Book Chapters by Martin Irvine
Bloomsbury Semiotics, 2022
Computing and semiotics have been inextricably connected since the late seventeenth century. The ... more Computing and semiotics have been inextricably connected since the late seventeenth century. The intellectual history of computation is not a story about machines, but about discoveries in the structures of symbolic thought, specifically how the patterns of necessary reasoning in logic and mathematics can be formally symbolized at different levels of abstraction, and then physically 'operationalized' by assigning symbolic structures to physical structures. As leading historians of computing explain, The modern computer was not the inevitable outcome of technological advance. The crucial prerequisite for the useful application of technology to computing was the development of notation, or language systems, sufficiently comprehensive to satisfy both the need for representation, and the need to express and implement mechanisms for the transformation of expressions in the language. […] The real intellectual origin of the modern computer has much deeper roots in the themes of representation and of automatic methods of symbolic transformation. (Campbell-Kelly and Russ 1994: 701, 703) These special 'language systems' for 'automatic methods of symbolic transformation' (what we know as computer code + data) extend back to what Leibniz called a 'mechanical thread' (thinking with symbols that represent necessary patterns in logic and mathematics). We can trace this 'thread' from the era of Leibniz's philosophy of symbols, his model for an arithmetical calculator, and a method for calculating with the binary (base 2) number system, including his design for the first binary calculator (c.1700), 1 through the era of Charles Babbage, George Boole and C. S. Peirce (1830s-1910s) (origins of formal logic and mechanical calculating 'engines') (Gabbay and Woods 2004), and on to the era of modern mathematical logic, the foundations of the modern electronic computing era, and digital information (1930s-50s) (Gabbay et al. 2014). Leibniz's 'thread' appears in all physical devices designed to implement symbolic processes by assigning and delegating Semiotics in computation and information systems CHAPTER NINE
The Bloomsbury Companion to Semiotics, ed. Jamin Pelkey (London: Bloomsbury, 2022), 2022
This chapter presents a new synthesis of the key concepts in computing in a Peircean semeiotic fr... more This chapter presents a new synthesis of the key concepts in computing in a Peircean semeiotic framework. My argument is based on over forty years of experience in computing and ten years of recent research on the primary sources in the history of computing from Leibniz to the Internet. A major part of my research focuses on the unpublished papers of C. S. Peirce (especially during 1896-1912) for his unifying research program that he termed "Logic as Semeiotic," which included the philosophy of science, mathematics, logic, the theory of semeiotic, the design principles of scientific instruments, and theories of automated reasoning and computation. (Much of Peirce's thought is now implicit in the design principles of computing systems.) When we study the full scope of the intellectual history of computing and semiotics, we come to two compelling conclusions: semiotics and computing have been inseparable since 1700, and modern digital binary computer systems are structurally and constitutively semiotic, and thus must be distinguished from anything else we may call "machines." This is a final pre-publication draft of a chapter in The Bloomsbury Companion to Semiotics, slightly revised.
The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies, 2014
Is the cliché "everything is a Remix" more than trivially true? The terms Remix, appropriation, s... more Is the cliché "everything is a Remix" more than trivially true? The terms Remix, appropriation, sampling, and mashup are used so generally, in so many contexts, and at different levels of description that they don't provide a useful vocabulary for explanation. 1 "Remix" has become a convenient metaphor for a mode of production assumed (incorrectly) to be specific to our post-postmodern era and media technologies (though with some earlier "precursors"), and usually limited to describing features of cultural artifacts as "outputs" of software processes (especially in music, video, and photography). "Remix" and related terms are used for genres and techniques of composition (collage, assemblage, music Remix, appropriation), artistic practices (with a variety of self-reflexive, performative, and critical strategies), media and technology hybridization (new combinations of software functions, interfaces, and hardware implementations), and cultural processes (ongoing reinterpretation, repurposing, and global cross-cultural hybridization). 2 What connects all these manifestations of Remix, hybridity, and creative combinatoriality? What else is "Remix" telling us if we open up the cultural black box? Riffing on the great, often-referenced, soul album by Marvin Gaye, What's Going On (1971), we can say that there's always been a "deep Remix" going on at multiple levels simultaneously, and we need to find ways of bringing these ordinarily unconscious and ubiquitous processes up for awareness and description. 3 "Remix" in all of its manifestations needs to be turned inside out, reverse engineered, and de-black-boxed, so that it can reveal the dynamic, generative processes that make new (re)combinatorial expressions in any medium possible, understandable, and necessary. See Chapter 33 for Nate Harrison's "de-black-boxed" discussion of the Amen Break as it relates to Remix practice and culture.
