001) guarantees software's culturalhold, lettingit assume a central economicand culturalplace. the clearlystandsfora Whatever guise,software But, of course, such a new set of effectivities. statement begs a whole series of important An ever-increasing number of people are spending relate questions.For example,how does software morehoursper day using written thatis, keyboardlanguage ratherthan spoken language. Withina few to hardware?Is it, as in Kittler's(1997) extreme will be enriching years,computers nearlyeveryhouse- reaction, the case that there is no software, hold of the developed world. Human life in these only hardware?Or is it thatthe hardwareis now countries centering and contracting electronic secondary?And, as anotherexample, given that is on, to, textand international and moving away software networking, has a hold on theworld,what is theexact fromspeech. Soon writtenlanguage mightbe more unit of efficacy? line of code? An algorithm a or A prominent worldwidethan spoken language. A differ- program? A complete 'informationalecology' ent sort of language is emergingfromthis artificial (Nardi and O'Day 1999)? And, as one more interfacing: 'oral-written an language' occupying a example, is software'saddress now somewhere special positionbetweenspokenand written language. and a new kind of natural, Computers now regularly communicate with one between the artificial the dead and a new kind of living,or thematerial - thatis, through another, too,through writing written programming languages - withouthuman mediation. and a new kind of materialsemiotics?These are in Writing has, in this way transcended humanityitself. not questionswe can hope to answer fully such We have redefined verymeaningof writing the we itself. a shortpaper but, hopefully, can startto open (Fischer2001,316) them out, for what is certainis that softwareis displacingsome of our fondestconclusionsabout Within this general shift, software can be our contemporary age and cultural idiom as it means of thoughtof as a set of new textualities: program- provides us with 'new and different 1998, 268). We ming languages, e-mail and other formsof 'net- informing' (Hobart and Schiffman a thisopeningout through paper that speak' (Crystal2000),and software packages,each will attempt in part,we will with their own textual protocols and paratexts, is structured fiveparts.In the first Our argument here which have produced their own linguisticturn. considerthenatureofsoftware. acts' Then,in a thirdguise, software consistsof a seriesof 'writing can be thought of is thatsoftware of as theproductof the actual writing code, as the which have changed our expectation what can of outcome of the 'practised hands' (McCullough show up in the everydayworld. This definitional a 1998) of a comparative handfulof people who are sectionhaving given software kind of voice, we able to mobilize skills thateven now are difficult can then move on to consider througha simple to describe to produce effective forms of code audit - no more, no less - how that voice is (Lohr 2001). Such skilful interactionbetween increasingly heard in everyday life as software humans and machines has been the object of achieves presenceas 'local intelligence'. we numerous studies in the human-computer interThen,third, will considerthe ways in which action (HCI) and computer-supported and, in cooperative all this softwarehas been transmuting
Theautomatic of vroduction svace
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to particular, how it is beginningto recognize and complexthatit is beginning takeon manyofthe But this is an organism play to apparently human characteristics of like features an organism.2 whichgoes to show emotionand is therefore starting takeon some of witha passion forinscription, to is of repression writing to an thecharacteristics corporealintelligences of (justas that'the logocentric corporeal intelligencesare beginningto take on extent only now visible and understandablein some of thecharacteristics software; of Collins and the lightof recentdevelopmentsin contemporary Kusch 1998). In the penultimatesection,we will science' (Johnson 1993,191). to attempt touch on the 'absent presence' of softWe believe that this gradual evolution of software in everydaylife,by outliningthreedifferent ware into what Clark (2000) calls 'wideware' is importantfor understandingthe geographiesof software: how and where soft- extraordinarily (1) ware is produced;(2) theriseofnew informational current cultures,and directionof Euro-American cities.Increasingly, standardsof conduct; (3) new formsof creativity especiallythenatureofWestern is and play.In the conclusion, will tryto sum up spaces likecities- wheremostsoftware gathered we and extendour narrative considering by software and has its effects are being run by mechanical by as a new formof gathering, what we mightcall writing, beingbeckonedintoexistence code. are has this 'semi-artificial (Borgmann life' Yet,remarkably, development gone almost 2000). unrecorded.Why so? There are four immediate reasons,we think. in takesup little theway ofvisible software First, The machinationsof writing occupies micro-spaces. physicalspace. It generally In this section,we want to begin our account of Second, software is deferred.It expresses the times,the time of its prosoftware briefly of by considering nature.In doing co-presence different its so, we have to face up to the factthatsoftware is duction and its subsequent dictation of future oftenconsideredto be a 'technology', So and is then moments. the practicalpoliticsof the decisions able to be negativelyassimilatedinto the domain about productionare built into the softwareand of thoughtas a figureor metaphorrepresenting rarely recur at a later date. Third, software,is a in-between, a some social else, thus allowing it to be captured therefore space that is constantly that withina linguistic semiotically seriesof instructions lie in the or contrivedfield, mass-produced rather than disclosed as an agent of 'material interstices everydaylife,pocket dictatorsthat of complexification'(Hansen 2000). But software are constantly expressingthemselves.Fourth,we just as we are cannotbe reduced to thiskind of textualism, even are schooled in ignoringsoftware, thoughit can be regardedas a text.That would be schooled in ignoringstandardsand classifications to domesticateits generativealterity, simplify (Bowker and Star 1999). Softwarevery rapidly to is what can be regardedas intent, and to draw a veil takes on the statusof backgroundand therefore over a politicsof the shifting consideredanew. boundaries defining rarely 'objects' which is so crucial to the contemporary It would be easy at this point to fall back on 'human' sciences(Oyama 2001). notions to describe software'sgrip some familiar But For a long time,much of the human world has on spaces like cities.One would be hegemony. been on automatic, has expanded beyond the that notion suggests a purposefulproject,whilst immediateinfluenceof bodies and has made its software consists of numerous projects cycling in being rewritten code. way into machines. The expansion of humanity throughand continually beyond bodies has takenplace in two ways, as a Anothernotionwould be haunting.But again the resultof the inventionof writingand then print, notion is not quite the right one. Ghosts are and as a result of the invention of various etherealpresences,phantoms that are only halfby whichusually obtaintheireffects stirring machines; line-by-line instructions and rude there, and the like. mechanicals. 'Software' and 'hardware'. In the up emotions- of fear,angst,regret, between past, these two means of manipulating world Softwareis more like a kind of traffic the of have oftenbeen held separate.But now what we beings,whereinone sees, so to speak, the effects becomes reified What transpires are seeingis an age in whichwriting able to take the relationship. is on many new mechanicalaspects - what we are in actions, body stances, general anticipations is 1999). We would argue,then,thatsoftseeing coming into being, therefore, an age of (Strathern an of but software, software becomingso pervasiveand ware is best thought as a kind of absorption,
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It then becomes something of a moot point expectation what will turnup in the everyday of world. Softwareis a new kind of phenomenality whether this means that softwareas a nonwhich can 'touch the ontic' (Spivak 1993, 30). representational formof action- 'does not relyon for Software in otherwords,a partof a 'technologi- theactivity thinking itsontogenesis'(Hansen is, of cal unconscious'(Clough 2000),a means ofsustain- 2000, 19) or whetherit is simplyanotherkind of ing presence which we cannot access but which distributedthinkingin which yet more human clearlyhas effects, technicalsubstrate uncon- functions are delegated into 'the automatic, a of scious meaningand activity. is, after against autonomous and auto-mobile processes of the 'It all, the naturalunityof self-heard 1999, 122), as part of a process voice thatDerrida machine' (Johnson places technicity, machine, text, the the writing all of externalizationand extension of the vital as bearersof unconsciousthought'(Clough 2000, based, for example, on the apprehensionof the 17). Increasingly, therefore, softwaregains this human body as simply 'too slow' (Stiegler1998). as the unconsciouspresence,spaces like cities will bear Whichever case, what we can see is thatwhat itsmark, bugged by new kindsofpleasures,obses- counts as 'life' itselfcomes into question as new emergeand embed themselves sions, anxieties and phobias which exist in an materialsyntheses insistent elsewhere (Vidler 2000; Thrift 2001). (Doyle 1997). chiefly Softwarequite literallyconditionsour existence, In therestof thispaper we will therefore to very often 'outside of the phenomenal field of call on two theoretical technologies understand subjectivity' (Hansen 2000, 17). software.One is a whole series of theoretical Thus we come to a more general reason why elementsthatare now merging which,when taken software remains so little considered. We still together, a constitute 'theatreof promise' in their to theirattention cleave to the idea of spaces like the cityas popu- emphasison thehow of practice, lated by humans and objects that represent each hybridhuman-objectnetworks(cyborgs,actants, othervia words and images,which makes it very ethologies, and the like) and theirdevotionto the with difficult markthisnew territory Downey and task of repopulating spaces of modernity the to (cf. McGuigan 1999). Software does not fitthis repre- these new inhuman figures. The other is the of writing. sentationalmodel, the 'theatreof proof' (Phelan emphasis on the performativity 1993), for its text is about words doing things, Drawing on work as diverse as Derrida and perabout determinate presentations particular in con- formancestudies, this other 'theatreof promise' texts 'below the "threshold" of representation constitutes series of plays with scriptural space a itself' (Hansen 2000, 4). Because software'affects and time,whichare intendedto extendthe nature our experience first and foremost its through infra- of writingwhilst retainingits 'prophetictouch' structural 1993 1999). role,its import occurspriorto and inde- (Johnson pendentlyof our productionof representations' (Hansen 2000, 4). Seen in this way, softwareis perhaps betterthoughtof as a series of 'writing Mapping software acts' (ratherthan speech acts) of a Bakhtinian or let Derrideankind,whichhave a 'heuretic', locations, us try than To beginour audit ofsoftware's rather an analyticaldimension(Ulmer 1989),based upon to understand have changed just how muchthings the inventiveratherthan the analytic,in which by journeying back to the 1970s. In a remarkable language is bothmessage and medium.Thus and unjustly neglectedpaper,Ron Horvathargued that much of the interiorof Westerncities had Within the previous instauration,founded on the become a new kind of machinewilderness, which alphabet, the only way to access theoryper se was he called 'machine space'. He saw this new
through metaphor, manifestation the of everyconcrete idea being equivalent to its deformation. Metaphors were necessary because the intellectwas otherwise incapable of grasping the idea of true illumination. Withthenew instauration, artefacts theory no the of are longermetaphors.Instead,the objectis no longer the deformation the idea, but is its real embodiment. of Now the idea, or thought, restswithin,or out of, the objectitself. (Lechte 1999,141) territory,'devoted primarily ...
machines' (Horvath 1974, 167), as a desolate and threateningone, because it gave priority to chiefly machinesoverpeople. Horvathwas writing of the automobileand he mapped out in detail the 'expandingrealm of machinekind'(Horvath1974, amount to 187) by paying attention the increasing ofspace beinggivenover to cars in Americancities
to the use of
production space of Theautomatic
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AUTOMOBILE TERRITORY IN THE DELTA AREA OF EAST LANSING,MICHIGAN

