Derrick de Kerckhove

An exploration of the emerging quantum technological paradigm and its effects on human consciousness and cultures. In Quantum Ecology, Stefano Calzati and Derrick de Kerckhove identify three technological ecologies--linguistic, digital, and quantum--to better understand today's shattered globalized contemporaneity and navigate the impact of soon-to-come quantum information technologies. Today's societies, based as they are on language and writing, face disruption brought on by digital transformation, which is not predicated on sharing meaning but on sheer computability. This produces what the authors call an "epistemological crisis." From here, the book explores how emerging quantum computers and communication will trigger an even deeper existential shift based on quantum physics' principles of discreteness, uncertainty, and entanglement. Enriched with evidence from biology, anthropology, sociolinguistics, and information and cognitive sciences, the authors draw upon diverse case studies to sustain a convincing philosophical and political argument. The book's chapters move from a discussion about the coevolution of humans and language to the codependence of writing, thinking, and innovation, then proceed to investigate "datacracy," the power of algorithms. Finally, the authors outline the looming psychocultural effects and geopolitical challenges of the nascent quantum technological paradigm.

In 2016, the Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded to the singer and songwriter Bob Dylan "for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition." This suggests how important pop music is in the contemporary society, and highlights how blurred are traditional boundaries across all forms of art. Pop music is strictly connected to mass media, mass culture, the youth universe, and its languages. Pop/rock music is the bearer of new trends, while getting influenced by social and cultural events. Rock reflects the world of youth, its rituals and legends, and it represents an important tool to socialize and get together. Popular culture is the turf where change happens. Starting from the main theories about the sociology of music, the aim of this book is to investigate social changes, youth cultures, media, and pop music. It is a journey from the Beat Revolution to the Bit Generation which is all about digital technologies and software culture.

Over the past decade, new technologies have influenced a vast epistemological shift that has transformed notions of performativity and representation in the arts. Mediation has challenged both spectators’ and performers’ conventions of corporeality, cognition, and perception. Centering on contemporary synaesthetic and multimodal works, Through the Prism of the Senses examines new theory and practice in body-based arts and contemporary performance. Three main chapters present three distinct strands of methodological enquiry, one from each author, creating a work that resonates with artistic and philosophical enquiry. This book is a vital contribution to discussions surrounding research creation and the body in relation to digital media, highlighting the ways in which new technologies confront the sensate, somatic body.