tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-41852416246908337812024-03-13T04:36:11.453-07:00Cartographies of Media ArchaeologyJussi Parikka's media archaeology focused ideas, notes and short draft writings.Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.comBlogger113125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-88365112602307782932015-02-17T06:38:00.003-08:002015-02-17T06:38:36.398-08:00Media archaeological employment tip of the day Here's the practical media archaeological advise of the day, from 1956 relating to automation and the changing landscape of labor:<i> if you cannot beat them, join them</i>.<br />
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(<i>Popular Mechanics</i>, 1956).Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-26814871177738771172015-02-02T10:10:00.001-08:002015-02-02T10:10:23.396-08:00"Pour une archéologie des virus. Entretien avec Jussi Parikka"I ran into <a href="http://traces.revues.org/5230" target="_blank">this earlier interview on the media archaeology and software politics of (computer) viruses</a> again. It's in French but I thought to post a link here as well.Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-16422204820857616772015-01-03T05:00:00.002-08:002015-01-03T05:00:47.491-08:00The AnthrobsceneThis blog was originally used as the work blog of material related to the <i><a href="http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745650258" target="_blank">What is Media Archaeology?</a></i>-book project. However, I wanted to briefly post the link to the recently published <i><a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/the-anthrobscene" target="_blank">The Anthrobscene</a></i>-publication: a short-ebook that works as a single or a preview of the forthcoming <i><a href="https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/a-geology-of-media" target="_blank">A Geology of Media</a></i>.<br />
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<i>The Anthrobscene </i>does touch on some media archaeological theory too. It starts from a reading of <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/deep-time-media" target="_blank">Zielinski's notion of deep time </a>of the media and the geological concepts that Zielinski uses to outline his methodology. I however offer then an alternative deep time that goes into geological time scales and depths, which are not however removed from a critique of the contemporary notions of (im)materiality of media.Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-12673202939450223162014-01-19T10:34:00.003-08:002014-01-19T10:34:52.158-08:00On the Temporal Logic in ErnstThere is a very nice review in <i>Postmodern Culture </i>on Wolfgang Ernst's <i><a href="http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/digital-memory-and-the-archive" target="_blank">Digital Memory and the Archive</a></i>. I like how it focuses on Ernst's notion of time - something I believe essential to understand the wider project of the German media theorist. Indeed, in "<a href="http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/postmodern_culture/v022/22.3.cavender.html" target="_blank">The Temporal Logic of Digital Media Technologies</a>" Kurt Cavender connects Ernst to Kittler's thought, Matthew Fuller's media ecologies as well as points some of the shortcomings of the arguments (or at least the lack of articulated connections to some other recent theories of software and platform culture).Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-49592683258432716022013-07-10T08:11:00.002-07:002013-07-10T08:33:40.328-07:00Gender in media archaeology: only a boys' club?One of the set critiques of media archaeology is that it is a boys' club. That is a correct evaluation in so many ways when one has a look at the topics as well as authors of the circle of writers broadly understood part of 'media archaeology'. I make the same argument for instance in <i>What is Media Archaeology?</i>, but there is also something else that we need to attend to.<br />
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There is however a danger that the critique also neglects the multiplicity inherent in the approach. For sure, there are critical points to be made in so many aspects of Kittler's and others' theoretical work, but at the same time it feels unfair to neglect the various female authors and artists at the core of the field. In other words, the critique often turns a blind eye to the women who are actively involved in media archaeology. Let's not write them out too easily.<br />
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For instance<a href="http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/imagenarrative/numerous" target="_blank"> Zoe Beloff's</a> work is of essential value in this regards as her artistic practice digs out alternative media histories of women in a feminist media archaeological way. One should also check out such artists as Aura Satz and for instance Rosa Menkman too. (And the list could/should be extended!)<br />
