Christopher Vitale

Hi everyone, my name is Chris, I'm ass't professor in the Critical and Visual Studies Program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Currently, I'm about halfway through writing a book called 'Networkologies: Philosophy, Politics, and Art in a Hyperconnected Age.' While there've been a lot of books on networks recently, there hasn't been a true philosophy of complex networks, at least, not like what I'm working on - one part Whiteheadian metaphysics, one part Deleuzian rhizomatics, and one part soft-computing, distributed representation, parallel processing, non-euclidean geometries, etc. Grew up in New York City, studied in upstate New York, Berkeley, Prague, NYU. Live in Brooklyn with a cranky roomate and very naughty puppy. Have a penchant for ice-cream, anything green, and Futurama.

Interests- Semiotics, visual/film/media studies, psychoanalysis/object-relations theories, networks, and things I'm not supposed to be interested in. Recently gave a talk called 'Saussure on Soft-Serve: Or, Why Semiotics Needs to Rethink the Binary Opposition.'

Expertise- Probably very different than most in the group. If you need an expert in poststructuralist theory of almost any sort, history of western philosophy, or various modes of cultural critique, well, I'm your guy. Really good at explaining complex theory/math/sci to students scared of the stuff. Can play multiple musical instruments, speak a bit of german. Pretty good at recursivity in general. A philosopher is a machine for turning coffee/beer into theories, right?

Hope to get out of CSS- Well, I've read just about everything I can get my hands on regarding complex networks (so long as its not ALL math), but one of the disadvantages of doing real interdisciplinary work is that you go totally beyond your training. So, I want to solidify what I know, and then gain a real facility with the materials at a whole new level. Also, I can't wait to hear what a whole bunch of truly interdisciplinary folks from other fields do with these ideas when put in a room together. Synnergistic thinking is a wonderful thing.