Evan Buswell

Recent graduate from UC Davis researching artificial intelligence, epistemology, practice as research, and the history of credit, computing, and capitalism. For academic and related writings, see Writings. For code projects, see Projects. For electronic musical instruments and writing about sound, see New Systems Instruments. For music, see Bandcamp.

A sampling of my engineering projects, past and present.

New Systems Instruments

2020–present

nsinstruments.com

New Systems Instruments is a project to create analog electronic musical instruments that are situated very close to the mathematical abstractions which are their basis. On the one hand, this design process opens up new areas for musical exploration. On the other hand, it brings out and elaborates on the aspects of mathematical practice that are artistic, such as “elegance.”

Non-Eleatic Languages

2015–present

github.com/ebuswell/noneleatic

The Non-Eleatic Languages are a group of programming languages and virtual machines designed to highlight the particular nature of programming and the particular conception of programming languages that exists today. Both a critique of the concept of code, and a work to further computer science, the Non-Eleatic Languages take as their starting point an admixture of state and code, where code never can take its environment for granted, and where code exists only in mutation. The Non-Eleatic Languages have no conditional branch statement and rely on self-modification to be Turing complete.

2013–2020

Mekanimator is a platform based on the Microsoft Kinect, designed to support live 3D animated avatar-based theatrical performance and cinematic scene production using and combining stock graphical assets. It will feature networked real-time collaboration as well as after-the-fact editing and remixing of scenes across the globe. Mekanimator is currently in use for Play the Knave (see below).

Play the Knave

2013–2020

playtheknave.org

Play the Knave is a Shakespeare performance video game based on the Mekanimator platform (see above). It has been shown internationally at renowned Shakespearean theaters, conferences, and classrooms. Dubbed "Shakespeare Karaoke" by its users, Play the Knave is designed to encourage free play, or gaming outside of gamification.

Non-Darwinian Genetic Algorithms

2014–present

This project looks at so-called "metaheuristic" algorithms and tries to show the ideological assumptions about our biological world that are contained in these supposedly mathematical processses. Breaking down these ideologies offers both a critique of the biological metaphor in mathematics, as well as the supposedly mathematical basis of various biological ideas.

Live C

2013–2014

github.com/ebuswell/livec

Live C allows a C code source file to be recompiled and reloaded in real time, without losing the current state of the program. Apart from its pragmatic usefulness, Live C is meant to show the relative arbitrariness of our decisions as to what is state and what is code, or what is data and what is executable.

State Annotator

2013–2014

The State Annotator is designed to allow annotation to the running state of an arbitrary program. While it is still in the experimental phase, the State Annotator already exhibits the structure behind even a compiled program, as well as the difficulty and abstraction necessary to call two states "the same."

Sonic Maths

2009–2016

github.com/ebuswell/sonicmaths

Sonic Maths is a simple library of audio synthesis algorithms, based on an approach I call "continuum modeling." "Maths" is the British abbreviation to emphasize the plurality of mathematics. When translating from continuous to discrete mathematics and back over and over again, inevitably drowning in the frequency/time aporia, everything getting foggy and transcendental functions sprouting up like mushrooms, you start to see that the roots of mathematics couldn't possibly be other than many things.

Atomic Kit

2011–2014

github.com/ebuswell/atomickit

Atomic Kit is a library of C routines that provide a simple but effective interface for thread-safe, lock-free, transactional data structures.

Publications

“The Epistemology of Code in the Age of Machine Learning.” Digital Humanities Quarterly, special issue on critical code studies (coming Fall 2023).

“Playful Pedagogy and Social Justce: Digital Embodiment in the Shakespeare Classroom.” With Gina Bloom and Nicholas Toothman. In Shakespeare and Education. Edited by Emma Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.

“ ‘A Whole Theatre of Others’: Amateur Acting and Immersive Spectatorship in the Digital Shakespeare Game Play the Knave.” With Gina Bloom, Sawyer Kemp, and Nick Toothman. Shakespeare Quarterly 67, no. 4 (2017): 408–430.

Presentations and Informal Writing

“The Rise and Fall of Critical Distance: Critique of Science and Critical Science.” Presentation at the 2021 Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Toronto, 2021.

“The Role of Ideology in the Formation of the Code Concept.” Presentation at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Society of Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), Irvine, CA, 2019.

Interview by Daniel Tempkin on the Noneleatic Languages project. October 30, 2018. esoteric.codes.

“Creative and Critical Coding. Coding as Method?” Plenary thread / presentation for the 2018 Critical Code Studies Working Group, online.

“Metaheuristics and Marginalism: False Generalization in the Mathematics of Late Capitalism.” Presentation at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Denver, CO, 2015.

“Notes on State.” Presentation at the iMMERSE Network Meeting, Online 2014.

“If: Close Reading the Conditional Branch Instruction.” Presentation at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), Dallas, TX, 2014.

“The Historical Form of Calculation and Its Absence in Marxist Theory.” Presentation at the 2014 Institute on Culture and Society (ICS), Banff, Alberta, 2014.

“Is There a Linguistic Art?” Hastac. 2014.

“Code as a Totalization of the Information Episteme.” Presentation at the 2013 Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), Notre Dame, IN, 2013.

“Debt, Code, and Computability.” Presentation at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA), Milwaukee, WI, 2012.

“The Ethics of Code.” With Scott Dexter, Craig Dietrich, and Elizabeth Losh. Plenary thread / presentation for the 2012 Critical Code Studies Working Group, online. Proceedings in Electronic Book Review, forthcoming.

“Solidarity not Unity: Division, Consensus, and the Outside.” Slingshot. Winter 2011.

“Undefined Intimacy with the Machine: Standard C and ‘Undefined Behavior.’ ” Presentation at Critical Code Studies @ USC, Los Angeles, CA, 2010.

“Truth and Command in the Language of Code: (code := meaning) == (code := action)?” Presentation at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), Washington, DC, 2009.

Evan Buswell is a recent graduate from the Cultural Studies program at UC Davis. Evan works on code, artificial intelligence, and computing; epistemology; practice as research; and economic history. Evan's current project investigates the historical development of optimization as a form of knowledge creation. Before that, Evan wrote a dissertation on the historical relationship between the the capitalist credit system and the formation of code and algebraic notation. Evan is also a practicing software and hardware engineer, having worked on several games and code art projects, as well as the design and production of electronic musical instruments.