0 100 200
Feet
300
Automobile movement Automobile service
Automobile storage
GEOGR REV APR 1974
Figure 1 Machine space (Horvath 1974)
(see Figure 1) and the consequentdeathlyeffects. Yet now we see somethingof the same kind of machinicexpansion occurring as greata scale on (Mackenzie 1996). But even though softwarehas infusedinto the veryfabricof everydaylife- just like the automobile - it brings no such level of questioningin its wake. Indeed, the automobileis a good place to start our audit, since automobiles are increasingly full stuffed ofsoftware. on Reporting theexplosion of electronicswithin motor cars, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU 2000) predict,forinstance, thatwithina very shortspace of time electronics will constitute more than30 per cent of an executive car's total value. Such vehicle electronics are increasingly drivenby smartsoftware, developed by individualcompaniesand through partnerships such as theIntelligent VehicleInitiative (IVI) in the United States. Work within the IVI program includes the developmentof intelligent collision avoidance systems; traffic, location and route guidance; driver condition monitoringsystems; and obstacleand pedestriandetection As systems. we write, Ford UK is currentlymarketingits
Mondeo model on the basis of its Intelligent ProtectionSystem (IPS). A neural network of sensorsembedded withinthe Mondeo enable IPS to assess the severityof any impact,instantaneously adjustingthe car's safetysystemsto maxithe Similarly, new Jaguar mize theireffectiveness. not based on the Mondeo platform, only X-type, has a new familiarcomputerizednavigationsysand of tem,but also voice activation some controls called JaguarNet, which integrates a new feature telephoneand satellitelocationand automatically call an transmits emergency if thereis an accident in whichan airbagis deployed.The numberof car withthesekind of embedded systems components predictsthatas earlyas is such thatan EIU report with 2001passengercarswill appear on themarket 'vehicle intranets', connecting all the various onboardcomputers. are vehicleprograms paralleled These intelligent transportaby a growing number of intelligent tion initiatives.For instance, the US IVI program is integratedwithin a wider Intelligent TransportationSystem program. Drawing on in Japanand Europe,ITS developments Australia,
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Table I Active Y2K websites

