Critical Code Studies, the blogging community, celebrates 2 years of existence. The blog was born of the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts conference in Maine (SLSA 07). A confluence of scholars and artists at that conference, which was on the theme of Code, engaged in critical reading of code and encoded objects, such as software. At this years SLSA, themed decodings, recollects many of those original members, and offers an opportunity to consider how CCS has grown.

CCS continues to welcome new members. Stephen Ramsay has recently thrown his considerable insights into algorithms, hardware, and software to the mix. His recent post on TIM TOADY BICARBONATE is a sign of the growing participation of CCS members in not just the practice of code studies but the blog itself.

Atlanta has also brought another new member, Fox Harrell. Foxs critical work critiquing the ontological structures of software systems with respect to identity, particularly with respect to race, will widen the realms of CCS critique.

We also have recently added archivist and critic Patsy Baudoin of MITs libraries, who joined us after another CCS-friendly conference Digital Humanities 2009 (DH09). That same conference also brought Brian Bremen, another wonderful scholar on the topic, who brings an eye toward Modernism was well. (Bios will be updated shortly.)

However, this post about members makes me consider the growing need for a conference focusing on Critical Code Studies. While CCS will continue to show up in themes and panels, as in Digital Arts and Cultures Software Studies theme (DAC09) in December at Irvine, the sheer number of researchers on this blog suggest the time is right for a CCS conference.

As an interim move, I am planning an online working group to conduct a kind of mini-seminar in Critical Code Studies in early 2010. Details to follow.

Also, the recently announced ELO AI at Brown (June 3-6, 2010) will also present a code-friendly conference.

Were always interested in bringing new thinkers into the mix. If you are interested in joining CCS, please contact us.