Alexander Galloway
Photo: Annette Hornischer

Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, New York University

Axel Springer Fellow - Class of Fall 2018

Alexander Galloway is Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, where he focuses on media theory and contemporary philosophy. He received a BA in modern culture and media from Brown University, and PhD in literature from Duke University. As a programmer and artist, Galloway’s projects include Carnivore, a networked surveillance-tool based on the eponymous FBI software (awarded a Golden Nica at Ars Electronica 2002), and Kriegspiel, based on a war game designed by Guy Debord. He is founding member of the Radical Software Group (RSG).

 

Galloway has held visiting posts at the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, and is the author of Laruelle: Against the Digital (Minnesota, 2014), The Interface Effect (Polity, 2012), Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture (Minnesota, 2006), and Protocol: How Control Exists After Decentralization (MIT, 2004). He is the recipient of a Humanities Council Fellowship at New York University (2007) and a Creative Capital grant (2006).

Project Description

The Crystalline Medium: Computation and Its Consequences

In his Academy project, “The Crystalline Medium: Computation and Its Consequences,” Galloway takes on the prehistory and culture of computation, widening the historical window to include nineteenth-century media, such as photography, simulation, sculpture, and games. He begins by tracing the lesser-known histories of nineteenth-century German and French chronophotographers, particularly Albert Londe and his curious multi-lens cameras. He then turns to mathematician Nils Aall Barricelli and the algorithms he deployed to create artificial organisms that could live, reproduce, mutate, and even die. Finally, Galloway examines a chapter late in the life of French filmmaker and philosopher Guy Debord, who, in the 1970s, established a commercial game company and released a table-top parlor game called “The Game of War.” Galloway organizes several long-form essays around a person, date, and concept: Londe’s 1891 conception of media as parallel rather than serial, Barricelli’s 1953 mathematization of living organisms, and Debord’s 1977 algorithmic game design.

Academy Activities

20 Sep 18
The Consequences of Computation Technology

Axel Springer Lecture

The Consequences of Computation

Media theorist Alexander Galloway investigates the history and culture of computation. In this lecture, he presents historical developments that help define the “crystalline” nature of contemporary computational media.

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17 Sep 18

Fellow Spotlight: Alexander Galloway

Alexander Galloway is Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, where he focuses on media theory and contemporary philosophy. In his Academy project, “The Crystalline Medium: Computation and Its Consequences,” Galloway takes on the prehistory and culture of computati ...

Read more
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