[Prepublication version of a chapter in to appear in The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies, ed... more [Prepublication version of a chapter in to appear in The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies, ed. Eduardo Navas, et al. (New York: Routledge, 2014). This version for personal use only, not citation.] Is the cliché "everything is a remix" more than trivially true? The terms remix, appropriation, sampling, and mash-up are used so generally, in so many contexts, and at different levels of description that they don't provide a useful vocabulary for explanation. 1 "Remix" has become a convenient metaphor for a mode of production assumed (incorrectly) to be specific to our post-postmodern era and media technologies (though with some earlier "precursors"), and usually limited to describing features of cultural artefacts as "outputs" of software processes (especially in music, video, and photography). "Remix" and related terms are used for genres and techniques of composition (collage, assemblage, music remix, appropriation), artistic practices (with a variety of self-reflexive, performative, and critical strategies), media and technology hybridization (new combinations of software functions, interfaces, and hardware implementations), and cultural processes (ongoing reinterpretation, repurposing, and global cross-cultural hybridization). 2 What connects all these manifestations of remix and hybridity? It's generally recognized that new works are created with references to other works, but the underlying generative principles for new combinations of meaning are only vaguely understood and foreign to the legal discourse for intellectual property. What else is "remix" telling us if we open up the cultural black box?
The Work on the Street: Street Art and Visual Culture." Chapter in The Handbook of Visual Culture, ed. Barry Sandywell and Ian Heywood. London and New York: Berg, 2012, pp. 235-278
Books by Martin Irvine
The Making of Textual Culture: Grammatica and Literary Theory, 350-1100
Web Works: The Norton Guide to the World Wide Web
Papers by Martin Irvine
Remix and the Dialogic Engine of Culture
The Work on the Street: Street Art and Visual Culture
Page 1. Irvine, The Work on the Street 1 The Work on the Street: Street Art and Visual Culture Ma... more Page 1. Irvine, The Work on the Street 1 The Work on the Street: Street Art and Visual Culture Martin Irvine Georgetown University Pre-press version of a chapter in The Handbook of Visual Culture, ed. Barry Sandywell and Ian Heywood. ...
Anglo-Saxon England, Dec 1, 1986
remain good general guides to Anglo-Saxon education and literary studies but they lack close exam... more remain good general guides to Anglo-Saxon education and literary studies but they lack close examinations of Bede's texts. Robert Palmer's study of Bede's De arte metrica, 'Bede as Textbook Writer: A Study of his De arte metrica', Speculum 34 (1959), 573-84, is useful for pointing out some of Bede's criteria for selecting various auctoritates. See also Charles W. Jones's preface to the edition of Bede's grammatical works in Charles W.
John Chittenden, ed., Donatus Ortigraphus, Ars grammatica. (Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis, 40 D; Grammatici Hibernici Carolini Aevi, 4.) Turnhout: Brepols, 1982. Paper. Pp. lxii, 264. Separate concordance volume: Instrumenta lexicologica Latina, 10, comp. CETEDOC. (Series A. Forma...
Speculum, Oct 1, 1984
Semiotics in Computing and Information Systems
Bloomsbury Academic eBooks, 2023
Grasping the word : Ars Grammatica and literary theory from late antiquity to the Carolingian period
ABSTRACT Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University, 1982. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 3... more ABSTRACT Thesis (Ph. D.)--Harvard University, 1982. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 376-397). Photocopy.
Chapter 1 BEGINNINGS: THE LABYRINTH MEDIEVAL STUDIES WEBSITE
Amsterdam University Press eBooks, Dec 31, 2022
Beginnings: The Labyrinth Medieval Studies Website
Semiotica, 1987
In discussions of the nature of interpretation from classical to modern times, the term 'allegory... more In discussions of the nature of interpretation from classical to modern times, the term 'allegory' and its cognates have been used in a variety of ways which need to be distinguished. In classical treatments of the subject, allegoria was one of the grammatico-rhetorical tropes, a species of metaphor or transferred, non-literal discourse, where the transfer of meaning was understood to be continuous throughout a sentence or a larger narrative unit. Classical grammarians, especially those of Stoic persuasion, interpreted Homer and other religious and mythological texts as if allegories were interwoven in the narratives, thus making allegoria seem more like a function of interpretation, commentary, or exegesis, activities which seek to renew a text according to the discursive practices of prevailing philosophies and ideologies. Classical thought did not readily distinguish the trope from its interpretation in a commentary. In the terms of post-Augustinian Christian exegesis, a biblical text may have three 'levels' of allegory, one of which was called allegory, and the signfunctions of biblical allegory were accounted for in terms of the grammatical trope. The trope and the discourse substituted for the trope (the interpretation) could both be called allegory. This often confusing dual treatment of allegory (one from the side of the production of discourse, the other from interpretation or exegesis) foregrounds what both have in common-the problematic status of polysemous or over-coded meaning, But allegory also foregrounds an important principle of all interpretation or commentary: interpretation seeks to reveal, in another or supplementary text, what was signified but unexpressed or suppressed in the text being interpreted. Both rhetor and exegete presuppose that allegory is constituted by an essential semiotic supplementarity. The purpose of this essay is to explore the principles of interpretation in the writings of Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Augustine, writers who utilized the classical grammatical tradition and established the central interpretive methodology for medieval semiotics and exegesis. These writers share a sophisticated understanding of textual semiosis
Beginnings: The Labyrinth Medieval Studies Website
Digital Medieval Studies - Practice and Preservation
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Book Chapters by Martin Irvine
Books by Martin Irvine
Papers by Martin Irvine