Out now: Special Issue on “Critical Technical Practice(s) in Digital Research” edited by Daniela van Geenen, Karin van Es and Jonathan Gray
Convergence 30 (1) Special Issue on „Critical Technical Practice(s) in Digital Research“
Daniela van Geenen (University of Siegen)
Karin van Es (University Utrecht)
Jonathan Gray (King’s College London)
Our CRC-Member Daniela van Geenen (A03), together with Karin van Es and Jonathan Gray, edited the special issue “Critical Technical Practice(s) in Digital Research”, which has now been published in Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies 30 (1).
Save the date: the editors will (soft) launch the issue at the CRC research forum on 10 July, 2 to 4 pm CEST with some short presentations. You can join the event either online or in Siegen! Contact Daniela van Geenen.
Links to the articles and the living literature collection (Zotero group) can be found here.
In this special issue, the authors turn to ideas of and approaches to critical technical practices (CTPs) as entry points to doing critique and doing things critically in digitally mediated cultures and societies. They explore the pluralisation of ‘critical technical practice’, starting from its early formulations in the context of AI research and development (Agre, 1997a, 1997b) to the many ways in which it has resonated and been taken up by different publications, projects, groups, and communities of practice, and what it has come to mean. Agre defined CTP as a situational, practical, and constructive way of working: ‘a technical practice for which critical reflection upon the practice is part of the practice itself’ (1997a: XII). Communities of practice in which the notion has been adopted, adapted, and put to use range from human–computer interaction (HCI) to media art and pedagogy, from science and technology studies (STS) and computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) to digital humanities, media studies and data studies. This special issue serves as an invitation to (re)consider what it means to use this notion drawing on a wider body of work, including beyond Agre. In this introduction, they review and discuss CTPs according to (1) Agre, (2) indexed research, and (3) contributors to this special issue. They conclude with some questions and considerations for those interested in working with this notion.
The issue is at the same time timely and timeless, featuring contributions by Tatjana Seitz (A01) & Sam Hind; Michael Dieter; Jean-Marie John-Mathews, Robin De Mourat, Donato Ricci and Maxime Crépel; Anders Koed Madsen; Winnie Soon and Pablo Velasco; Mathieu Jacomy and Anders Munk; Jessica Ogden, Edward Summers and Shawn Walker; Urszula Pawlicka-Deger; Simon Hirsbrunner, Michael Tebbe and Claudia Müller-Birn; Bernhard Rieder, Eric Borra and Stijn Peters; Carolin Gerlitz (A03 & Speaker of the CRC 1187), Fernando van der Vlist and Jason Chao; Daniel Chavez Heras; and Sabine Niederer and Natalia Sanchez Querubin.
Daniela van Geenen is a lecturer in Data Journalism and Visualization at the University of Applied Sciences Utrecht and is also a Ph.D. candidate at the DFG CRC 1187 “Media of Cooperation” and member of the project “A03 – Navigation in Online/Offline Spaces” at the University of Siegen Karin van Es is associate professor Media & Culture Studies and project lead Humanities at Data School at Utrecht University. Jonathan Gray is Reader in Critical Infrastructure Studies at the Department of Digital Humanities, King’s College London.
Convergence is an international peer-reviewed academic journal which was set up in 1995 to address the creative, social, political and pedagogical issues raised by the advent of new media technologies. As an international research journal, it provides a forum both for monitoring and exploring developments in the field and for encouraging, publishing and promoting vital innovative research. Adopting an inter-disciplinary approach and published six times a year, Convergence has developed this area into an entirely new research field.