Response to Software Takes Command by Lev Manovich

In the introductory chapter of his book Software Takes Command, Lev Manovich posits that “software has become our interface with the world” (2). He points out that virtually all intellectual and creative production has become mediated through computer interfaces, and by extension, the software that provides and runs them. Given this context, he seeks to create a history and theory of software—in particular, the types of “media software” that he sees as specifically grounding visual and cultural production in the early 21st century.

Manovich makes a compelling argument that while many facets of digital culture and cultural production have been investigated by other scholars (and his list of “brief” citations is quite thorough for his purposes), software itself has been neglected as an object of study. He argues that in fact software should be elevated in its historical estimation to match the emphasis placed on the combustion engine and electricity as drivers of the industrial revolution of the 19th century (8). While this assertion could be seen as hyperbolic, it is a fair point: software now drives most aspects of the global economy, from the way in which it is bought and sold as consumer products (or leveraged for user data to be sold to advertisers), to the manner in which it now governs most “manual” labor processes in an era of ever-increasing automation.

His assertion that, as a new subject of study and academic discipline, “we need new methodologies” (15) is less clearly articulated. What would these new methodologies be? Certainly, the format of his book and the intellectual underpinnings of this chapter seem rooted in fairly standard contemporary academic analysis and cultural criticism.

One section stands out as particularly compelling. Under the heading of “Media Applications,” Manovich proceeds to lay out a set of distinctions between types of software that could lay the ground work for the “new discipline” he seeks to establish. He creates two major distinctions between “media development software” and “content access software” — only to then acknowledge that this distinction is increasingly blurry in an era of feature-rich applications and “platforms” created by companies eager to keep users within their own ecosystem as often as possible. He shifts the frame of consideration in interesting and compelling ways: starting with individual applications, then moving to the interface itself — folders, sounds, animation, and forms of feedback – as objects for consideration and analysis. Ultimately, his categorizations are by necessity incomplete, but leave the reader with newly open eyes toward the digital environment they inhabit daily.