Böcker av Vera Buhlmann

In The Digital, a Continent?, the author argues in favor of a way of thinking about digital technology that draws on the new materialism. She uses photosynthesis and nuclear fission as examples of processes that are as artificial as they are natural to explain how digital technology can be viewed within the paradigm of a "communicative physics" in which poetics interacts with mathematical thinking. The author concludes that we can better understand ourselves and digital technology by developing notions of the multifaceted ways energy, form, and intellect interact in global architectonics. Theoretical consideration of digital technology Visual language and science New volume in the Applied Virtuality Book Series

In this book, the editors focus on architecture and communication from various different perspectives - taking into account that the term "architecture" is used for buildings as well as in the context of computer software. Data and software also impact on our cities; raw data, however, do not convey any information - in order to generate information and communication they have to be organized and must make sense to the reader. The contributions avoid clear separation of the various communication spheres of their disciplines. Instead, they use the wide range of approaches to explore meanings - an ambitious aim that leaves the destination wide open; the reader is invited to share in this adventure.

Recent developments in computer science, particularly ”data-driven procedures" have opened a new level of design and engineering. This has also affected architecture. The publication collects contributions on Coding as Literacy by computer scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, cultural theorists, and architects. The main focus in the book is the observation of computer-based methods that go beyond strictly case-based or problem-solution-oriented paradigms. This invites readers to understand Computational Procedures as being embedded in an overarching ”media literacy" that can be revealed through, and acquired by, ”computational literacy", and to consider the data processed in the above-mentioned methods as being beneficial in terms of quantum physics. ”Self-Organizing Maps" (SOM), which were first introduced over 30 years ago, will serve as the concrete reference point for all further discussions.