It is not enough to understand computers to understand their proportions and scales. We only know that they are very complex and very fast. But they have been very complex and very fast for about half-a-century now, and it seems culture has all but given up on retaining any sense of scope for computers relative to human experience or meaning. They no longer exist within our subjective universe.
Full-stack media ecology is not just an explanation of what goes on between the top and the bottom of the computer stack; that is, between the high-level, easy-to-use interfaces and the bare metal and silicon. It’s about building the historical context for the development and growth of the stack upward and downwards, as a narrative about our lived environment, culture, and who and what we are as humans. We are embodied beings, …