UK General UK Y2K site. Includes downloadable copies of key Year 2000 reports UK BritishComputer SocietyY2K Information UK The Computer Information CentreYear 2000 Support Centre UK BBC Education MillenniumBug Website UK BBC News 'Bugtown' Y2K Website USA National Y2K Clearinghouse (public, business and academic national resource) USA US CommercialSite USA CBC News Y2K Site. http://www.y2kbug.org.uk/ http://www.bcs.org.uk/millen.htm http: /www.compinfo.co.uk/y2k.htm / http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/cdb/bug/ http:/ /news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/millennium_bug/bugtown/ http://www.y2k.gov/ http://www.year2000.com/ http://cbc.ca/news/indepth/y2k/
America(www.itsa.org), amalgamofpublic and The infusion software an intothe urban infrastrucof privatebodies, seeks to foster wider develop- ture has not only impacted upon older urban the ment,employmentand integration Intelligent technologies, is also a vital part of newer techof it Transportation Systemscreatinga more efficient, nologies. Despite only being a relatively new adsafer and more cost-effective transport or network. ditionto thefabric cities, surveillance of security Areas targetedby ITS include the collectionand CCTV systemsare in the process of being revoltransmission information traffic of on conditions; utionized (Graham 1998). In October 1998, the the reduction accidentsand congestion; of and the London borough of Newham became the first development sophisticated of navigation and route place in the world to employ smart CCTV to guidance systems for drivers. More specific monitor publicspaces (Kinnes2000). Developed by examples of Intelligent Traffic Systemsinclude the Visionics,the Faceit surveillancesystemuses cutdevelopment of intelligentsoftware for traffic tingedge facialrecognition to technology scan for lights. Employing fuzzy logic intelligenttraffic criminals. Faceit is able to do thisby 'mimicking lightsare, for instance,able to read and react to the brain, the softwarescans and measures dischanging traffic conditions, thus providing tances between the major landmarksof the face, enhanced performance vis-a-vis conventional reducingthem to a heap of pixels' (Kinnes 2000, fixed-time controlled lights (Khiang Tam et al. 14). FollowingNewham,a similaranti-crime smart 1996). Satnet,has been introducedto the CCTV system, But it is easy to move beyond automobilesand West End, while Cromatica,designed to monitor roads in the search forurban software. Elevators crowd flows,congestionand preventsuicides,has are anotherintegralpart of the infrastructure been tested on the London Underground(New of citiesthathave become increasingly rich. Scientist software 1999a 1999b2000). From being held up as an exemplarof a 'stupid Is there any way of making a more general machine' in the early 1980s,JamesGleick points assessmentof softwarein the city?Conveniently, out that elevatorshave now surpassed even the the millenniumbug (Y2K) has provided a close motor car in terms of their software richness. approximationto such a general audit.3 A brief According to Gleick, smart elevators now pack examination theUK Audit Commission's(1998) of 'more computingpower than a high-end auto- report Y2K immediately bringsintosharprelief on mobile, which is to say more computingpower the degree to which software and relatedembedthan the Apollo spacecraft'(Gleick 1999, 24). By ded systemshave infused everyday urban life. adding microprocessors, again programmedwith In addition to traffic lights and lifts,the Audit fuzzy logic, smart elevators or 'elevators with Commissionlistscar parkbarriers, central heating algorithms' have: boilers, building securitysystems,burglar and software, vehicle fleet learned to skip floorswhen they are already full,to fire alarms, accounting avoid bunchingup, and to recognise humanbehaviour maintenance systems, local authority revenue benefit systems, childprotection registers, patterns.They can anticipate the hordes who will systems, emergencyservice communicationsystems and gatheron certain floors and start poundingtheDOWN as [sic] button at 4.55 p.m. each Friday. (Gleick 1999, medical equipment, just some of the areas with 24-5) life to thepotential seriouslydisrupteveryday as a
Theautomatic production space of
315
consequence of theirreliance on embedded and computerized systems. Othernotablelandmarks of 'Bugtown UK' (Figure 2) included the banking industry, gas, water and electricity supply,food retailing, post office, police force,the fire the the brigade,hospitalsand emergency services.In the case of hospitals, the Audit Commission used the following passage to warn of the extentof the potentialproblem:
appliances should be thoughtof as systems,not isolated devices' (Norman 1998, 253) so that 'instead of one massive device thatoccupies considerable space on our desk top, we will have a wide range of devices thatare designed to fitthe tasksthatwe wish to do' (Norman2000,12). Today, generof course,we only have access to the first everydaylife, ation of appliances meantto inform devices which still too oftenbear the mark of chiefly personal digital devices (like The year2000project manager one NHS trust at is 'computing', the Palm Pilot), mobile phones, recordable CD quotedas saying: 'The [potential] problem to extends all areasofthehospital lifts, diagnostic equipment, players, portable MP3 players, personal voice radios, and pagers, internet interactive X-ray machines, anaesthetics, breathing and recorders, equipment so on, which have some computingcapacityand monitors'. (Audit Commission 1998, 11) can often communicate with each other. But The Year 2000 problemwas a global problem, this kind of computingwill likely and increasingly, similarkinds of audits were carried out all over make itsway out intomanymorekindsof devices the world. For example, Table II lists the com- and become personally tailored (see Bergman pliance issues identified the City of Beverlyin 2000). This is a move away from an internetby Massachusetts. inspiredidea of computingas concernedwith the In the event,of course,thedisruption caused by provisionof specificstand-alonehigh technology the 'millenniumbug' was negligible and there devices thatprovide analyses and representations have sincebeen questionsraisedas to how muchof of information to computing as distributed a true threatY2K ever posed. Nevertheless, it througha whole series of devices used as and if achieved nothing else, Y2K served to amply when - and where - appropriate. 'Less fuss and illustrate extentto which software the has seeped bother.Simpler,more convenientdevices. Great intoeverydaylife. New modes of interand versatility. flexibility If, up until now, much of this infusion of action, of learning,of conductingbusiness and software into everyday life has gone largely recreation' (Norman 1998,261). is unnoticed, newertechnological The second development themove to position developments will, by virtue of their closeness to bodies, be much the internet the obsession of the 1990s - as but more readily apparent (though not necessarily one elementof a computing revolution: visible). This is the world of 'local intelligence' in [willbe] so pervasive,so natural, theuse oftheInternet which everyday spaces become saturated with and so commonplacethat the very notion of calling computational capacities, thereby transforming somethingan 'internet appliance' will be completely more and morespaces intocomputationally active unnecessary. (Norman 1998,269) environments able to communicatewithin and with each other.This change is takingplace as a Rather will existin a broadbandworldin which we resultof two main developments. available 'cloud' will The first these theinternet be a permanently of is the move to 'ubiquitous', 'everywhere' or of information able to be called up througha 'pervasive' computing, computational systems number of appliances scattered through the which are distributed through environment the in environment. These appliances will be something a whole range of devices, 'a physicalworld invis- more than portals for information. Rather,like ibly interwoven with sensors,actuators,displays many otherdevices which will not have internet and computational elements, embedded seam- connections, respondtheywill be 'practice-aware', in lessly in the everyday objects of our lives and ing to and aware of the context which theyare connectedthrough continuousnetwork'(Weiser used through an array of wireless and other a et al. 1999,2-3). read sensors, continuous locational information This is the world of 'information appliances' fromGlobal PositioningSystem(GPS) references, foreseenby Norman (1998) in which each of us and the like. In turn,this means we are moving will, in a sense, put our own computingneeds away from machines that simply respond to together as and when necessary. 'Information machines that interactbecause they are aware
I
g g . , . S ,... .' it:g00-fEDEE:-0..ff:.fffffiEC000;00:-------------------: : 44-y:X lKfiC:-;;:-:0-iCt;!00-00000000 ---ff000---Si::-:----:: M
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Figure 2 'Bugtown UK'- the BBC's Y2K informationsite /news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/millennium_bug/bugt http:/ Source:
Table II
Buildings
Some of the building and equipment issues included in the cityof Beverly'sY2K compliance au
and Building security safety Securityalarms Fire alarms Fire suppression/sprinkler Fire door controls Alarmed crash bars Environment alarms Carbon monoxide detectors Radon detectors Natural gas detectors Wateralarms Storage tank alarms Emergencylights Emergencylightbatteries Battery chargers Securityrounds clocks Securitycameras Securitymonitors Videotaped surveillance Recorded phone system Environmental Electronicheat control/thermostats control Electronicair conditioning Heat plant plant Air conditioning Fuel source Energymanagement Lightingmanagement Backup generators Water/sumppumps Watermeters Solar panels
Comm
Building access Electroniclocks Card keys Keypad locks Time locks Handicap lifts Elevators Intercomsystems Entrybuzzers Parkinggarage gates Automaticgarage doors Closed circuitentrycameras
Phone servi Phone switc Voice mail sy Local carrie Long distan Cell phone Cell phone s Pagers Pager servic Radios - 2 w Radios - mo Radios - ma Radio servic
Source: City of BeverlyY2K Audit CommitteeReport (1998), Massachusetts,United States
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Nigel Thrift ShaunFrench and
in enough of the context which theyoperateto be able to do so. This means morethansimplybetter human-machine interfaces (thoughthesewill be a part of thisnew interactivity (Johnson 1997)). And it means more than simply the redesign of the overall encounter with a machine, so that it becomes a more satisfying experience(see Dryer et al. 1999). Ratherit means that a whole set of appliances (which 'compute') will, through a process of culturalabsorptioninto practices,sink down from the representational into the nonrepresentational world, so becoming a part of a taken-for-granted of passions and skills (Thrift set 2000). At present, thisworld of local intelligence still is some way off.But not thatfaroff.Two examples will suffice make the case: mobile phone techto nology and so-called 'wearables'. Withthe advent of thirdgeneration (3G) technologies, software the runningmobile phones and mobile phone networks is becoming ever more sophisticatedsuch that, just like the car or the elevator, mobile is the set to become 'smarter'(NewScientist 2000).Mobile phones incorporatingspeech recognition technology to allow hands-free dialling and access to functions alreadyin commonuse. In addition, are work is underway on installing'Bluetooth' and otherwirelesscommunication chips,in additionto SIM cards,into 3G phones. Such chips will allow communication with other Bluetooth devices within the immediatevicinity(roughlya houseshaped bubble) of the mobile phone user. This would allow,as one simpleinstance, retailers in the citycentres and shoppingmalls to send a "'10 per cent off"coupon to your mobile's screen as you approach' (New Scientist 2000, 33). Following on from thiskindofapproach,itis clearthatmessages soon will be pinned in mid-airusing GPS.
