The paradoxes of digital culture

We have never been so connected. Still, we struggle to manage these several lives we live, side-by-side in time

- DR. PETE HARPUM

Digital Culture, as a phenomenon, cannot be separated from the all-pervasive reality of capitalism. The early beginnings of the digital age are identified with industrial-era pioneers such as Charles Babbage (calculating machines), Charles Jacquard (automated weaving loom), and inevitably, and later, Alan Turing and his work on the universal computing machine. Capitalist imperatives led to the work of these people – to embed capital into the production process, so removing the need for humans to carry out the “making tasks”, improving efficiency, and reducing cost – that is to say, increasing profitability.

The second aspect of digital culture identified by writers such as Charlie Gere and Cohen is the direct line of development from the counterculture of the 1960s to the current time. These writers describe the co-location in time and place of counterculture aesthetics and ethos with developing computing technology, not the least of which happened in Silicon Valley. A desire to express individuality, to explore ways of being that were outside the mainstream culture of the USA at the time, was common amongst the microelectronics and computing scientists and engineers.