Towards the Ludic Cyborg : (History and Theory of Authorship in Western Modernity)

New media create new forms of authorship. The historical investigation starts with an introspective remembrance of the changes in authorial practices during the past half-century. The paper then traces the four major developmental phases of authorship and their cultural reflection in the modern era.—Between the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, individual authorship originated in the context of letterpress printing. Two radically new concepts formed its philosophical and legal basis: the assertion of intangible and inalienable property. Industrialization, however, introduced new mass media that relied on the collaboration of many artisans. In the 20th century, analog film, radio, and television challenged the established and esteemed concept of individual authorship in favor of collective and hierarchical production. One response to this conflict between the cultural ideal and actual practices was the attempt by the holders of new managerial positions in the auditory and audiovisual media, particularly conductors and directors, to claim the author’s function. The research and theories of new academic disciplines complemented this deconstruction, resulting in declarations of the ‘death of the author’ in the late 1960s. At the same time, the onset of digitalization and digital networking opened up the possibility of—and created the demand for—different practices. Since the 1990s, distributed and potentially egalitarian authorship of digital knowledge workers has developed in the software medium and its central genre of digital games. Currently, a fourth transformation of authorial practices is underway. Rapid advances in digital technology realize what was hoped for already 60 years ago: a symbiotic relationship between human and machine intelligence. Thus, across all media and genres, the emergence of cyborgian authorship becomes apparent.—A media-specific theory of authorship concludes the investigation, i.e., the insight into the interdependence between the evolving state of media and the formation of authorial practices as well as their cultural acceptance.