Cardigans are not entirely necessary for a show or a film to fit within the Cardigan sci-fi subgenre (although they certainly help). It’s the lack of polish in the world, it’s the absence of technological fetishism in the science fiction itself. The science or the tools or the spaceships do not sit at the heart of Cardigan sci-fi — it’s all about the people that wear the cardigans instead.
I think Baldur is onto something here with his categorisation of software. There’s the software based on innovation, something truly novel:
Innovation’s the word. Pushing the boundaries. You know the phrases. Usually spouted by that dude at the party.
Then there’s the software based on itertion, making a better version of a proven tool:
We are now in a place where we have entire genres of software that have decades of history, are backed by stacks of new and old research, have dozens of successful, well-made exemplar apps, and a broad enough conceptual space to allow for new variations on the theme.
In short, we have genre software and we have avant-garde software, and I’ve always been more interested in genre fiction than literary fiction.
Rob has turned his exhaustive spreadsheet of all the concerts he has attended into a beautiful website. Browse around—it’s really quite lovely!
Rob’s also writing about the making of the site over on his blog.
James Bridle is my favourite Blogpunk author.