Skin and Code

© HKW / Spector Books / Olaf Nicolai

Publication series Das Neue Alphabet (The New Alphabet), Volume 5
Editor: Daniel Neugebauer
Publisher: Spector Books, Leipzig, 2021
80-100 pages, German and English edition
color illustrations, paperback with folded dust cover
ISBN DE: 978-3-95905-460-7
ISBN EN: 978-3-95905-461-4
Price: 10 €

Available at bookstores, mail order buying / postal shopping via the Webshop

Just as physical violence leaves its marks on the skin, conceptual violence is written into interfaces via algorithms—in the form of biases turned into pixels, as discrimination implanted in memes in secret chat groups. The coding and decoding of body surfaces and interfaces is contingent on a whole host of norms. Yet these are not fixed: rather, they combine to create a matrix of tastes, cultural influences, technical conditions, and physical possibilities. The essays in this volume—right down to the paper they are printed on—produce an interdisciplinary noise between surface structures and a selection of cavities: surfaces, skins, and interfaces are injured, gauged, altered, or remedied. With contributions by Luce deLire, Julia Velkova, Anne Kaun, Rhea Ramjohn, i-Päd and Alyk Blue

Table of contents:

Introduction

#MSOV (modern surviving object / I / fied vernac)
Rhea Ramjohn

“[E]very day the matter seems to get worse, and I don’t know what I should do.” Violence, Spinozism, and Digital Reality
Luce deLire

Method: Deniz
Initiative for Intersectional Pedagogy (i-PÄD).

Algorithmic Resistance: Media Practices and the Politics of Repair
Julia Velkova and Anne Kaun