has already The way in whichmobiletelephony become a part of everyday life, producing new formsof social action - fromthe new kinds of promotedby textmessaging 'hyper-coordination' (and the new kinds of 'flocking' that is made possible) to theinvasionofpublic space by private social and work lives to new kinds of affective performance shows, in turn,the way thateven very basic forms of local intelligencecan have (See Townsend 2000; substantiveculturaleffects. Laurierand Philo 2001; Brownet al. 2002). is A second exampleofnascentlocal intelligence provided by wearable computing, which has in begun to develop strongly thelast fiveyearsas a means of providing computing that is always ready and available by virtueof being presentin 'it's always on, it's always accesitemsof clothing: sible and it's always part of you' (Billinghurst n.d.). 'It thereforeexists within the corporeal envelope of the user' (Bass 1997, 23). Though consistof items wearables will at first commercial with like Levis IGD+ (developed in partnership the Xenium speech recogPhillips and featuring nition phone), which are little more than bulky jackets able to contain various multi-pocketed kit,the futuremightbe very pieces of electronic will probably be the first different. Cyberjackets will,forexample,be able to step.Such cyberjackets shops. alert and guide a wearer to interesting 'Shopping Jackets'are, however, only one of a whole host of potential wearable applications user/PC developed to transcendthe conventional paradigm. For example, the Belgian company Starlab have unveiled layers of i-Wear with interface, power,conneccommunication, memory, tivityand computationalabilities (www.starlab.
org).
it More recently, has become possible to create active textiles, which are able to computationally Messages [willnot]actually kept theair;they're be in the substancesintocloth,so creating stored a webpage.Butthat on is weave circuit page'sWebaddress intersensitive of possibility ever morecorporeally linkedto co-ordinates the Earth's on rather surface, thanthe organisation. you move about,a GPS faces (Post et al. 2000). By installingcomputing As hats,shoes, glasses, receiver your in mobile phone PDA willcheck see systemsintojackets,trousers, or to what beenposted the on website that has for particular and the like, wearable pioneers like Mann have spot. If you'rein luck a snippetof infoleftas a sought to radicallyreconfigure way in which the recording someone by who passed there previously we use computers. transforms comSmartclothing will pop up on your screenor be whisperedintoyour rather assistance',actively putationinto'intelligent earpiece.(New Scientist 2001, 16) than passively engagingwith the user (MIT webThus, Already, prototype systems like Hewlett site:www.wearcam.org/computing.html/).4 Packard's COOLTOWN (http://cooltown.hp.com) wearables can not only assist in locating shops, are attempting to produce spaces in which theycan also act as more generalnavigationaids, universalopen messagingis commonplace. as mobile payment systems, provide security
Theautomatic of production space
319 functioningand well-versed set of procedures. This is a point worth expanding. To begin with, software consists of many, often incompatible, languages, which are constantly changing. I learned to program a computerin 1971; my first job came in 1978. Since then, I have programming languages, level programming six taught myself higher languages, eight threeassemblers,two data-retrieval job-processing languages, seventeen scripting languages, ten types of macros, two object definition interfaces, library programming languages,sixty-eight environand eightoperating fivevarietiesofnetworks the different if ments - fifteen, you cross-multiply combinationsof operating systemsand networks.I unusual. Given don't thinkthismakes me particularly anyone who's been the rate of change in computing, aroundfora while could probablymake a listlike this. (Ullman 1997,101) Then, software is built up from many different components, many of which are 'legacy systems' that have existed for many years. In effect,many different programmers still live in the code (Downey 1998). Softwaregets to age. Too much timeis investedin it, too much timewill be needed to replace it. So unlike with.It is is software tinkered hardware, thetossed-out mended and fixed,patched and reused ... I once computersystemwhere the worked on a mainframe historyof my COBOL program stood as fan-folded high as a person. My programwas sixteenyears old when I inheritedit. According to the librarylogs, I had programmers workedon itbefore had. ninety-six I spent a year wanderingits subroutinesand service places I did modules, but therewere still mysterious not touch.Therewere bugs on thissystemno one had where been able to fixfortenyears.Thereweresections adding a singleline of code createdodd and puzzling called 'side effects': bugs that outcomesprogrammers some from added code but from the come not directly later, unknown perturbationfurtherdown in the was neartheend ofits'lifecycle'. process.My program It was close to death. away. By the time Yet thissystemcould notbe thrown a computersystembecomes old, no one completely understandsit. A systemmade out of old junkytechprecious.... nologybecomes,paradoxically, The preciousnessof an old systemis axiomatic.The the greaterthe longer the systemhas been running, number of programmerswho have worked on it, the less any one person understandsit. As years pass and untold numbers of programmersand analysts come and go, the systemtakes on a lifeof its own. It it runs.That is itsclaim to existence: does usefulwork.
access to buildings, assistengineers and mechanics in the field,record conversations, meetingsand other events, act as mobile internetand phone portals,augmentvision and memory and a host of other activities.And, as in the case of mobile phones,a key requirement future of wearable systemswill be theneed to communicate, through the employment wireless protocolslike Bluetooth, of witheach otherand withothersystems embedded in the fabric everydaylife. of The trendtowardslocal intelligence will hardly stop at mobile phones and wearables,as a glance at any journal like PersonalTechnologies shows. Computational ability beingembeddedin houseis hold whitegoods,in furniture (includingbeds and couches), even in carpets (Omojola et al. 2000; Paradiso et al. 2000). However,it is also important note thatsome to ofthemostimportant imprints local intelligence of will come fromthe increasingabilityafforded by Bluetoothand similar wireless protocols to produce a multitude 'invisible'embedded systems, of not with human users, but with communicating each other,so producing a genuine 'mechanoIn sphere'.5 certain it contexts may even be, as New Scientist (2000, 33) predicts,that communication between people will become subservient to machine-to-machine communication. So, for example, 'the number of phone calls between people will be overtakenby machines talkingto machineson behalfof people' with the resultthat [a]s soonas your washing machine installed, will is it be on theairto yourBluetooth if controller, asking it cancontact manufacturer theNet.A yearlater its over you'lltrip overa repair engineer who'sbeene-mailed bythewashing machine because hasa worn it bearing. (New Scientist 33) 2000, In concluding this section of the paper, it is importantto note that this kind of actual and prospective audit should not give the air of a kind of technological finality, two reasons.First, for the new generationof intelligent devices are already being socially and culturallyinflectedin quite different A ways in different cultures. good current example is the radicallydifferent of pattern use of mobile telephony and PDAs in Europe and North America. Quite unexpectedly, different practices have already grown up on both sides of the in Atlantic relationto the take-upand use of these two technologies (see Brownet al. 2002). Then,secitselfhardlyconstitutes smoothly ond, software a
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However badly,howeverbuggy, howeverobsolete- it even to a trained ... observer [and some] systems runs.And no one individual completely understands may also be extremely to difficult locate or test' how. (Ullman 1997,116-17) (Audit Commission1998,11,emphasisadded). Yet In other words, programmers function against a background of 'ignorant expertise'. The corollary constantchange is ignorance.This is of not oftentalked about: we computerexpertsbarely know what we are doing. We're good at fussingand figuring out. We function well in a sea of unknowns. Our experiencehas only prepared us to deal with confusion. programmer A who denies thisis probably lying,or else is densely unaware of himself.(Ullman 1997,110)
thateven as farback as theCommissionestimated werebeing 1996,some 7 billionembedded systems worldwide. distributed
Breathingnew life into software
by in Any audit of software citiescan therefore its very natureonly ever be partial and incomplete, Indeed this recognition, and ours is no different. just else, illustrates how extenmorethananything of of sive thedistribution thisform 'machinespace' No wonder that most software is only properly has become. But this may only be the beginning. tested out through a process of trial and error in science withincomputer developments Continuing real applications (Mackenzie 1996). thanhas role forsoftware suggesta much greater Again, as numerous writers have pointed out so far been apparent as the machinicwritingof (e.g. Winograd 1996; Norman 1998), software is itself changes its formand capabilities. software rarely designed well, so that the capacities of most Such change arises out of a generalmove away programmes are underused: programstowardsprowell-specified from formal One of the main reasonsmostcomputer is software so grams that stress the situatednessof action, the abysmal is that it's not designed at all, but merely importance of interactionand adaptation, and engineered. Anotherreasonis thatimplementers often emergent Such notionshave existedfor properties. place moreemphasison a program'sinternal construc- a long timenow, spurredon by the ethnographic tionthanon its external design,despitethe factthatas interaction by more and studyofhuman-computer much as 75 per centof the code in a modernprogram general developmentsin the social sciences and deals withthe interface the user.(Winograd1996,5) to (e.g. Suchman 1987). But,of late,these humanities Then, software does not always do as it is bidden using a diverserangeof methkinds of programs, by programmers or is used as it is meant to be by odologies - from to fuzzysets to neural networks users. It is inescapably a joint production, a feature generativealgorithmsto the data mining techthat is especially noticeable when the program is niques of bio-informatics and bio-computation applied. 2001). have become much moreprevalent(Bentley the a Writing software program... is a way of addressing Here we note just one of these developments, a problemin an originalmanner.Each team of pro- growth of the so-called 'soft computing' movegrammers redefines and resolves,althoughdifferently,ment. Soft computing encompasses a range of thanprecise rather appropriate the problemit is faced with. The actualisationof the methodsthatstress programduringuse in a work environment, however, models (Figure3). ignorescertainskills,reveals new kinds of functionalis Fuzzy computation a set of techniques most ity,gives rise to conflicts, resolves problems,and in- oftenassociated with the work of Zadeh at the itiatesa new dynamicof collaboration. The software University California, of Berkeleyfromthe 1960s of carrieswithit a virtuality change thatthe group ... on, on fuzzysets,fuzzylogic and complexsystems actualisesin a moreor less inventive way. (Levy 1998, In theory. general termsfuzzy computationwas 25) that a programming bornfrom recognition existing To conclude this section, one last point also needs methodologies,which relied upon precise and to be made. The simple fact of the matter is that detailed models, were inappropriatefor dealing software, in the shape of embedded systems, is with complex, uncertainand vague systems or now so widespread that we are no longer able to be techniques problems(Ruspinietal. 1998).Similarly, sure of its exact extent.6As the Audit Commission of evolutionary grew out of a recognition computing stressed in relation to the difficultiesencountered of the limitations precise modellingtechniques of in identifying Y2K-affected equipment, 'the pres- for many empirical problems.7 Drawing upon ence of the embedded system may not be obvious mutation and natural theories of 'reproduction,
The automatic production space of
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HARD COMPUTING
Precise Models
SOFT COMPUTING
Approximate Models
Symbolic Logic Reasoning
Classical and Numerical Search Methods
Approximate Reasoning
Functional Approx. & Randomized
computing (BonissoneSearch Figure Hardandsoft 3

