Core Post 2 : Where is the source?

I was surprised with how all readings (I read Galloway, Chun and Keeling the most closely this ) this week seemed to struggle with finding a larger argumentative motif than their inaugural concerns with “software as ideology”. It is a large concern, don’t get me wrong but by trying to deconstruct that statement through academic language, I was left somewhat perplexed by the tensions that rise out of trying to articulate just what software might be and how they might operate. I’m not talking about the intellectual arguments between Galloway and Chun here, but rather about this reliance on a certain novel vagueness that the language of software seem to bring to these two authors.

Like Bill suggested, I think that there are historical and material precursors to the logics that these two authors argue about, so simply situating and grounding their arguments within high theory, to me suggested a dislocation from seeing the “functional” reality of software (the way their effective and affective ideologies are played out) to one that simply situates them within a space of discourse.

Even Keeling’s text, to me, struggled to satisfy the political urgency I felt while reading all these texts together. I have a sense of the looming political potential in all of them, and enjoyed Keeling’s turn towards an idea(l) of the “commons” to devise new uses for software, but inherent to the logics of software, I couldn’t help but feel like there was a possible escape out of their ideological constructs.

These texts made me think of Kristin B. Cornelius’ work on the language found in digital contracts, a language that embodies obfuscation. In her work, Cornelius emphasizes how this obfuscation is both realized within the “texts” themselves (their language but also the digital tools that help “construct” them) and in the social conditions that they help enable (who even knows that these constantly (d)evolving contracts even mean? but they can have a realm impact if companies ever try to act out on them).

And while its towards this somewhat nihilist resolution that I see Galloway and Chun head towards, I feel that both authors did a disservice to any political or social potential they might see (or hope would) emerge from software studies, by themselves choosing a obfuscating language. 

Also: You can take a look at this great Canadian content featuring Wendy Hui Kyong Chun and Mél Hogan (who we will read later this semester): 
https://www.cjc-online.ca/index.php/journal/article/view/3653