On the Existence of Digital Objects (Volume 48)

Electronic Mediations

by Yuk Hui

Digital objects, in their simplest form, are data. They are also a new kind of industrial object that pervades every aspect of our life today—as online videos, images, text files, e-mails, blog posts, Facebook events.Yet, despite their ubiquity, the nature of digital objects remains unclear. On the Existence of Digital Objects conducts a philosophical examination of digital objects and their organizing schema by creating a dialogue between Martin Heidegger and Gilbert Simondon, which Yuk Hui contextualizes within the history of computing. How can digital objects be understood according to individualization and individuation? Hui pursues this question through the history of ontology and the study of markup languages and Web ontologies; he investigates the existential structure of digital objects within their systems and milieux. With this relational approach toward digital objects and technical systems, the book addresses alienation, described by Simondon as the consequence of mistakenly viewing technics in opposition to culture. Interdisciplinary in philosophical and technical insights, with close readings of Husserl, Heidegger, and Simondon as well as the history of computing and the Web, Hui’s work develops an original, productive way of thinking about the data and metadata that increasingly define our world.

Genres: Philosophy, Technology, Nonfiction, Art, School

336 pages, Paperback

First published February 29, 2016

About the author

Yuk Hui studied Computer Engineering and Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong and Goldsmiths College in London, with a focus on philosophy of technology. He currently teaches at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. Between 2012 and 2018 he taught at the institute of philosophy and art (IPK) and Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media of the Leuphana University Lüneburg where he wrote his habilitation thesis. He is also a visiting professor at the China Academy of Art where he teaches a master class with Bernard Stiegler every spring. Since 2019 he is Visiting Associate Professor at the School of Creative Media of City University in Hong Kong. Previous to that, he was a research associate at the Institute for Culture and Aesthetics of Media (ICAM), postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Research and Innovation of the Centre Pompidou in Paris and a visiting scientist at the Deutsche Telekom Laboratories in Berlin. He is initiator of the Research Network for Philosophy and Technology, an international network which facilitates researches and collaborations on philosophy and technology. Hui has published on philosophy of technology and media in periodicals such as Research in Phenomenology, Metaphilosophy, Parrhesia, Angelaki, Theory Culture and Society, Cahiers Simondon, Deleuze Studies, Intellectica, Krisis, Implications Philosophiques, Jahrbuch Technikphilosophie, Techné, Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft, Appareil, New Formations,Parallax, etc. He is editor (with Andreas Broeckmann) of 30 Years after Les Immatériaux: Art, Science and Theory (2015), and author of On the Existence of Digital Objects (prefaced by Bernard Stiegler, University of Minnesota Press, March 2016), The Question Concerning Technology in China. An Essay in Cosmotechnics (Urbanomic, December 2016), and Recursivity and Contingency (Rowman & Littlefield International, February 2019). His writings have been translated into a dozen languages.

Reviews

[Alexander Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

If someone doesn't have pretty good knowledge of how the internet works, how "the cloud" works, and how to relate the objects of the cyberspace/infosphere to philosophical perspectives, this book does an excellent job of explaining it. For me the benefit of this was explaining how digital objects can be understood as emergent objects of relationals rather than "artificial" objects.

That said, anyone who has a decent background on how the Internet functions from an engineering/computer science perspective, and has taken a mathematical proofs course or two will understand that basically what this says is that all digital objects are functionally produced, and that there is an adequate lineage of philosophy that will explain how to situate them in ontology, epistemology, logic, and time. In some ways this book was more a justification of how philosophy might prefer to account for digital objects while historically it does not seem that digital objects exist. I feel as though there are many alternative perspectives about how one might account for digital objects as "non-artificial", but I have not seen any so well articulated.

[Elaine Stewart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yuk Hui does something rather exceptional in this work, in two regards. The first, as the introduction by Bernard Steigler is quick to emphasize, is in establishing a novel method of thought that moves by way of magnitude and scale, revealing a method for integrating seemingly incompatible philosophies and sciences. Hui is quite proudly a broad thinker, tracing his problematic back and forth across histories, domains, thinkers, and schools. The bibliography on its own is worth the price, the sources constituting a comprehensive overview of the philosophy of technology and computation.

Along with the breadth and methodology, what Hui does with his sources and examples is likewise remarkable. This book should be read in relation to Stiegler's work on technics and time, whose interpretation of technics serves as the background for the thought here. Hui is at once performing a critique and use of a dizzying number of thinkers, and Stieglers work is invaluable as background to understand his engagement. Hui criticizes in equal measures logic, analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, phenomenology, artificial intelligence, and theoretical computer science. Through thinking the digital object, Hui calls for a proper reconsideration of time and ontology. This is a book of philosophy, despite its deep engagement with computer science. That is not to say it is not also a book of computer science, but that it works at the ground level, before and after any programming as such. It thinks the foundation and the consequence, universal and particular.