Figure 3 Hard and soft computing (Bonissone 1998)
the Darwinian principleof survivalof the fittest', evolutionary computing seeks to harness the 'power of naturalselectionto turncomputers into automaticoptimisation and design tools' (http:// evonet.dcs.napier.ac.uk/evoweb/; Heitk6tter and Beasley 1999). The termsoft computing closelylinkedto both is thatof fuzzy computation and evolutionary computation.8 attempting definesoftcomputing, In to Zadeh statesthat'the role model forsoftcomputing is thehuman mind'(1994,27, emphasisadded). Softcomputing distinguished its toleranceof is by 'imprecision, uncertainty partialtruth' and (Zadeh 1994,27), in contrast withconventional hard computing with its emphasis upon 'crisp classifications' and perfectinformation. Bonissone As stresses:
... when attempt solvereal-world we to we problems, realise they typically that are ill-defined systems, difficultto modeland with large-scale solution spaces... Therefore, need hybridapproximate we reasoning Table III Comparison of biological and GA systems capableof handling thiskindof imperfectterminology (Goldberg 1989,22) information. (Bonissone 1998, D1.1:2) Increasingly,many soft computing approaches have begun to sharea generalcharacteristic:turn a to biologyand thenaturalsciencesforinspiration. In particular, theoriesof evolutionhave inspireda host of alternativeprogrammingtechniques,of which one of the most influential has been the geneticalgorithm (GA). As with many othersoft computing GAs have providedthebuildmethods, ing blocks for some of the most sophisticated
Biological Chromosome Gene Allele Locus Genotype Phenotype Epistasis Genetic algorithm String or Feature,character, detector Feature value Stringposition Structure solution, Parameterset, alternative a decoded structure Nonlinearity
artificial intelliparticularly applications, software worth very briefly gence systems.It is therefore examiningthe rationalebehind the geneticalgoboth in its own rightand as an exemplarof rithm, techniques. softcomputing The genetic algorithmwas developed in the of 1970sby Holland at the University Michiganas a mechanism for addressing complex problems with very large 'solution spaces' (Sipper 2000; To Holland 1975).9 tacklelargesolutionspace problems, Holland developed a 'model of machine a learningwhich derivesitsbehaviourfrom metaphor of some of the mechanisms of evolution' and Beasley 1999, 1). As with other (Heitkotter types of evolutionarycomputing,GAs work by seekingto evolve solutionsto a given problem.To achieve this,the GA employs a specificmode of (see representation Table III). A populationof genetic
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individualsor bit stringsof data, analogous to trafficmanagement systems and call centre chromosomesin human DNA, is initiallygener- telephone routing technologies.More generally, ated, each of which represents possible solution. geneticalgorithms being utilized in Artificial are a This first generation candidatesolutionsis then Life worlds such as Tierra, financial market of telecommunisystems, production evaluated in the contextof its environment, its models,flexible fitness theproblemin hand. On thebasis of this cationnetworks to and evenby theUK's Channel4 to fitness and the genetic operator10 employed,a new assist in the scheduling of television advertisegeneration individuals is born (Goldberg 1989; ments (Helmreich1998; Evonet: www.evonet.dcs. of softwareis also being Belew and Vose 1997;Heitkotter Beasley 1999; napier.ac.uk).Self-learning and Sipper 2000). By employingthe principleof 'sur- mobilized within the field of biometricsand in vival of the fittest'along with that of genetic technologies recognition example,in visual of (for systems). each new generationproduced should recognition diversity, include solutionsthatare betterthan those of the These techniques have enabled machines and previous generation. Of critical importance in objectsto begin to take on some of thecharacterisSmart softwarehas understandingthe power of the GA is that it tics of corporealintelligence. removesthe necessityof having a predetermined begun to breathe new kindsoflifeintoa multitude solution to a problem.Programmers simplyhave of everyday things.This is not to suggest that have to determinean appropriatefitness systems computer function or, and software forthatmatter, geneticoperator(Davis and Steenstrup ever been dead (see Ullman 1997, 117; Downey 1990). reaction'(Turkle1991, The genetic algorithm, along with the various 1998),but thatthe'romantic othersoftcomputing techniques, been particu- cited in Helmreich1998,140) to hard,rationalistic has larly importantin the development of artificial computinghas helped software begin to take on normally associated intelligence (Al) systems.Al incorporates wide many of the characteristics a varietyof specificapplications,fromartificial life, withbiologicallife. roboticsand recognition This new formof machine is no more starkly technologiesthroughto thanin the case of a range of technolodata mining, expertsystems and intelligent agents. illustrated One of the distinguishing featuresof all these gies designedto recognizeand act upon thehuman and,perhaps various types of Al systemis the fact that they body: theface,thevoice,handwriting and mood and emotion.The first operate within the very same, large solution mostremarkably, form spaces for which conventionalhard computing second ofthese,facialand speech recognition technologies, approaches have shown themselvesto be so ill- part of a wider school of biometrics equipped. It is no surprisethen thatsoftcompu- designed to recognize individuals from their tational models have been mobilized to address distinguishing traits. Other biometrics techsuch complexand indeterminate problems.Indeed nologies developed for a range of securityuses iris much of the impetusbehind the developmentof include electronic fingerprinting, coding,hand As and palm printrecognition. we have soft computingand the like has come fromthe geometry are desire to develop artificial systems, technologies already life biometrics shown,facialrecognition withincities,as are commercial and othersmarttechnologies. This is little surprise becominga reality packages such as those develsince,beginning withtheearlydays ofcybernetics, voice recognition there has been constant interchangebetween oped by the Belgian companyLernout& Hauspie withinthe Xenium biologyand computing forexample,in thecase (L&H) and those incorporated as, of neural nets (Helmreich 1998; Anderson and mobile phone. L&H are not only developing Rosenfeld1999; Hayles 1999; Oyama 2001). applicationsforuse withincall speech recognition Turning back to our audit,softcomputation can centres,consumer and business electronicpackbe found in a great number of the embedded ages, toysand wearables,but have also developed systems that populate cities. Intelligenttraffic textrecognition products. such as the MIT Media Lab lights, elevators, automobiles and washing Researchinstitutes machinesare programmed withfuzzylogic,as are have also conductedconsiderableworkwithinthe many ITS systems (www.its.org).Genetic algor- area of 'AffectiveComputing', computational ithmsare helping to run medical diagnosticand systems with the ability to sense, recognize, monitoring equipment,data miningtechnologies, understand and respond to human moods and creditscoringand behaviouralmodellingsystems, emotions. Picard(19972000) arguesthatto be truly
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interactivecomputers must have the power to recognize, feeland expressemotion. Notall computers to 'payattention' emotions need to or to have thecapability emulate to emotion. Some machines useful rigid are as tools, itis fine keep and to them way.However, that there situations which are in human-computer interaction could be improved by having computer the adapted theuser, inwhich to and communication about when,where, how and how importantis to adaptinvolves use ofemotional it the information. (Picard 2000, 1)
and the intentto go one pets and virtualfriends, betteris also clear: will some Just realcreatures, agency actas petsand like will Someagents will like agents. others be more free and will by belong a user, be maintained a user, will to Others be free will user'scomputer. in livemostly that And to belong anyone. justlike that really agents don't will die the realcreatures, agents be born, and reprothat duce ... I'm convinced we need (theseagents) for because the digitalworldis too overwhelming how no peopletodealwith, matter goodtheinterfaces we're trying changethe to we design... Basically, ... interaction userswill nature humancomputer of but personally, will things notonlybe manipulating thatworkon their behalf. also managesomeagents in 2001, 9) cited Suchman (Maes1995,
Plutowski (2000) identifies three broad categories of research within the area of affective or emotional computing (www.emotivate.com/ Book/): emotionalexpressionprogramsthat disSo genetic algorithmsbeget something that is play and communicate simulatedemotionalaffect: as meant to approximatelife. Whether, Suchman emotionaldetectionprogramsthat recognizeand argues, these icons are often (2001) convincingly react to emotional expression in humans; and of attributions interactive agency emotional action tendencies,instillingcomputer based on faulty to machines, the fact remains that these faulty programs with emotional processes in order to By attributions now constitutive. enablingand are make them more efficient and effective. Thus, amplifyingnon-verbal communicationbetween specific projects at MIT (www.media.mit.edu/ humans,betweenhumans and machinesand ultiaffect/) have included the development of mately between machines and machines, these Affective Wearables such as Affective Jewellery, the usefulness of Expression Glasses, and a Conductor's Jacket icons seek to greatlyenhance embedded systems. designedto extenda Conductor'sability express to emotionand intentionality the audience and to to the orchestra.Other projects include: Affective Softwarewritingspace Carpets; Affective VirtualRealityAvatars,which representthe changing emotional state of their Wherever we go, then, in modern urbanized users in thereal world;Affective Toys,such as the spaces, we are directed software: drivingin the by 'Affective Tigger' and Orpheus; and an Affective car, stopping at the red light,crossingthe road, CD player,which selectsmusic in alignment with getting into an elevator, using the washing current mood. machine or the dishwasher or the microwave, Affective computingis already making its way makinga phone call,writing letter, a playinga CD into the commercial world. Basic emotional or a computer game,thelistgoes on and on. Given expression and detection technology is being that we have established the prevalence of employed throughthe use of 'embodied conver- mechanicalwriting the spaces of everydaylife, in sational agents' (see Cassell et al. 2000; Pesce we now need to beginto establish exactly how that 2000), icons which are able to mimicconversation, effectivity comes about.In thispartofthepaper we not only throughbetterlinguisticskills,but also will argue that this effectivity stems fromthree through employing a range of the non-verbal different intersecting of but geographies.The first behaviours associated with affect like facial these geographiesis the most obvious, the large expression, gesture and posture. Such agents and complexgeographyof thewriting software of therefore operate not only in the representational - of the production lines of code - a geography of register (as in, for example, representingcon- that takes in many different locations and many cepts), but also in the non-representational regis- different languages and which has been built up ter (as in spatializing or providing rhythmto progressively of since the invention programming a conversation).Such icons now encompass a in the 1940s. And this geographyof writingcan whole range of agencies,includingnot only roles only grow, especially given the demands of a in games, but also intelligent avatars like virtual modern economy that is built on software(see
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Chandler and Cortada 2000) and the consequent need to produce more and more lines of code whetherwe are talkingof the 3000 or so lines of code thatan electrictoothbrush may now use, or themillionsof lines ofcode thatinhabita personal computer(Lohr 2001). 'Business cycles and Wall Street enthusiasms will come and go, but someone will have to build all the needed software. Programmersare the artisans, craftsmen, brick layers, and architects theInformation of Age' (Lohr 2001,7). Software programming stillitself is littleunderstood. As we have seen already,it is a curious blend of science,engineering and artistry. the On whole, studiesof theprogramming labour process (e.g. Downey 1998;Orr 1996; Perlow 1997;O'Riain 2000), do not capture its exact blend of writing skillsand are unable to explain why some people are quite clearly better at programmingthan others. Knuth(1997) has observed: As
of geography thosehumanswho write complicated software. industechnology of Theglobalisation theinformation but economy in a not is try seento result in a virtual certain and around through organized industry global workspaces, global Within these key plansandregions. constantly cycle through among workers relations solias worker and phasesofcohesion fragmentation, but of for is darity mobilised principles innovation in of by disowned the structure careers the labour 179) 2000, market. (O'Riain
