Much smart computing these days depends on the idea of the index, the ability of a computer process to look up data from a table. What seems to the user of an Internet search engine like an instantaneous search through millions of web pages is in fact very fast lookup on a series of indices…More
Tag Archives: Derrida
Architecture as the last fortress
In an essay about architecture, the philosopher Jacques Derrida focuses on the importance accorded by architects to concepts of home, dwelling and hearth, the nostalgia within modern architecture for a centre, an origin, a set of primary principles, an ordering, including belief in the sacred origins of architecture. He also notes how architecture aims for…More
Derrida and WikiLeaks
In his article Archive Fever Derrida suggests that the desire to preserve information is in some way a symptom of an inbuilt and unavoidable desire to destroy it. Drawing on Freud’s concepts of the pleasure principle and the death drive, Derrida argues that an information store (archive) on the one hand involves a desire to…More
Being David Hockney
David Hockney sends digital paintings of flowers to his friends by email. These are pictures he created on his iPhone and iPad. Some of these images are now on show at a gallery in Paris (Fleurs Fraîches at the Fondation Pierre Bergé). It’s pleasing that artists of his stature can embrace new technologies and explore…More
The Internet as hypertext or archive
Raises the question of how Derrida’s thinking about intertextuality has been applied to the InternetMore