N. Katherine Hayles, The Cosmic Web and the Problem of Articulation

Operating at the intersections of literature, science and technology, N. Katherine Hayles is a preeminent thinker whose interdisciplinary work has come to be highly influential across a range of fields. This article focuses upon Hayles’ first book, The Cosmic Web, published in 1984. Exploring the conditions of its production and reception, it shows how this relatively neglected book, in terms of citations and attention, established a series of influential ideas that have since become core within the critical study of data, algorithms and artificial intelligence. This particular article seeks to understand that original text along with the ideas and approaches that it established. The article suggests that, drawing on Hayles’ own conceptual framing, The Cosmic Web is part of the ‘cultural matrix’ through which critical studies of data, algorithms and AI continue to emerge. The article focuses directly on the methods deployed by Hayles, and reflects on how literary sources were used to provoke the analytical imagination. Within this, it examines Hayles’ use of literary sources to explore broader social and cultural forces. The article asks how Hayles used that method to develop the metaphor of The Cosmic Web and its connotations of interconnection and stickiness. It focuses on the problem of articulation identified by Hayles and the methodological and conceptual possibilities The Cosmic Web still offers for seeking to address it today.