productionis concenThe geographyof software trated into a very few key places and regions: Silicon Valley (Kenney 2000), New York (Pratt 2000), London, and a number of subsidiaryand sometimes mass production software locations teston (oftenconcentrating tasks like consulting, like ing and support)in countries Irelandand India software (O'Riain 2000). However,because writing requires skills that are still in short supply, especially for newer languages, softwarewriters Thereare a certain percentage undergraduates from over theworld often of to gravitate themain all two per centor so - who have themental perhaps centres(Kenney2000). software-writing abilities makethem that good at computer programThe otheris a much wider networkof producming. Theyare good at it,and itsjustflowsout of them.... Thetwopercentaretheonlyoneswhoare tion thattakes in many consumersas well. Since reallygoing to make thesemachines amazing the foundingof the free softwaremovementin do things.I wish it weren'tso, but thatis the way it has 1983 by RichardStallman,Open Source software project(McKelvey has become a massive collective always been.(cited Lohr in 2001, 9) the 2000). This has been particularly case since the Whethernew developments like grid program- foundingof InternetLanguages like Linux and mingcan overcomethe relianceon thosefew who Perl, essentiallysoftwarethat has been commucan manipulate the few basic higher-levellan- nally enhanced by thousands of software writers guages (like C and its variants),or whetherlarge worldwide (Moody 2000). The much trumpeted amountsof programming will end up being auto- Linux - with its familiar Penguin logo - was mated - software produced by software - remains born fromthree sources: a team of professional to be seen. Certainly, writing code is corporate developers attemptingto solve their a curious blendofscience, engineering, artistryand organization'sneeds, commercialsoftwarecomMore interesterror: experienced even programmers onaverage panies and individualprogrammers. make oneerror every linesofcode(andall ittakes for ten is ing in manyways is Perl (PracticalEvaluationand or three four defects 1000 per lines codefor of software ReportLanguage). Createdin 1987in Santa Monica to start doingunpredictable things). (The Economist by LarryWall,Perl is now knownas the'duct tape 2002) Made visibleby thefamiliar logo of oftheinternet'. an the camel, signifying entityoftenthoughtto Though software programming a long history have been made by a committee but which still has spun out ofmanylocations, geography now works - Perl is a kind of mechanical writing its has like stabilized.To begin with,thereare, of course, all culture withsomething a millionusers(Moody theseinstitutions teach programmers write 2000). Perl does not operateaccordingto the strict that to code: universities, schools and colleges,computer logics necessary to write earlier generationproinstitutes, and so on. But the geographyof pro- gramminglanguages. Rather,Wall, a linguistics gramming is most often linked to centres of expert, created it to mimic 'expressive' written software production. This geography can be languages on the principleof 'there's more than apprehended in two ways. One is the large and one way to do it'. Perl is, in other words, a
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and language that allows a large amount of creative upon and ('expertise' 'know-how'), relying definite and techniques technologies mechanisms, expression, on the principle that 'easy things selves, subjects, 4 Characteristic ways of forming should be easy and hardthings should be possible' or actors agents. 23) (Dean 1999, (Wall et al. 2000,4). Thus Perl is not a minimalistic persons, computer language, but has the capacity to be We can see straight intervenes away thatsoftware fuzzyand to migrate. However, in each of these dimensions.It has changed charby formsof visibility informationalizing Wall'sachievement muchfurther simply acteristic goes than a space, so producingnew objectsof analysis.It has greatlanguage.Perl was one of the key enabling technologies madepossible lastwaveofinter- changed ways of thinkingand questioning by that the It procedures. has changed new analytic active web sites,and hence e-commerce itself.It producing established another yet field- thatof programmingthe nature of expertiseby producing new temlanguages wherethenet-based open-development and it is changingthe plates for decisionmaking had produced process better results thanthosetra- natureof human subjectsby producingenhanced ditionally employed withinsoftware companies to capabilitiesand by questioning just what technot create their black products. box (Moody 2000, 134) the niques of the selfconsistof,but whether selfis category. a meaningful governmental And, at least in part, this was because of the a of is Software, now, therefore, key technology openness of the development process: But for government boththestateand commerce. it ifyouhavea problem thePerl that community fix, is more than just a potentjuridical intermediary. can't youhavetheultimate backstop: source the codeitself. Increasingly, software becomingthe practiceof is ThePerlcommunity notin thebusiness renting is of What were corporeal routines that government. youtheir in trade secrets theguiseofupgrades. (Wall become incorcould be questionedhave seemingly etal. 2000, xvii) poreal routinesthatlie below the level of explicit Whateverthe language, it is clear thatopen soft- discourse,thatare no longerdisclosed. consist Seen in thisway,whatthendoes software ware is being writtenin many locations at once but,even here,thereis a verydefinite hierarchy of of, outside the physical factof lines of code? In essence, we can say that it consists of rules of places and people.11 situThe second geography one ofpower.Power is conduct able to be applied to determinate is builtintosoftware from inception. example, ations. But these rules of conduct operate at a its For binarycode is premisedon the Leibnizianconcep- distance,so thattoo oftenthe code seems to have tion of permitted/not permitted.But, that said, little to do with the situations in which it is softwarehas no fixed foundationsbeyond the applied. logical and material technologies of microas Insteadof seeingthe program a real instrument informational processing, we must finda body so someprogrammers the affecting livesofrealpeople, ofworkthatcan play to thischaracteristic. we This a to ingenuity. times it as a game, challenge their see do through the Foucauldian notion of governus permits to of quality thecomputer The alienating of overlook human the consequences a programming mentality. Foucault's chief concern was with an datato An or design error. assignment linkscattered analysis of governmentthat took as its central for becomes nothbasesindifferent quarters, example, concernhowwe govern and are governedwithin the a to than problem be solved; programmer ingmore specificregimes,and the conditionsunder which and of diminutionprivacy the doesnotnotice resulting such regimes are able to emerge, continue to that for theincreased opportunities mischief canresult. persist,and are transformed. Accordingto Dean, 1998, 22) (Kohanski an analytics of government thereforeworks Again, programmers themselves argue about fourdimensionsof problematization: through exactly what it is that they are producing and 1 Characteristic ofvisibility, ofseeing forms ways and who makes thedecisionsabout thedecisionsincorperceiving porated into the code (Ullman 1997; Kohanski 2 Distinctive ofthinking questioning, ways and relying few ethnographies the of on definite vocabularies and procedures for the 1998). The remarkably labour process in the softwareindustry(e.g. Orr production thoughts thosederived of (e.g. from the 1996; Perlow 1997; Downey 1998; O'Riain 2000) human behavioural and social, sciences) 3 Specific ways of acting, and intervening directing, hardlymentionthe issue, even thoughit is surely made up of particular typesof practical rationalitycrucial.
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and and (Bowker Star1999, Whatwe can say is thatcode is law ofa kind.But unclassified non-standard. 31) it is notso muchlaw consideredas a set ofrulesas law consideredas a set of possible storiesframing encounters (Lessig 1999),new adaptive of is standardsof Seen in thisway,thegovernmentality software conduct. Taken together, these stories write out perhapsbest approximated by Deleuze's (1990) to standardsof conductthatcan work in all kinds of notionof 'societiesof control'in thatit providesa situations all kindsofscales. These stories be set of modulationsthatconstantly at directhow citican simple blocks. They can be encryptions. is Those They can zens act (and who, therefore, important). be overall architectures. So, code has different modulations are often simply opportune. For effects conduct fromthe given of the green, example,many of the most malign effects code on of amber,red of traffic lightsto the factthatonly 23 have arisenwhen systemsare linkedin ways that people can be present an AOL chat-room once provide new opportunitiesfor surveillance,for in at (originallya choice of code engineers), to the example by providing previously unavailable amountof information to be collectedon each kinds of information. a productmanageronce able 'As person and translatedto commercialadvantage. told me, "I've never seen anyone with two sysWithincertainhighlycoded domains, this infor- temswho didn't want us to hook themtogether"' mationcan be wielded in almostabsolute terms: the (Ullman 1997,85). But increasingly modulation becomes increaswill be purposeful.As software AOL space [is] different fromother places in cyberso space - itis easierfor AOL to identify who you are,and ingly context-aware, it will be able to adjust providinga new kind of harderforindividualsto findout who you are; easier rules to circumstances, for AOL to speakto all its'citizens' it wishes, as and mechanical stance to judgement that may well what countsas law. harderfordissidentsto organiseagainstAOL's views begin to redefine about how things oughtto be; easierforAOL to Numerous examples of new softwareclassifimarket, and harderforindividuals to hide. AOL is a entitiesexist. We will cation and standardization different narrative world; it can createotherdifferent fix on one particularly potent one - the humble worldsbecause itis in, control thearchitecture that spreadsheet.Low-cost spreadsheetprogramsfirst of of world.Membersin thatspace face,in a sense,different of appeared in 1979 withtheintroduction VisiCalc sets of laws of nature;AOL makes those laws. (Lessig (forVisibleCalculator)forthe Apple II computer, 1999,70) Robert Frankston developed by Daniel Bricklin, fiveyears, (see Lohr2001). Within In a sense, what softwareis able to achieve is a and Dan Fylstra standardizationand classification urban situ- over one million spreadsheets were being sold of ations in ways that were formerly impossible. It annually worldwide. Spreadsheets became ever formsa new chapter in what Bowker and Star more ubiquitous as a resultof additional design to (1999, 31) call the 'categoricalsaturation'of the workand theability be used on a PC (leadingto the successorprogramLotus 1-2-3fortheIBM PC, modernworld: and to Microsoft Excel) - as well as morerecently it Although is possibleto pull out a singleclassification within to a Linux spreadsheetprogram.Certainly, scheme or standardforreference purposes, in reality be ten years it could alreadylegitimately claimed none ofthemstandalone. So a subproperty ubiquity of is interdependence, frequently, and A integration. sys- that many businesses had become 'spreadsheet tems approach might see the proliferation both cultures'. Subsequently, spreadsheets have of standards and classifications purely a matterof continued to evolve with the addition of a as integration almostlikea giantweb ofinteroperability. WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Yet the sheer densityof these phenomenago beyond interface (with many word processingfacilities), questionsofinteroperability. are layered, They tangled, as well as sophisticated graphical display textured, theyinteract forman ecologyas well as a to capabilities. flatset of compatibilities. That is to say,theyfacilitate The spreadsheet was able to be adapted so the collectionof heterogeneous 'dispositif techniques' because itfunctioned rapidlyfortwo reasons.First, (Foucault 1975). They are lodged in different commuas a high level programming language thatcould nitiesof practicesuch as laboratories, records,offices, throughjust a few easily be made task-specific insurancecompanies) and so forth. There arespaces As between (unclassified, non-standard of course, functions. Nardi (1995) points out, the spreadareas), and these are especially important the analysis. It sheet was accessible (even in its early completely to seems that increasingly these spaces are marked as text-based because it used formats) programming
Theautomatic production space of very simple control constraints, which meant that results could be achieved almost immediately with relatively little efforton behalf of the user. The sacrifice of the flexibilityand generality characteristic of most programming languages paid dividends in producing much greater expressivity. Second, the spreadsheet format mimicked the structure of the paper ledger sheet, so that it was already familiar and able to be inserted into the everyday life of business. Yet, The spreadsheet fundamentally is different from earlier programs financial for calculation, withtheir unbridgeable separation betweenprograms and data - responding to a nearlyunbridgeableseparationbetweenprogramme and accountant. keyinnovation The was notin the interface elements or the softwarestructure but ratherin the virtuality provided to the user - the underlying world of objectsand theirbehaviour.The spreadsheet virtually combinestheregularstructure of the familiar ledger sheetwith an underlying structure of interlinked formulas.The non-technical user can build a complexfinancial model incrementally, can and explore the model through successive iterationsof inputs.This quantitative changein ease meanta qualitative change in how people worked with data. (Winograd1996,230)
