Monthly Archives: Oktober 2018

Call for Papers: »Interfaces in a Datafied Society«

Exploring the massive changes in all sectors of life which are driven by digitalization and datafication, researching interfaces and their role in shaping modern society, has only recently received wider attention. In the past, researchers have often focused on »user interfaces«, a concept that limits the dimension and understanding of interfaces. But as more and more settings, activities and processes are driven by the politics of datafication, interfaces themselves have become political. Consequently, human experiences of all kinds can be regarded as enabled and/or limited and hence conditioned by technology. Taking this development into account, the concept of the interface can no longer be restricted to a technological perspective, but should be regarded as part of the relationship between agents, as interfaces are constructing and shaping relations. Regarded as a zone of encounter between interior and exterior, the interface also holds the potential of control and power, either by itself or as a result of the process. As user interfaces are mostly considered from the human end in the sense of a »human- to-programmed-data relation«, societal factors and the network dimension and data work of interfaces are neglected. In this book, we want to surpass a narrow understanding of the »user (oriented) interface« and explore different dimensions in order to open up the concept for the understanding of a datafied society. Continue reading