Narrating some lesser known episodes from the deep history of digital machines, Alexander R. Galloway explains the technology that drives the world today, and the fascinating people who brought these machines to life. With an eye to both the computable and the uncomputable, Galloway shows how computation emerges or fails to emerge, how the digital thrives but also atrophies, how networks interconnect while also fray and fall apart. By re-building obsolete technology using today's software, the past comes to light in new ways, from intricate algebraic patterns woven on a hand loom, to striking artificial-life simulations, to war games and back boxes. A description of the past, this book is also an assessment of all that remains uncomputable as we continue to live in the aftermath of the long digital age.

Schism press brings you its first anthology, edited by Nicola Masciandaro and Eugene Thacker.

A collection of essays on beheading and cinema, with full color interior. Contents: Dominic Pettman, "What Came First, the Chicken or the Head?" - Eugene Thacker, "Thing and No-Thing" - Alexi Kukuljevic, "Suicide by Decapitation" - Alexander Galloway, "The Painted Peacock" - Evan Calder Williams, "Recapitation" - Nicola Masciandaro, "Decapitating Cinema" - Ed Keller, "Corpus Atomicus" - Gary J Shipley, "Remote Viewing." Photography by Leighton Pierce.