civilisation

“Most of our intelligence is not in our brain, it is externalized as our civilization. It’s not just that our bodies, senses, and environment determine how much intelligence our brains can develop — crucially, our biological brains are just a small part of our whole intelligence. Cognitive prosthetics surround us, plugging into our brain and extending its

corpora

In corpus linguistics, a corpus is a large body of text which can be taken to stand in for the language itself. A corpus is presumed to be an accurate statistical representation of the language in which it is written. As is always the case with statistics, the larger the data set (in this case,

authoring

Over the last year or two I have programmed several pieces of software dedicated to authoring different kinds of media. Each is a sort of sketch which incorporates a set of features by which the media in question can be generated or manipulated. These programmes (or apps) often embody segments of bespoke workflows, the virtual

coupling

“This difference – between technology as a means of construction and as a means of expression – is important when considering the relationship between musicians, technical systems and music. It means we can redefine technology, not as a tool subservient to creativity or an obstacle to it, but as part of a wider context within

concrete

Stairwell in the Sciences Library at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA.   The contents page for Adrian Forty’s Concrete and Culture: A Material History. “Despite its ancient Roman origins, concrete is considered the ultimate modern material, used everywhere in construction today: the equivalent of three tonnes of concrete per person on the planet is