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(such as new providednew businessopportunities products).Theywere 'a medium forserifinancial hard numbers' ous play as much as forcrunching (Schrage2000,44). And,best ofall, theyprovideda new language. Thus Schrage exaggerates only when he writesthat: slightly dollar institutional multibillion The multinational, in headquartered nominally Boveri, AseaBrown leader but language, that is insists English itsprimary Europe, of in practice dominant language ABB is spreadthe observe itis that senior several managers sheet. Indeed, and over disagreement negotiation communication, that and business forecasts projects drive spreadsheet fluent your in it to atABB.'Yes, think isbetter be more I than says a senior forecasts in English', spreadsheet are probably more 'Our numbers ABB executive. 46-7) our 2000, (Schrage to important us than words'.
of creatednew stories In otherwords,spreadsheets not least by producing new intelgovernment, lectual stimulation.The artefactof spreadsheet new programcreatednew coalitions,new forces, realities.In turn,theirpersuasivenessas a model allowed themto migrateoutwards frombusiness and financeinto the city as a whole. They had So, founda 'design foothold'. forexample,specialist spreadsheet programs are now available for Thus managerial behaviour was profoundly applicationsas diverseas car purchase,class notes changed by the generation of new kinds of infor- and assignments, seed culdiving decompression, mation and interaction, new 'everyday business tivation and trading, landfill gas production, lives': archaeological digs, laboratory management, The artfully crafted spreadsheet- here is how we can chemical properties,music production and real cut costs!Here's how we should restructure deal! this estatemanagement.
could and did prove as politicallyexplosive a document as the declarationof independenceor the communistmanifesto. Spreadsheetsoftware breathednew lifeintotheold adage 'figures don'tlie,butliarsfigure'. As budgetsand forecasts were used to findpreviously unimagined opportunities, traditionalperceptionsof power,politics, and all productivity, profit dramatically shifted. Finance-driven organisations often found themselves reorganisingaround their spreadsheets. (Schrage2000,39)
The spreadsheet thereforehad impacts in a number of ways. To begin with, it provided new opportunity for interaction. Then, it furnished managers with rhetorical energy (there is a rhetoricof spreadsheets that results in more or less persuasive forecasts: 'spreadsheet rhetoric is about turning what appears to be a dispassionate logic of numbers into presentations that mute opposition even as they enlist allies' (Schrage 2000, 47). Again, the spreadsheet asked new questions, tested new ideas and
it is Now thatthespreadsheet widelyavailable, has that to tasks havenothing do come be usedfor to many A withfigures. spreadsheet be used foranything can that of arrays valuesthat regular callsforcalculating for formulasespecially areinterconnectedregular by that alternatives. thoseactualities call forexploring for use spreadsheets gradingcourses, Professors data for use scientists spreadsheets interpreting from for and use experiments, builders spreadsheets keeping New kindsof spreadsheets have track materials. of that thecellswithvisualimages, fill beendeveloped datarepresentations, interleaved and by sounds, other in that calculations theappropriate formulas perform domain. 231) 1996, (Winograd has But Foucault's notion of governmentality a the negativeside. Thoughitstresses positiveroleof power, it overwhelminglyconcentrateson the realm of constraint, whether legislated or selfimposed. But thereis a thirdkind of geographyof what Hobart and Schiffman (1998) call software,
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'the realmof play'. The generalprofusion softof ware, its increasingcomplexityand consequent emergent properties, countas means ofproducall ing playfulidioms thathave not been capturedby dominant orders. Software'svery indeterminacy and lack of closure provide a means of creating new kinds of order.
Play is 'freedom', wrote Huizinga, yet it also 'creates order,is order'. In its creativeactivity, play does not imitateor reflect correspondor map directly an or to outsideworld,althoughtheresulting orderitproduces might eventually do so. Play's own order is not derivatively mimeticbut sui generis, methectic, the as Greekswould say in reference thetheatre, 'helpinga to out-of-the-action'. now it should be abundantly By clear that information the contemporaryidiom in means process,always in motion,always abettingthe action of life'sdrama. Less clear,perhaps,thismotion but following withitsrulesthearrowoftime.Fromthe time-boundmovementof information play therecan emerge novel, unforeseen 'order for free'. structures, (Hobart and Schiffman 1998,259) The creative phrasing of play can be put another way, as a tending of the virtual. Software has creative potential that is more than just possibility. As Levy puts it, The possible is alreadyfullyconstituted existsin a but state of limbo. It can be realised withoutany change occurring eitherin its determination nature.It is a or phantom reality,something latent. The possible is exactly like the real, the only thing missing being existence. The realisation a possible is not an act of of creationin the fullestsense of the word, forcreation impliesthe innovativeproductionof an idea or form. The difference betweenthepossible and thereal is thus purelylogical. The virtual should,properly speakingbe comparednot to the realbut the actual. Unlikethe possible,whichis staticand already constituted, virtualis a kind of the problematic complex,the kind of tendenciesor forces that accompanies a situation, event, object,or entity, and which involves a process of resolution:actualisation.Thisproblematic complexbelongsto theentity in question and even constitutesone of its primary dimensions.The seed's problem,for example, is the growth thetree.The seed is thisproblem, of even ifitis also something more than that.This does not signify thatthe seed knows exactlywhat the shape of the tree will be, which will one day burst into bloom and spread its leaves above it. Based on its internal limitations,the seed will have to inventthe tree,co-produce it together withthe circumstances encounters. it (Levy 1998,24)
does nothave to be seen Seen in thisway,software recital. and unbending of as simplya form constant tool, such as It can be redefined an experimental that its through actuprincipally defined rather being than the now findsits essential ality(a solution), entity a field. within problematic The virtualisconsistency in the consists determining ationof a givenentity in the it to question which responds, mutating general and redefinof in entity the direction thisquestion to as actuality theresponse a specific ing theinitial 26) (Levy1998, question. Given solution, then, proceeds to a different problem. So softwarethat may be designed to responsescan in produce definedand determined certaincircumstances as the example of spreadof sheetsshows - act as a spur to forms creativity these standardformsof classithatcan transgress of there new forms Yes as are arrangement: ficatory well as No (Lunenfeld 1999). Softwareis, then, creativeand craft-laden being used in remarkably ways - from advances in animation that are redefiningkinetic events (Wells 1998), through of workon new forms music using musicalinstru(MIDI), throughwork on ment digital interfaces new formsof theatreand dance (Sparacino et al. 2000), throughthe pairing of artists and technologists (Harris 1999), throughto the work of technologically sophisticated artists like Char to Davies, who use software createnew virtualart forms which recognize that 'whenever people experiencea piece of software- whetherit be a spreadsheet or a physics simulation [they can] and funor the corbeauty,satisfaction experience respondingopposites' (Winograd1996,xix). Such aestheticuses all depend on softwareprograms, fromthe early (mid-1980s)Macintosh programs like MacPaint and MacDraw to complex contemporary multimediaprogramslike Director.Such softwarecan be said to proceed in a number of but different relatedways. To begin with,it can be used to extendtherangeand meaningofthebody, states not least by conjuringup various affective thatso many (McCullough 1996). It is interesting creative softwareprojects have been concerned it with the body,both representing in new ways, and questioning its bounds as it is constantly augmented (e.g. Allsopp and de Lahunta 1999). Indeed, new softwaredevelopments like haptic computingpromise to extend the range of inforproducing mationalizedembodimentstill further,
has direction, towards telos, not any purpose, end, or
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of interfaces between software and body which will who not only stand in line as part-inventors allow effects unparalleledsubtlety be created. hypertext, World Wide Web, and so on, but of the to As Tenhaafnotes: were clearly concerned with using softwareto boost human capacities, and equally concerned thebodyseems toknow ... in itself a minutely expreswhat was 'human'. sivewaythat maybydefinition be conscious, not but withredefining
thatmay nevertheless becomemore available [as] up-to-the-minute information imagery and aboutthe body's deepestworkings and its mostcomplicated life The rise of semi-artificial biosocial functions now enter ... and becomeinterwoven into the biomedical readability the self. Our problemin thinking of about the automaticpro(Tenhaaf 1996, 67-8) is, software by ductionof space by,with and from Then, softwarecan be used to question familiar now, we hope, clear.That is, thatwe are schooled It Euro-American notionsofrepresentation. After all, to ignore this kind of mechanicalwriting. is a background,to the part of the taken-for-granted in certainsenses thatsome have suggestedthatit constitutes extent we are moving intoan information in environment a kind of virtual skin (or set of skins) around which there to be no representation How we is at all. represent ourselves form and subjectivity, inrelation human bodies (Bailey 1996; Levy 1998), one that to fit therealworld, no longer an issue, simulated will become an ever better as wearable systems will be as become common. into entry parallel digital worlds comesto supercede effectivity So how can we summarizesoftware's thisrelationship. (Tenhaaf 1996,52; see also Brooks 1991) as a new means of populatingspace, and as a new As Too strong, perhaps, yet it is not difficult to means of reproducingintelligence? we have written thispaper,so we have vacillatedbetween see how many artists- and programmers are does. One using softwareto question conventionalnotions two answers, exactlyas the literature answer is to see softwareas an epochal event. of representation ways that are very close in of reorganization to Strathern's recasting of Euro-American Softwaresignals a fundamental coga the environment, vast systemof distributed perspectivism. increasingly whichtheenvironment nitionthrough of Suppose, instead a Renaissance which thinksforitself, extralayerof thinking."2 imagination an at times tried makethewholeworldthesingular Seen in this way, softwareis a part of the to of viewer's object the a vision, having perspective were a extendedorganismof a new formof humanity, regarded a capacity as belonging animate What to life. in kind of extendedphenotype whichthe environthewriter could'see' wouldbe other forms. life What wouldbe finite here? in Coulditbe themanner which mentwe have made speaks back to us: 'organisms with the world outside them' (Turner one'sperspective returned one?That closure are integral was to is, wouldlieinthefact onesimultaneously one's 2000,6). If it is thecase thatmodernbiologyof the had that is own perspective and receivedthe perspective of kind typified developmentalsystemstheory by another. rather, point which viewer at Or, the that was no longersure what organismsare, so we can no conscious he or she had a perspective things longerbe surewhathumanity that on consistsof- whereit wouldbe thepoint which orshewouldmeet at he (so stops and somethingelse begins. In this sense, tospeak) reciprocal the life perspectivesother forms. softwareis building using writing.Rather than of (Strathern 249) 1999, though,we have words and bricksand concrete, Again, software, preciselybecause it is an imper- strings of words. And, of course, increasingly fectmedium,can produce all kinds of opportuni- buildings may well become as much words as ties forwhat Deleuze (1994) called 'bad mimesis'. bricks. Mitchell may exaggeratethe possibilities Many formsof software proceduresthatcon- (see Bolterand Grusin 1999),but even so we can are tain 'flaws' thatcan be used to produce new and see thatsome interesting potentialities: the culture of the notwill moreand of buildings thenearfuture function quite copy (Schwartz1997).And, finally, is worth it with multipleprocessors, more like large computers, remembering how much softwareinnovationhas various devices to control,and distributed memory, itself foundits momentum a from line of dissident to networkconnections take care of. They will suck in programmers (Moody 2000; Lohr 2001) in the traand and interiors surroundings, from their information and maintain complex, dynamic dition of Thomas Nelson and Douglas Engelbart, they will construct
