About Software Studies Initiative
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Google searches and Amazon recommendations, airline flight paths and traffic lights, email and your phone: our culture runs on software. How does software shape the world?
Software Studies is a new research paradigm in the humanities and media studies that emerged in the second part of 2000s. The very first book that has this term in its title was published by The MIT Press in June 2008 (Matthew Fuller, ed., Software Studies: A Lexicon). In August 2008 The MIT Press approved Software Studies book series, with Matthew Fuller, Noah Wardrip-Fruin
"Software Studies" book series | MIT Press book series
Lev Manovich: Software Takes Command | book draft, 11/2008
SoftWhere 2008 | International workshop in Software Studies, UCSD, May 21-22, 5/2008
The Software Studies Initiative was founded in 2007 to help the development of this field. Through workshops, publications, and lectures conducted at UCSD and disseminated via the web and in hard copy publications, we work to disseminate the broad vision of software studies. That is, we think of software as a layer that permeates all areas of contemporary societies. Therefore, if we want to understand contemporary techniques of control, communication, representation, simulation, analysis, decision-making, memory, vision, writing, and interaction, our analysis can't be complete until we consider this software layer. By being the very first center of its kind, The UCSD Software Studies Initiative has the unique opportunity to shape how this software layer will be understood and studied by other universities, programs, and centers in years to come.
Social scientists, philosophers, cultural critics, and media and new media theorists now seem to cover all aspects of the IT revolution, creating a number of new disciplines such as cyber culture, Internet studies, new media theory, and digital culture. Yet the underlying engine that drives most of these subjects – software – has received little or no direct attention. Software is still invisible to most academics, artists, and cultural professionals interested in IT and its cultural and social effects. But if we continue to limit critical discussions to the notions of “cyber,” “digital,” “new media,” or “Internet,” we are in danger of always dealing only with effects rather than causes; the output that appears on a computer screen rather than the programs and social cultures that produce these outputs. This is why we are convinced that “software studies” is necessary and we welcome you to join us in our projects and activities.
Why UCSD?
UCSD is internationally renowned as the place for study and research in digital art, computer music, and digital theory. Between departments of Visual Arts, Music, and Communication, we have close to 30 full-time faculty working in these areas (the Visual Arts Department is also one of just a few places in the U.S. where a student can get a Ph.D. in digital theory). The establishment of Software Studies Initiative at UCSD further strengthens its international reputation as innovator in digital media, art, and theory.
The technical facilities and staff support for the research in digital media on this campus are unmatched anywhere on the West Coast. They include the New Media Arts Wing at Atkinson Hall, which houses facilities of the Center for Research in Computing for the Arts (CRCA) and the UCSD Division of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2); both sponsors of the Software Studies Initiative. Specialized labs and performance spaces housed are also housed in different academic departments across campus.
The projects and activities of the Software Studies Initiative aim to take full advantage of our unique affiliation with Calit2. Calit2 is developing innovative infrastructures for the next paradigm of scientific research based on remote collaboration between teams of scientists, working with very large data sets, and access to state-of-the-art computing, storage, networking and display technologies. How can we apply this paradigm for humanities and social science research? How can the latest tools in data analysis and visualization be used in relation to cultural data? How can we take advantage of unprecedented amounts of cultural data available on the web to begin analyzing culture in new ways?Understood in view of these questions, our research at Software Studies Initiative includes two complementary directions:
1) The study software and cyberinfrastructure using approaches from humanities, cultural criticism, and social sciences.
2) Bring software-based research methods and cutting-edge cyberinfrastructrure tools and resources or the study of the new domain where they have not being applied systematically so far – massive sets of visual cultural data.
SPONSORS
National Science Foundation (NSF)
NEH Office of Digital Humanities
Calit2 UCSD Division
CRCA
UCDARnet
UCHRI
National University of Singapore
Software Studies Initiative UC San Diego is housed within the UCSD Division of the California Institute for Telecommunication and Information Technology (Calit2) and the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts (CRCA).
If you are interested in engaging in collaborative research with our group or sponsoring innovative research projects, please contact Dr. Lev Manovich, Director of Software Studies Initiative at manovich@ucsd.edu.
