*Volumetric Regimes: Material Cultures of a Quantified Presence* is a collective work edited by Jara Rocha and Femke Snelting, published in 2022 by Open Humanities Press as part of the Data Browser series. ¹

Stemming from the collaborative research project Possible Bodies, initiated by the two editors, the book examines contemporary regimes of volumetry and 3D modelling. It analyses how three-dimensional computational technologies — historically linked to modern technosciences — contribute to logics of optimisation, standardisation and technocapitalist hegemony. By defining volumetry as the set of techniques for measuring and modelling volumes, the book highlights how these tools tend to reproduce ‘the probable’ at the expense of ‘the possible’, particularly in the context of contemporary hyper-computing.

Through an intersectional analysis, the contributions—including those by Sophie Boiron, Pierre Huyghebaert, Simone C. Niquille and Helen V. Pritchard—explore the political, cultural and material implications of the digitisation, scanning and modelling of bodies. Issues of race, gender, class, species, age and ability are examined in the light of practices of representation and simulation. The book thus seeks to denaturalise notions of intensity, dimension and substance, viewing them not as mere measurable properties, but as relational and processual realities embedded within complex material ecologies. ²

Designed by Manetta Berends, the book is the first in the Data Browser series to be produced entirely using open-source software. It is based on a ‘wiki-to-print’ configuration using MediaWiki, HTML, CSS and Paged.js. For this project, Manetta Berends developed a new set of scripts, drawing inspiration in particular from Diversions, a book published by Constant and designed by OSP. The layout itself constitutes a ‘version’: an HTML+CSS redesign of the original Data Browser series design, created by Stuart Bailey. ³

Thus, Volumetric Regimes combines theoretical reflection with editorial experimentation: it does not merely analyse the infrastructures of quantified presence, but also reconfigures the material conditions of production, drawing on open-source tools and collaborative practices that are consistent with its critical perspective. ⁴