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Lori Emerson is an active figure in the field through her <a href="http://loriemerson.net/media-archaeology-lab/" target="_blank">Media Archaeology Lab</a>. In terms of theorists, how can one neglect the pioneering work of Cornelia Vismann? Or for instance Wendy Chun (whether she identifies herself as media archaeologist or not, her work is such an inspiration always)? One of the key writes is Wanda Strauven with her film theory background. Several people in the field explicitly argue how central Carolyn Marvin's classic <i>When Old Technologies Were New</i> was to their thinking. Machiko Kusahara is bringing exciting topics on the media archaeological agenda and such inspirations like Margaret Morse and Vivian Sobchak - again, professors who do not necessarily identify with media archaeology <i>per se</i>... - are important forerunners. Lisa Gitelman and Lisa Cartwright's work pops up frequently. I myself consider for instance Jennifer Gabrys' work (especially on e-waste) a fantastic contribution to the media archaeology/obsolescence discussions. Similarly Shannon Mattern is someone whose work always deserves a shout out.<br />
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But for sure - this is just not enough. We could continue listing fabulous scholars but we also need to attend to the finer micropolitics of how articulations of gender, sexuality and embodiment could make the field increasingly vibrant. I myself am keen to follow the route of feminists like Braidotti in her expanded feminism that takes also ecology and animals as part of the concern: what are the processes of writing out, discursive and in non-discursive practices, which are threatening not only the life understood as <i>Bios</i>, but as well as <i>Zoe</i>: the very fundamental dynamics of life on the planet and beyond. Feminism also extends outside the questions traditionally considered about gender.<br />
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<br />Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-12048182837694125212013-05-23T05:32:00.001-07:002013-05-23T05:32:49.846-07:00A German Affair?Simone Natale reviews <i><a href="http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520262744" target="_blank">Media Archaeology</a></i> alongside other media archaeology books (Zielinski and Kluitenberg).<br />
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The full review came out in the<i> Canadian Journal of Communication</i> and you can find it <a href="http://www.academia.edu/1984760/Understanding_Media_Archaeology" target="_blank">here</a>. But the first footnote is good and interesting. I better quote it in full:<br />
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"Although it has recently been largely influential in English-speaking scholarship, media archaeology is indebted to the work of European intellectuals, particularly from Germany, the Netherlands, and Northern Europe. Taking into account the context of its development is essential to comprehending its ends and means. In particular, the German-speaking tradition of scholarship brought to this field some important characteristics: its strong focus on theoretical concerns; its antiquarian vocation, manifested in media archaeology through the attention to “dead” or obsolete media and artifacts; and, last but not least, the leading role that archaeology tout court has had in German culture since the nineteenth century."Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-35114686427116755302013-04-23T08:57:00.000-07:002013-04-23T08:57:03.575-07:00What is Media Archaeology? reviewed in Neural<a href="http://www.neural.it/art/2013/04/jussi_parikka_what_is_media_ar.phtml" target="_blank">A new review </a>of <i>What is Media Archaeology</i> in <i>Neural</i> (April 2013):<br />
"To understand the "futuristic" present we live in it's very important to
know our past. This seems particularly true when it comes to media
culture. In fact it appears that the only feasible kind of time
traveling is what is usually defined as "media archaeology", which
allows us to re-create and use the same mediations on content that
have been used by people in the past,
refashioning their specific media context." [...]Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-19598987582278149322013-04-23T01:23:00.001-07:002013-04-23T01:32:20.083-07:00The Archival Command: To Transmit and to PreserveWhether media archaeology is even that close to Michel Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge is not always questioned. For Wolfgang Ernst, the link is very close, due to the notions of monument that one inherits from Foucault, as well as the non-semantic emphasis of Foucault. However, a lot of media archaeology still vows to principles that are at times further from Foucault. For instance, Foucault was insisting that his archaeology is not so much about giving “voice to the silent”, the neglected or repressed ones of media history. Indeed, his was not a “search and rescue” operation of what was lost, but an analysis of how the various “Gaps, voids, absences, limits, divisions” are distributed. No repression, just a production of distributions.<br />