PEOPLE
Faculty researchers
 | Lev Manovich: Director, Software Studies @ UCSD; Professor, Visual Arts |
 | Benjamin Bratton: Associate Director, Software Studies @UCSD; Associate Professor, Visual Arts Department, UCSD |
 | Noah Wardrip-Fruin: Associate Director, Software Studies @UCSD; Assistant Professor, Computer Science, UCSC |
 | Cicero Inacio da Silva, Software Studies Initiative @ UFJF, Brazil |
Visiting fellows
 | Winter and Spring 2011: Jean-Francois Lucas: PhD candidate in Sociology, European University of Brittany, Rennes |
 | Spring 2009: Tristan Thielmann: Assistant Professor in Media Studies at the Research Center "Media Upheavals", University of Siegen, Germany |
Post-doc researchers
 | Eduardo Navas: Postdoctoral Scholar, Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen |
 | Jeremy Douglass: Postdoctoral Researcher, Software Studies @ UCSD |
Graduate researchers
 | William Huber (Visual Arts) |
| Tara Zepel (Visual Arts) |
| So Yamaoka (Computer Science and Engineering) |
| Sunsern Cheamanunku (Computer Science and Engineering) |
| Chanda L. Carey (Visual Arts) |
| Daniel Rehn (Visual Arts) |
| Laura Hoeger (Visual Arts) |
 | Stephen Mandiberg (Communication) |
| Rachel Cody (Sociology) |
 | Hijoo Son (History, UCLA) |
Undergraduate researchers
 | Devon Merill (Independent Summer Internship -- "Exploring comics and manga through scripted image processing workflows." Summer 2009.) |
 | Jia Gu (Calit2 Summer Undergraduate Researcher, UCSD -- "new software interfaces for image collections". Summer 2008.) |
 | Agatha Man (Calit2 Summer Undergraduate Researcher, UCSD -- "analyses of MMO games". Summer 2008.) |
 | Nichol Bernardo (Undergraduate intern, UCSD -- "Cultural Analytics". Summer 2008. |
 | Bob Li (Undergraduate Graphic Designer. Summer 2008.) |
| Kedar Reddy (Calit2 summer 2009 undergraduate fellow) |
| Christa Lee (Fall 2008 independent study - arthistory.viz) |
| Victoria Azurin (Undergraduate intern, UCSD -- "Cultural Analytics - visual culture applications". Summer 2009; Manga project - summer 2010) |
| Xiaoda Wang (Undergraduate intern, UCSD -- "Cultural Analytics - art history applications". Summer 2009.) |
| Nadia Xiangfei Zeng (Undergraduate researcher, UCSD -- Manga project; gallery@calit2 Software Studies exhibition; visualization software. Summer 2010.) |
UC San Diego participating faculty
- Sheldon Brown: Professor, Visual Arts; Director, CRCA; Director, Experimental GameLab
- Shlomo Dubnov: Associate Professor, Music
- Amy Alexander: Associate Professor, Visual Arts
- Jim Hollan: Professor, Cognitive Science; Co-Director, Distributed Cognition & HCI Laboratory
- Stefan Tanaka: Professor, History
- Geoff Voelker: Associate Professor, Computer Science & Engineering
- Kelly A. Gates: Assistant Professor, Communication
- Barry Brown: Associate Professor, Communication
- James Fowler Associate Professor, Political Science
- Kyong Park Associate Professor, Visual Arts
- Falko Kuester Associate Professor, Structural Engineering
Collaborators
- Kay O'Halloran, Multimondal Analysis Lab, NUS (cultural analytics)
- Cinemetrics: a research group comprising leading film scholars (film analysis)
- David Kirsh, Cognitive Science, UCSD (dance video analysis)
- Digital Formalism project: Department for Theatre, Film and Media Studies (TFM), Vienna University; the Austrian Film Museum; Interactive Media Systems Group, Vienna University of Technology (film analysis)
- Isabel Galhano Rodrigues, University of Porto, Portugald (gesture analysis)
- Jim Hollan, Cognitive Science, UCSD (UCSD Collaboratory Grant - development of Cultural Analytics software)
- Falko Kuester, Structural Engineering (UCSD Collaboratory Grant - development of Cultural Analytics software)
- National University of Singapore (4 faculty from different departments - application of Cultural Analytics methods and techniques to the analysis of Asian cultures)
- Matthew Fuller, Goldsmiths College, University of London (Software Studies)
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| Software Studies meeting at CRCA. From left to right: Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Helena Bristow, Jeremy Douglass, Lev Manovich, Tristan Thielmann. |
PRESS
Cultural analytics research in NEH Humanities magazine
About our exhibition SHAPING TIME at Graphic Design Museum (Breda, ND)
Software Studies work with National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center
Expressive Processing by Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Lev Manovich 's workshop @ FILE Labo 2009
Cultural analytics coverage in Singapore and UAE
A Computing Science Approach For Analyzing Culture (www.supercomputingonline.com)
Software Studies in Chronicle of Higher Education
Calit2 article about our Humanities High-Performance Computing grant
Lev Manovich is interviewed about Cultural Analytics for BBC World Service "Digital Planet" show
Visualizing Cultural Patterns in N Art Magazine
Cultural Analytics in voiceofsandiego.org article
Cultural Analytics @ ISEA 2008
HPCwire article about Cultural Analytics
Game Libratory featured on NotCot
"Visualizing Cultural Patterns" featured in UCSD/Calit2 article
SoftWhere '08 press release and article in San Diego Business Journal
UC San Diego New-Media Expert Pushes Peer Review into the 21st Century
A era da infoestética
About our exhibition SHAPING TIME at Graphic Design Museum (Breda, ND)
Software Studies work with National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center
Expressive Processing by Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Lev Manovich 's workshop @ FILE Labo 2009
Cultural analytics coverage in Singapore and UAE
A Computing Science Approach For Analyzing Culture (www.supercomputingonline.com)
Software Studies in Chronicle of Higher Education
Calit2 article about our Humanities High-Performance Computing grant
Lev Manovich is interviewed about Cultural Analytics for BBC World Service "Digital Planet" show
Visualizing Cultural Patterns in N Art Magazine
Cultural Analytics in voiceofsandiego.org article
Cultural Analytics @ ISEA 2008
HPCwire article about Cultural Analytics
Game Libratory featured on NotCot
"Visualizing Cultural Patterns" featured in UCSD/Calit2 article
SoftWhere '08 press release and article in San Diego Business Journal
UC San Diego New-Media Expert Pushes Peer Review into the 21st Century
A era da infoestética
