Scripting: Deep Histories of Computing, Graphics, and Media

Abstract

Scripting involves an ambiguity. First, it indicates a directive, as in the commands of “scripture”; or, in the disappointment that an apparently spontaneous happening was in fact “scripted.” This engages a familiar outlook on computing: code is language operating in a “prescriptive” register. Additionally, however, scripting also hints towards the materiality of graphic “inscription,” such as the traces expressed in the written form of a “manuscript.” The history of computing presented here is situated at the joints of these two senses. Working between them prompts an archaic image of the computer, far removed from advanced technologies of electronic machinery. It instead suggests its deep historical heritage in clerical labor, affording a perspective on computation as a manual, incorporated, and lived activity—that is, as the product of scribes. This dissertation elaborates on some consequences of reorienting the histories of computing and graphics around such a schism. Rather than placing computerization at the summit of a media historical lineage—of scribal practices succeeded by print media and leading from printing itself to electronics—it proposes a superimposition of the scribal with the computational. Computing is approached neither as software nor hardware, and beyond its scope as either science or technology. Through close readings of pivotal documents in the development of computing, each of three chapters reconsiders a key concept in computational media and the keen attachments that have consolidated around them: (1) the sequential basis to algorithms; (2) the operative dimension in programming languages; and, (3) the interactivity of computer screens.