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information overlaysdeliveredthrough we inanimate experiences tend to reserveforthe sphereof interdevices worn heldbyinhabitants, or screens spaces 2001,522) and (Knorr-Cetina subjectiverelationships. inthe wallsandceilings, projections enclosing and onto surfaces. software manageall thiswill be a And, finally, The to with what softwareis oftenwritten crucial design concern. operating The system your for can only be described as 'human' concerns in housewillbecome essential theroof, certainly as as and of it mind.In particular, is one of thekeymoments far more important theoperating than system your for (Carrierand Miller 1998),the prolifer'virtualism' desktop PC. ation of theories about the world that prompt rather thanvice efforts make theworld conform, to Consequently growing a proportion a building's of versa. Examples of such virtualmomentsabound construction willgo into cost high-value factory-made of the electronics-loaded software programmed computers in code, from mobilization biologicalanaloandsubsystems, a correspondingly decreasing propor- gies discussed above, throughvarious exchanges tionwillgo intoon-site construction thestructure with complexity theory (Thrift1999), through of and cladding. theybecomedenserwithwiring numerousphilosophicaltheories from As Heidegger and electronic devicesbuildings will becomemore (Winogradand Flores 1987) to Bakhtin(Sparacino like large-scale printed circuit boards than dumb et al. 2000) - to the use of Kevin Lynch's (1966) wallboard. (Mitchell 1999, 65) model ofthecityas a meansto imaginetheinternal (Dieburgerand Frank1998). coherenceof software What we see - and will see more of - in And 'human' concernsecho throughsoftwarein Euro-American societies,therefore, a complex otherways too. So the productionof softwareis is ecology of software, 'wideware' (Clark 2000), increasingly an bound up with and incorporates which will increasingly inhabit every nook and ethnographic mode of enquiry,whetherthat be crannyof human life.Software a kind of think- workon moresocial interfaces, CSCW, or on the as on ing grass.Latourand Hernant's(1997) Paris,made psychologyof artificial social actors (Dryer et al. up of a vast panorama of signs, directionsand 1999). In otherwords, an ethnographic model of objects will be paralleled in the virtual realm, human encountersdefinesthe horizon of certain producing a more effective (because polycentric, forms software. of multi-vocal heterogeneous) and assemblageofconas software So, maybeinsteadof understanding trol, whole species of normativity in interacting as writing nextchapter theevolutionofhumanin the yet-to-be determined ways. But maybethisanswer ity(Leroi-Gourhan 1993; Levy 1998),we can see it is a bit too grand and we need to turnto another as a more practical extensionof human spaces, answer instead, one that is less sweeping, more consisting threedifferent is of processes.The first a mundane.After to beginwith,there plenty all, is of simple extension of textuality. So, for example, evidence thatsoftware does not always work that modernWestern intertextual citiesare effectively well (for example, in the case of surveillance fromthe myriad formsissued by bureaucracies, cameras, see Lianos and Douglas 2000) and that throughthe book, the newspaper and the web much of the writing thattakes place in the world page, through checkouttill roll and the credit the will continueto be paper-based,not electronically card slip to the letter,the e-mail and the text coded (Sellen and Harper 2002). Then, most soft- message, the city is one vast intertext. Cities are ware is still initiallywrittenby human hands quite literallywrittenand softwareis the latest (McCullough 1996). It arises fromthe striking of expressionof this cursive passion. Second, softthe clickingof the mouse, the shifting ware is a part of the paraphernaliaof everyday keyboards, ofnotesaround on a desktopand theconsulting of urbanliferevealedby theturnto thenoncognitive. manuals to find various standards and classifi- It is one of those littlebut large technologies that cations (Bowker and Star 1999, 39). Softwarestill are crucialto thebondingofurbantimeand space, flowsfrom interface the betweenbody and object- technologieslike the pencil (Petroski 1992) and even though that interface may be what Knorr- the screw (Rybczynski 2000), which in theirvery Cetina calls 'post-social',resting the factthat on ubiquity go largely unnoticed. We can thinkof individuals someareasrelate 'some'objects in to not software in this way - as a holding together as only 'doers'and 'accomplishers'things of within an accomplished throughthe medium of performaframework as experiencing, but agency reflex- tive writing.Third, we can see softwareas a feeling, iveandremembering - as bearers thesort as passing of of means of transport, an intermediary beings
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as now definessoftware the 'proEnglishDictionary information from one place to another efficiently so gramsand proceduresrequiredto enable a computer that the journey appears effortless, movement task,as opposed to thephysical a to perform specific without friction(Latour 1997). As a running components of the system'. In simple terms,the description the present. of is of function such programs to processdata. Through Whateverthe answer (and our inclination to is algorithms, of theemployment variousmathematical choose both at once), it seems certainthatwe can processdata to producea requisiteoutput, programs no longer thinkof city spaces in the old, timethus enabling systemsto operate. Again in simple honoured ways. Softwarechallenges us to think of involvesthe writing development software terms, 'beyond living','to mime an absent origin,"life"' programs by software developers and computer (Doyle 1997, 132). Software challenges us to drawingupon various languages and programmers The language and the protechniques. programming re-inscribe what we comprehendas inscription. grammingtechniquesemployed will depend upon And, most importantly, software challengesus to the task in question. understand new forms of technologicalpolitics and new practicesof politicalinvention, legibility 2 This convergencebegins with inventionslike the of history its JacquardLoom, and has a verydefinite and intervention we are onlyjustbeginning that to own, whichwe have no space to documenthere.But comprehend politicalat all: politicsofstandards, as (1998). see Hobartand Schiffman classifications, and readings (Barry2001). metrics, 3 The followingY2K audit was conducted through
becomingone ofthechief ways ofanimating space. They should not be allowed to take us unaware. One of the more pressingcontemporary political tasks must therefore to design friendlier be 'information ecologies' (Nardi and O'Day 1999)13 that, because oftheir diversity outcome, of will allow us to shape overlapping spatial mosaics in which effective participationis still possible and still necessary. Automaticcan be forthe people. Acknowledgements
These orderings - written down as software - are
6 We would like to thank audiences at the Royal College ofArt,the Conference Information and on theUrbanFutureheld at New YorkUniversity, and the Conferences Hegemonies and Code held at on the University Lancasterfortheirhelpfulcom- 7 of mentson thispaper.In particular, would like to we thank Fred Botting, Howard Caygill, Robert Cooper,Mick Dillon, Paul Fletcher, Steve Graham, 8 John Hughes, Patrick Keiller, James Griesemer, Kirsten McAllister, Paolo Palladino, Lucy Suchman and Wes Sharrock interventions that for have much improvedthe logic and content this of paper. The assistanceof the National University of Singaporein providingthe resourcesto allow the 9 paper to be finalizedis gratefully acknowledged.
Notes
10 1 The first published use of the term'software'as a computingtermdates only from1958,when it was used by JohnTulley in the American Mathematical 11 Monthly (see Shapiro 2000; Lohr 2001). The Oxford
in see the internet; particular, the Websiteslisted in Table I. overThereare obvious dangershere of information load, with consumers simply switchingoff,which by have led to a numberof attempts the advertising industry produce protocolsthatwill allow selecto / http: /coverage.cnet.com/Content/ tion.Takenfrom Gadgets/Special/FunToWear/ssO3html the Of course,it is possible to overstate case mightily. One of us was told of how MIT Media Lab brought manufacturers to a together numberof majorkitchen consider how kitchendevices could communicate would notbe witheach other, onlyto agreethatthere a lot forthemto say. The Audit Commission (1998, 5) definesembedded or monitor assist as systems 'devices used to control, or the operationof equipment,machinery plant ... [a]ll embedded systemsare, or include,computers'. to attempts 'breed' progrescomputing Evolutionary sively bettersolutionsto complex problems,in the same way that successive generationsof life forms environments. evolve to cope withparticular softcomputing appears to be the Of the threeterms, elements broadest,withBonissone(1998) identifying fromevolutionarycomputing(genetic algorithms), fuzz computation (fuzzylogic)as well as probabilistic and partsof learnreasoning(includingchaos theory within (Zadeh 1994)) and neuralnetworks ing theory thiscategory. By which is meantproblemswithtoo manypossible solutionsto trythemall withina reasonableperiod of time (http://ai.about.com/compute/ai/library/ weekly/aallO800a.htm). The genetic operator utilizes theoriesof evolution to and gene mutation alterthe such as gene crossover of composition 'children'duringreproduction. Not too much should be made of the perceptionof languages like Linux as being the projectof offbeat
332 code composers.Linux's corehas mainlybeen developed by seven people - Linus Torvalds and David Miller in California,David Cox in England, Ingo Molnar in Hungary, StevenTweedy, and Ted T'so on the west coast of America and Andrea Arkangelin Europe, who filter patches of code theyreceive the and pass them on to 250 programmers worldwide, the vast majority whom work on testing(Young of 1999). 12 We oftenturn,in this regard,to a lectureone of us attended John by SeelyBrownat UC Berkeley May in 2001 in which he outlineda projectin which every tree in a forestwould have a chip insertedinto it, producinga naturalsystemwithmemoryand some communication abilities(forexample,being able to call for help). An initial sceptical reactionwas followed by the thoughtthatthis may well indeed be how spaces with software will come to be regarded, as a second informationalized nature (Seely Brown and Duguid 2000). 13 Nardi and O'Day, forexample, point to the role of 'gardeners', mediators withcomputer skillsabove the average who are found in many walks of life and act as keystonesin communities, and as the main innovators the co-evolution tools and practices. in of Similarly, need new simplerkinds of 'block' prowe gramminglanguages (ratherlike MIT Media Lab's Logo), whichare task-specific accessibleto all. and
and Nigel Thrift Shaun French Headline, London BentleyP 2001 Digitalbiology appliancesand beyond Bergman E ed 2000 Information Academic Press,San Diego Billinghurstnd Quoted in 'Head to toe' CNET.com / /Content Gadgets Special! / (http: /coverage.cnet.com / Accessed29 December2000 FunToWear/ss03.html) Understanding BolterJD and Grusin R 1999Remediation. MIT Press,Cambridge,MA newmedia and hybridsystems Bonissone P P 1998 Softcomputing in Ruspini E, Bonissone P P and PedryczW eds The Institute of Physics of handbook fuzzy computation London 161-78 Publishing, The natureof Borgmann A 1999 Holdingon to reality. University of at information theturnof themillennium Chicago Press,Chicago life 2000 Semi-artificial in WrathallM and Malpas J science.Essays in copingand cognitive eds Heidegger, honor of HerbertL DreyfusVolume 2 MIT Press, MA 197-205 Cambridge, Bowker G C and Star S L 1999 Sortingthingsout. MIT and Classification itsconsequences Press,Cambridge, MA Addison Wesley, man-month Brooks F 1995 The mythical San Francisco Brooks R A 1991 Intelligencewithout representation 47 Journal 139-59 Intelligence Artificial world. BrownB, Green N and HarperR eds 2002 Wireless age of aspects themobile Springer Socialand interactional Verlag,London Brown P et al. 2000 Contextawareness:some compelling applications (www.cks.ex.ac.uk/-pjbrown/papers/ Accessed 26 April2001 acm.html) A CarrierJand Miller D eds 1998 Virtualism. newpolitical Berg,Oxford economy Cassell J,Sullivan J,PrevostS and ChurchillE eds 2000 conversational agentsMIT Press, Cambridge, Embodied MA Chandler A D and Cortada J W eds 2000 A nation Oxford UniversityPress, transformed information by New York An to philosophy of Clark A 2001Mindware. introductionthe Press,Oxford science OxfordUniversity cognitive in Unconscious thought Clough P T 2000 Autoaffection. Universityof Minnesota Press, the age of technology Minneapolis Collins H and Kusch M 1998 The shapeofactions.What can machines do MIT Press,Cambridge,MA Cambridge Crystal D 2001 Language and the internet Press,Cambridge University and Davis L and SteenstrupM 1990 Geneticalgorithms simulated annealing: an overview in Davis L ed and simulatedannealing Pitman, Genetic algorithms London 46-52 Power Dean M 1999 Governmentality. and rule in modern Sage, London society to Deleuze G 1990 Postscript societiesof controlOctober 31 27-36
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The Automatic Production of Space Author(s): Nigel Thrift and Shaun French Reviewed work(s): Source: Transactions of the

The automatic production of space

Nigel Thrift Shaun French and

Theautomatic of vroduction svace

and Nigel Thrift Shaun French

production space of Theautomatic

AUTOMOBILE TERRITORY IN THE DELTA AREA OF EAST LANSING,MICHIGAN

Automobile movement Automobile service

Figure 1 Machine space (Horvath 1974)

and Nigel Thrift Shaun French

Table I Active Y2K websites

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Source: City of BeverlyY2K Audit CommitteeReport (1998), Massachusetts,United States

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and Nigel Thrift Shaun French

thateven as farback as theCommissionestimated werebeing 1996,some 7 billionembedded systems worldwide. distributed

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Symbolic Logic Reasoning

Classical and Numerical Search Methods

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Nigel Thrift Shaun French and

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has direction, towards telos, not any purpose, end, or

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