A GHOST IN THE ALGORITHM (original) (raw)
i live between virtual and real, absorbed by networks. never really belonging to any of these realities, i become like a ghost myself. the accessibility of information and its omnipresence excludes the need for physical bodies. a space of distraction is where i breathe, never really being alone and at the same time never really together with somebody. i become a version of myself that I don't recognize. other desires, other identities, other way of thinking, alien to me; the experience of something other that surfs along technological surfaces searching for reciprocity, because it is the closest thing it relates to. do i become a ghost in the hardware?
Review of: "[Essay] The Algorithm; Mind of a Virtual Era – Our Code of Codes
Anna Aragno's work sounds like an appeal, an SOS to raise awareness of the issues of Anthropocene change (Haraway, 2016). Are we all in danger of turning ourselves into machines? Is there still something that can resist this process that drives us into the Post-Human (Braidotti, 2019)? There would be humanistic culture to act as a point of resistance, if it
What Is an Algorithm A Non-Expert’s Guide to the Hidden Digital Force
Algorithmic Control Series | Volume 6 (Part of the Third Generation in International Relations Framework), 2025
In an era where human perception is increasingly shaped by unseen digital forces, this paper explores the evolution of algorithms from mathematical procedures into systems of symbolic and behavioral control. Drawing on historical, philosophical, and technological perspectives, the study traces the algorithm's journey from its origin in 9th-century Baghdad with al-Khwarizmi to its current role in shaping attention, belief, and identity across digital platforms. Designed as a narrative and visual guide for non-specialists, the paper introduces foundational concepts using symbolic diagrams and real-world case studies—from targeted advertising to emotional manipulation and curated realities. Through clear explanations and accessible models, it reveals how algorithmic systems now operate not only as tools of computation, but as invisible architectures of influence that govern what we see, feel, and choose. This work contributes to the growing discourse on digital ethics, algorithmic governance, and cognitive sovereignty by emphasizing the urgent need to make algorithmic power visible, understandable, and accountable. It ultimately argues that to reclaim agency in the digital age, we must first decode the logic that seeks to predict—and shape—our future.
The Age of the Algorithm (Interview by Caterina Riva)
So-far, 2021
contact tracing and total digital surveillance in the face of a deadly disease. Since the global situation has so dramatically created an overwhelming urgency around these issues, the so-far editorial team felt it was best to reprise Issue 1 with a second postscript on creating fairer algorithmic systems, this time presented by curator Caterina Riva. A variety of meanings has been attributed to the ubiquitous word "algorithm"[1], as it gradually moves away away from its original definition of "a procedure for solving a mathematical problem". In order to better understand its transformations and use, I spoke to the person who has referred to our epoch as "the age of the algorithm"[2]. Massimo Mazzotti is a historian and sociologist of science at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is also the Director of the Centre for Science, Technology, Medicine & Society (CSTMS), "a laboratory [conducting research]… on the histories and implications of scientific research, biomedicine, and new technologies"[3]. Mazzotti connected me with Shreeharsh Kelkar, who is a lecturer in the Interdisciplinary Studies program and affiliated with the Algorithmic Fairness & Opacity Working Group (AFOG), whose mission is to develop "policy recommendations around issues of fairness, transparency, interpretability, and accountability in algorithms and algorithm-based systems"[4]. In this interview, we identify algorithms as tools and look at some of their implications, including profiling and record-keeping.
[Essay] The Algorithm; Mind of a Virtual Era – Our Code of Code
2023
As soon as something implicit intrudes consciousness human thought undergoes a radical change. The introduction of any new tool or code brings a shift in cognition; every micro-step layering new semiotic forms within each macroevolutionary-stage has buttressed a new semantic leap. Our mechanization of everyday life and the techsystems we interact with are impacting communication, cultural norms and values, market-aesthetics, and economics, in societies at large. Undergirded by a survey of the role and significance of tools in human evolution, this study arrives at what is already a well-entrenched new era: the digital, screen-mediated age. Revolutionized by the algorithm, introduced by computers, this age is dominated by the addictive quality of instant contact, unlimited information, virtual gaming, and titillating service-forms, all at our finger tips. Aside from the interpersonal impact on the new humans growing up with devices in hand, how does this disembodied, digital code-form through which our interactions are mediated condition human cognition? How does its seductive efficiency interfere with how we relate, feel, assign meanings, think? Rooted in Code Biology macro-evolutionary and psychoanalytic principles, this paper examines the algorithm itself and takes a sweeping interdisciplinary approach to the developmental, psychosocial, and cognitive implications for the human mind/brain as it interacts with its
#hello Imagine sailing across the ocean. The sun is shining, vastness all around you. And suddenly [BOOM] you’ve hit an invisible wall. Welcome to the Truman Show! Ever since Eli Pariser published his thoughts on a potential filter bubble,1 this movie scenario seems to have become reality, just with slight changes: it’s not the ocean, it’s the internet we’re talking about, and it’s not a TV show producer, but algorithms that constitute a sort of invisible wall.2 Building on this assumption, most research is trying to ‘tame the algorithmic tiger’.3 While this is a valuable and often inspiring approach, we would like to emphasize another side to the algorithmic everyday life. We argue that algorithms can instigate and facilitate imagination, creativity, and frivolity, while saying something that is simultaneously old and new, always almost repeating what was before but never quite returning. We show this by threading together stimulating quotes and screenshots from Google’s autocomplete algorithms. In doing so, we invite the reader to re-explore Google’s autocomplete algorithms in a creative, playful, and reflexive way, thereby rendering more visible some of the excitement and frivolity that comes from being and becoming part of the riddling rhythm of the algorithmic everyday life.