David M. Berry

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David M. Berry
Berry in Brighton, 2013
Born	1974 (age 46–47)
Nationality	British
Era	Contemporary philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Continental philosophy Critical theory
Institutions	University of Sussex Kings College, London University of Oxford University of Cambridge Goethe University Frankfurt am Main Swansea University
Main interests	Critical Theory Digital Humanities Software Studies Philosophy of Technology History of the University
Notable ideas	in Digital Humanities Postdigital
Influences Critical Theory German Idealism Theodore Adorno Martin Heidegger Alvin Gouldner

David M. Berry is a Professor of Digital Humanities^[1] at the University of Sussex, writer and musician. He is widely published on academic work related to the fields of critical theory, digital humanities, media theory and algorithms.

Biography[]

Berry's early work focused on the philosophy of technology and particularly understanding open source and free software.^[2] More recently his work has explored the area of critical digital humanities,^[3][4] the notion of explainability, and the historical idea of a university.

In 1994, Berry co-founded, with Gibby Zobel, the radical newspaper SchNEWS whilst living in Brighton and he was involved in the protests against the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994. Berry later went to work for Reuters Ltd working in London, and whilst in London also founded a record label, LOCA Records in Old Street with Marcus McCallion in 1999. Loca Records was notable for releasing music experimentally in open access formats, such as the Gnu GPL and Creative Commons licenses.^[5] Whilst running the record label he released electronica music under the names Meme (Loca Records) and Ward (Static Caravan Recordings).^[6] On 19 April 2000, John Peel played Meme's track Mandibles on BBC Radio 1 and later played Ward's track Sesquipedalian Origins on 5 February 2002 on the John Peel Show on BBC Radio 1. On 7 March 2002, John Peel again played the track Sesquipedalian Origins again, this time confused over the rpm he played it twice, notably the second time incorrectly at 45 rpm.

In 2000, Berry returned to Brighton to study a Masters in Social and Political Thought and in 2002 a PhD at the University of Sussex (funded by the ESRC). In 2007 he began work at Swansea University as a lecturer, moving in 2013 as a Reader (and then Professor) at the University of Sussex. In 2015 he co-founded the Sussex Humanities Lab at the University of Sussex, exploring the relation between digital cultures, literatures, materialities and philosophy.^[7]

Berry's first book published in 2008, Copy, Rip, Burn: The Politics of Copyleft and Open Source, undertook an examination of the way in which the proponents of the free software and open source communities understood their respective projects and how they articulated them in terms of an often implicit political ideology. The aim was to situate their ideas and practices within a broader movement of economic change brought on by the digitalisation of the economy and the shift to a so-called information society. Part of this change involves a movement in the way in which society conceptualises many of the background assumptions in terms of new notions, such as computational metaphors, stories and claims of an "open" or "free" norm that governs particular spheres of activity, such as "open science".^[8][2]

The book, The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in a Digital Age, is Berry's second book, and is widely seen as both an important contribution to thinking about software, code and algorithms from a philosophical standpoint but also the outlines of a useful research programme. From questions about the "whatness" of software and code, to issues raised by reading and writing code, to a general programme of a phenomenology of software, the book concludes with a discussion of the becoming-stream of contemporary life due to software. Considering the book was written in 2011 it is remarkably prescient about the direction that technology has taken with the wide adoption of "streams" as a major form of interface in social media and other software products.

In 2019 he released new music under the name ØxØ on Truant Recordings^[9] with fellow musician Barnaby Thorn in the genre of Conceptronica.^[10][11]

More recently Berry is a member of the Internation Collectiv led by the late Bernard Stiegler which addressed the challenges of 21st century climate change and sustainability in relation to imagining a new political economy in a post-computational world.^[12] The collective published its first book called Bifurquer: Il n'y a pas d'alternative in 2020.^[13]

He has held visiting fellowships at Kings College, London,^[14] Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften (Institute for Advanced Studies) at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main,^[15] The School of Advanced Study, London, Lincoln College and Mansfield College at the University of Oxford, Wolfson College and CRASSH at the University of Cambridge, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology at the Houses of Parliament,^[16] and the University of Oslo.^[17]

Notable works[]

As author

• Berry, D. M. and Fagerjord (2017) Digital Humanities: Knowledge and Critique in a Digital Age, London: Polity. ISBN 978-0745697666, pp. 248. [Translated into Japanese and Chinese]
• Berry, D. M. (2014) Critical Theory and the Digital. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1441166395. Pp. 279.
• Berry, D. M. (2011) The Philosophy of Software: Code and Mediation in the Digital Age. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 216. ISBN 978-0230244184, Pp. 216.
• Berry, D. M. (2008) Copy, Rip, Burn: The Politics of Copyleft and Open Source. London: Pluto Press, pp 270. ISBN 978-0745324142, pp. 270.

As editor

• Berry, D. M. and Dieter, M. (eds.) (2015) Postdigital Aesthetics: Art, Computation and Design, Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1137437198, Pp. 300.
• Berry, D. M. (ed.) (2012) Life in Code and Software, Open Humanities Press. ISBN 978-1607852834.
• Berry, D. M. (ed.) (2012) Understanding Digital Humanities. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 318, ISBN 978-0230292659.

Discography[]

Albums[]

EPs[]

Singles[]

References[]