The historical trajectories of algorithmic techniques: an interview with Bernhard Rieder

Abstract

Bernhard Rieder is Associate Professor of New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Amsterdam and a collaborator with the Digital Methods Initiative. His research focuses on the history, theory and politics of software and in particular on the role algorithms play in social processes and in the production of knowledge and culture. This includes work on the analysis, development, and application of computational research methods as well as investigation into the political and economic challenges posed by large online platform. In this interview, Michael Stevenson (MS) and Anne Helmond (AH) talk to Bernhard Rieder (BR) about his forthcoming book entitled Engines of Order: A Mechanology of Algorithmic Techniques (University of Amsterdam Press, 2020). In particular, Rieder discusses how the practice of software-making is “constantly faced with the ‘legacies’ of previous work” and how the past continues to operate into present algorithmic techniques.