Digital/Post-digital

I want to take up the question of the definition of the "post-digital" again because I think that what the post-digital is pointing towards as a concept is the multiple moments in which the digital was operative in various ways (see Berry 2014a, 2014b, 2014c). Indeed, historicising the “digital" can be a useful, if not crucial step, in understanding the transformation(s) of digital technologies. That is, we are at a moment whereby we are able to survey the various constellations of factors that made up a particular historical configuration around the digital and in which the “digital” formed an “imagined" medium to which existing analogue mediums where often compared, and to which the digital tended to be seen as suffering from a lack, e.g. not a medium for “real” news, for film, etc. etc. The digital was another medium to place at the end (of the list) after all the other mediums were counted – and not a very good one. It was where the digital was understood, if it were understood at all, as a complement to other media forms, somewhat lacking, geeky, glitchy, poor quality and generally suited for toys, like games or the web, or for “boring” activities like accountancy or infrastructure. The reality is that in many ways the digital was merely a staging post, whilst computing capacity, memory, storage and display resolutions could fall in price/rise in power enough to enable a truly “post-digital” environment that could produce new mediated experiences. That is, that it appears that the digital was “complementary” but the post-digital is zero-sum. Here is my attempt to sum up some of the moments that I think might serve as a provocation to debate the post-digital.

DIGITAL	POST-DIGITAL
Non-zero sum	Zero-sum
Objects	Streams
Files	Clouds
Programs	Apps
SQL databases	NoSQL storage
HTML	node.js/APIs
Disciplinary	Control
Administration	Logistics
Connect	Always-on
Copy/Paste	Intermediate
Digital	Computal
Hybrid	Unified
Interface	Surface
BitTorrent	Scraping
Participation	Sharing/Making
Metadata	Metacontent
Web 2.0	Stacks
Medium	Platform
Games	World
Software agents	Compactants
Experience	Engagement
Syndication	Push notification
GPS	Beacons  (IoTs)
Art	Aesthetics
Privacy	Personal Cloud
Plaintext	Cryptography
Responsive	Anticipatory
Tracing	Tracking
Surfing	Reading

figure 1: Digital to Post-Digital Shifts 

This the table offers constellations or moments within a “digital” as opposed to a “post-digital” ecology, as it were, and, of course, a provocation to thought. But they can also be thought of as ideal types that can provide some conceptual stability for thinking, in an environment of accelerating technical change and dramatic and unpredictable social tensions in response to this. The question then becomes to what extent can the post-digital counter-act the tendencies towards domination of specific modes of thought in relation to instrumentality, particularly manifested in computational devices and systems? For example, the contrast between the moments represented by Web 2.0 / Stacks provides an opportunity for thinking about how new platforms have been built on the older Web 2.0 systems, in some cases replacing them, and in others opening up new possibilities which Tiziana Terranova (2014) has pointed to in her intriguing notion of “Red Stacks”, for example (and in contrast to Bruce Sterlings notion of “The Stacks”, e.g. Google, Facebook, etc.). Here I have been thinking of the notion of the digital as representing a form of “weak computation/computationality”, versus the post-digital as “strong computation/computationality”, and what would the consequences be for a society that increasingly finds that the weak computational forms (CDs, DVDs, laptops, desktops, Blogs, RSS, Android Open Source Platform [AOSP], open platforms and systems, etc.) are replaced by stronger, encrypted and/or locked-in versions (FairPlay DRM, Advanced Access Content System [AACS], iPads, Twitter, Push-notification, Google Mobile Services [GMS], Trackers, Sensors, ANTICRISIS GIRL, etc.)?  

These are not just meant to be thought of in a technical register, rather the notion of “weak computation” points towards a “weak computational sociality” and “strong computation” points towards a “strong computation sociality”, highlighting the deeper penetration of computational forms into everyday life within social media and push-notification, for example. Even as the post-digital opens up new possibilities for contestation, e.g. megaleaks, data journalism, hacks, cryptography, dark nets, torrents, piratization, sub rosa sharing networks, such as the Alexandria Project, etc. and new opportunities for creating, sharing and reading knowledges, the “strong computation” of the post-digital always already suggests the shadow of computation reflected in heightened tracking, surveillance and monitoring of a control society. The post-digital points towards a reconfiguration of publishing away from the (barely) digital techniques of the older book publishing industry, and towards the post-digital singularity of Amazonized publishing with its accelerated instrumentalised forms of softwarized logistics whilst also simultaneously supporting new forms of post-digital craft production of books and journals, and providing globalised distribution. How then can we think about these contradictions in the unfolding of the post-digital and its tendencies towards what I am calling here “strong computation”, and in what way, even counter-intuitively, does the digital (weak computation) offer alternatives, even as marginal critical practice, and the post-digital (strong computation) create new critical practices (e.g. critical engineering), against the increasing interconnection, intermediation and seamless functioning and operation of the post-digital as pure instrumentality, horizon, and/or imaginary.  

Bibliography

Berry, D. M. (2014a) The Post-Digital, Stunlaw, accessed 14/1/2014, http://stunlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-post-digital.html

Berry, D. M. (2014b) Critical Theory and the Digital, New York: Bloomsbury.

Berry, D. M. (2014c) On Compute, Stunlaw, accessed 14/1/2014,  http://stunlaw.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/on-compute.html

Terranova, T. (2014) Red stack attack! Algorithms, capital and the automation of the common, EuroNomade, accessed 20/2/2014,  http://www.euronomade.info/?p=1708