Code/Space: Software and Everyday Life

We are just checking the page proofs for our book Code/Space that is nearing publication after a somewhat slow production process through much of this year.

The book has an ISBN and is now listed on the MIT Press website, although we are waiting to see what cover design is going to be applied. The RRP of £25.95 for Code/Space seems quite responsible, especially as Routledge is charging £85 for Rethinking Maps.

Code/Space is structured in four sections and has eleven chapters:

• I Introduction
• 1 Introducing Code/Space
  
• 2 The Nature of Software
  
• II The Difference Software Makes
  
• 3 Remaking Everyday Objects
  
• 4 The Transduction of Space
  
• 5 Automated Management
  
• 6 Software, Empowerment, and Creativity
  
• III The Transduction of Everyday Spatialities
  
• 7 Air Travel
  
• 8 Home
  
• 9 Consumption
  
• IV Future Code/Space
  
• 10 The Promise of Everyware
  
• 11 A Manifesto for Software Studies
  
• Brief Glossary of Concepts
  
• References
  
• Index

More details on our ongoing research on code/space and various published papers are listed on this webpage.

I recently reviewed a copy of From Here to There: A Curious Collection from the Hand Drawn Map Association, by Kris Harzinski (Princeton Architectural Press, 2010) for the journal Cartographica.

I was not very impressed by the book and my review is really quite negative! I conclude with:

"Overall, this volume fails to deliver an insightful intellectual understanding of the practices and meanings of hand-drawn mapping. It also fails as a coffee-table book, because the visuals and production design are not good enough. It is not even quirky enough to be the 'curious collection' claimed in the subtitle. There is clearly scope to do better with this topic!"

You can read the whole of my review here.