This text is overwhelming. At times Hui performs movements with implications left unspecified, until later in the book where he presents them as obvious consequences of his thought. This text is at once incredibly clear and thoroughly opaque. There are some moments where there is no clear point whatsoever, as in his engagement with Medieval commentary on Aristotle in the fourth chapter. The text fluctuates in difficulty wildly, culminating in a final chapter as dense and abstract as any philosophical work.

Despite this, for the patient reader the text has much to offer. It provides a new way to think the web, to think ontology, to think objects. His distinction between types of relation, his theory of tertiary protention, his theory of digital spatiality, his commitment and argument for the productiveness of ontologies, his reinterpretation of the Heideggerian relation, his investigation of Husserl's intentionality in the context of computer science, the percolation of time, all of it is well worth the investment. It is a text which loses its way at times, which forgets itself, which lefts so much more unsaid. Yet throughout that it remains novel and important.

How much theorizing has been done on social media, the internet, and computer science which dazzles the reader in its absolute uselessness? How many times have you been left frustrated by the problem of digital alienation, a problem so often 'explained' by thinkers who have clearly never touched a terminal in their lives? Hui, following Husserl, goes back to the object itself, and while his analysis is of course unfinished, it satisfies at a level far deeper than any half-baked 'critique' of digital interaction.

[Ximena Jiménez · Rating 5 out of 5]

La filosofía es esencialmente técnica y práctica: "...a fundamental Ontology can no longer be fully grounded without taking technical systems into account... the experts creating the Web are philosophical engineers... The technical system is already here, and a more rigorous method needs to be invented that at the same time be theoretically informed and practically realizable."

[Lucas Sipe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yuk Hui's analysis of the digital object is a mask for a much richer, deeper analysis of the relation between man and technology. This text is a dialogue, via analysis, between Gilbert Simondon and Martin Heidegger with many stops along the way. Having spent most of my time with Heidegger, I understood Hui's agreements and disagreements with that man. With Simondon, however, I was at a lost and so missed much of the text. Hui's unfolding of individuation and individualization, key to the early stages of the project, are wanting in several respect but perhaps that's my fault. Regardless, Hui causes us to question not just our relation to technology but to metaphyscics as well.

Like Heidegger, Hui envisions the end of metaphysics. He denies substance or rather metaphysics as substance and instead wants us to focus on 'relations.' Such relations are explored and built in several chapters to mirror the relationship between relations found in the digital world. Hui is no mere philosopher and shows a grasp of technical knowledge and history about the unfolding of the digital era. Neanderthals who live only in the technical world would benefit from much of this text (assuming they could get through it.) By articulating a theory of relations, Hui is able to explain not just how machines "think" but also how man can think alongside them - to an extent. The major flaw in the text, in my view, is that there is simply too much jumping around that it's hard to pin down the text as such. For example, the final chapter is an anlaysis of the debate between Heidegger and Neo-Kantians. Interesting and rich in thought, Hui is a great explainer but the connection to the rest of the text is lacking. Such choppiness is all too common.

That being said, I must be lenient. This past month or so has been very busy with surgery, travel, and other commitments. As a result, my attention to Hui's work has been split at best. I'm willing to grant that 'On The Existence of Digital Objects' has much to say about the relationship between man and machine even if it too often gets into the weeds. A reread will be beneficial and lead to a greater articulation of the main ideas.

[Valentín Serrano García · Rating 3 out of 5]

Como lector apasionado de la filosofía de la tecnología, este ensayo me ha resultado de interés desigual. Supongo que merecerá más aprobación por aquellos lectores poco familiarizados con Husserl, Simondon, Stiegler y Heidegger, dado que los introduce con idoneidad (pero con poca pedagogía...)

Tras haber leído del mismo autor "La pregunta de la técnica de China", llena de aperturas y cimentada en una bibliografía intercultural de gran calado, este opúsculo me ha resultado menos agraciado y, estilisticamente, excesivamente borracho de densidad. Se hace arduo de leer para lo poco que realmente concluye. Eso sí, la exposición filosófica es impecable, aun cuando sea excesivamente académica y alemana...

[Joseph Keenan]

This was a challenging but rewarding read, for someone like myself, who has never read any philosophy before. Leaning heavily on a long history of pre-established principles, as it does.
Bit weird to end by spruiking a new social network in the last few pages, though.

[Carter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is something, I examined briefly. The digital object, early in the Internet age, or the notion of data, as having value, was of interest to me. Perhaps a kindred spirit... A journey on life's way...

[Devon · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh... I really hated this book. I hate philosophy. I just skimmed the second half because I just couldn't take it anymore. I have too much other stuff to do, I didn't have time for such a crap book.

[Nils · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oscillates between Incomprehensible and Trite