This book has been inspired by almost fifteen years of ‘writing’ software as a software engineer for telecommunications. The people I wrote software with are too many to be named; nevertheless, I would like to thank them here because I learnt so much from them while also having so much fun.
The origins of this project lie with my time as a doctoral student at Goldsmiths, University of London, which provided an exciting and stimulating environment for the much more critical questioning of technology. First and foremost I am grateful to Joanna Zylinska for being an exceptional guide and a demanding interlocutor while I was at Goldsmiths, and for remaining a mentor and a friend long afterwards. Her work remains for me a model of intellectual and political engagement. I would also like to express my gratitude to all those who have read various parts of this book and immensely enriched it with their comments and critiques: David Boothroyd, Scott Dexter, Gary Hall, Janet Harbord, Sarah Kember, David Morley, and the late and much missed Mark Poster. I am especially grateful to Gary Hall for proposing Software Theory as the title of this book and for sharing with me some of his tremendous insights on technology (not least the one about ‘quasi-functioning’ software).
Many years ago I had the privilege to discuss the early stages of my project with N. Katherine Hayles at a Masterclass organized by Rosi Braidotti at the University of Utrecht. Although over time my thought on technology has taken a different direction from Hayles’s, I maintain the greatest admiration for her work and feel fortunate to have remained in dialogue with her throughout the years. I am grateful to my colleagues and students at Oxford Brookes University for providing a lively environment for the discussion of my thoughts on philosophy and technology and for supporting the realization of this book through various research grants. I am also indebted to a number of other universities which have lent hospitality to my ideas, including Columbia University, New York; Brooklyn College, CUNY; Coventry University, and the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’ (Italy). I am very grateful to the editors and reviewers at Rowman & Littlefield International for all their help and support with this project.
Parts of this book have been published as articles. An earlier version of Chapter 1, entitled ‘Rethinking the Digital Humanities in the Context of Originary Technicity’, acted as an opening to the special issue of Culture Machine, The Digital Humanities beyond Computing, vol. 12 (2011), which I edited. An early version of two sections of Chapter 3 and 4 appeared as part of another article, entitled ‘Does It Work? The Unforeseeable Consequences of Quasi-Failing Technology’, Culture Machine (Creative Media 11 [2009], http://www.culturemachine.net).
I would like to express my gratitude to family and friends for their support through the years. Thanks to Roberto Camano for providing early help with grammars and compilers. Very special personal thanks go to Liana Borghi and Tiziana Iannucci, for changing my life in so many ways and for encouraging me during the early stage of my academic career.
Finally, all this would not have been possible without the unconditional love and support of Carla Marzocchi, my mother. This book is dedicated to her.