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

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.