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This leads to questions of how something is “transmitted and preserved”. This sort of archaeology is completely positive in this particular sense, and insists on this monumental aspect: why is something there, and why has it been brought to us. Indeed, his archaeology is handy when it comes to questions of transmission as preservation, the archival command. A key quote from Foucault elaborates exactly what we are considering also in relation to software preservation/archival matters. There is a “remanence” proper to statements, which is not so much a way back to “the past even of the formulation”. Instead their duration (and distribution) needs to be explained.<br />
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Consider Foucault:<br />
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“To say that statements are residual is not to say that they remain in the field of memory, or that it is possible to rediscover what they meant; but it means they are preserved by the virtue of a number of supports and material techniques (of which the book is, of course, only one example), in accordance with certain types of institutions (of which the library is one), and with certain statutory modalities (which are not the same in the case of a religious text, a law, or a scientific truth). This also means they are invested in techniques that put them into operation, in practices that derive from them, in the social relations that they form, or, through those relations, modify.”<br />
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That quote, from Archaeology of Knowledge, is definitely a killer quote. It both highlights the specificity of Foucault’s approach as well as its relevance to the work of maintenance we call “memory”. It also hitns of that connection to Friedrich Kittler’s note near the end of <i>Discourse Networks 1800/1900 </i>that Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge needs to be updated to account for the technical media age: not all discourse networks are libraries and consist of books! And yet, that is already there in Foucault who steered clear from analysis of technical media but still leaves the door open to those other material techniques etc. Obviously Kittler knew this: we need to read carefully the afterwords to the <i>Discourse Networks</i>. It speaks of Foucault's methods, not his theory, acknowledging that difference inside Foucault's own writings and research.<br />
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Besides Kittler, there are hints towards the recent work of “cultural techniques” (for instance Bernhard Siegert). This is not to say that this more recent notion in German media theory is a footnote to Foucault -- like Kittler’s work cannot be reduced to such – but only that the emphasis on techniques is definitely something of consideration when tracking some of the archaeologies of the concept of “cultural techniques”.Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-19748730905342514502013-04-09T07:23:00.000-07:002013-04-09T07:23:15.689-07:00Media Archaeology and Technological DebrisAn event at Goldsmiths College in London:<br />
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Postgraduate Workshop & Conference: Media Archaeology and Technological Debris<br />Thursday, June 20 – Friday, June 21, 2013, Goldsmiths, University of London</div>
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This workshop aims to bring academics and PhD students together to<br />discuss emerging research projects on the field of media studies. It<br />means to combine the thriving approach of media archaeology with the<br />growing environmental concerns about technological debris, emphasizing<br />the complementary character of these topics in the construction of a<br />material understanding of media practices=92 past, present and future.<br />We expect to gather a number of emerging investigations that can shed<br />new light over the socio-political, economic, cultural, technological,<br />material and aesthetic dimensions of the continuous phenomena of<br />novelty and obsolescence of media systems. In doing so, we also hope<br />to create conditions to examine the systems of relationship formulated<br />around these topics, paying particular attention to the regimes of<br />value that define media objects either as museum artifacts or as<br />rubbish in different global/local contexts (such as Europe and Latin<br />America).</div>
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10-15 PhD students will be selected to participate. The workshop<br />itself will last for two days: The first day will be composed of<br />closed reading groups in which the seasoned researchers will act as<br />respondents and mediators for the presentation of the participating<br />students, while the second day will be a small conference open to the<br />public. As such, the workshop intends to create a platform for<br />exchanging ideas and research methods upon this interdisciplinary<br />field.</div>
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The event is being organized by students and graduates of Goldsmiths’<br />Department of Media and Communications, and is sponsored by<br />Goldsmiths’ Graduate School.</div>
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Confirmed speakers: Sean Cubitt (Media & Comms, Goldsmiths); Graham<br />Harwood (Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths); Jennifer Gabrys (Sociology,<br />Goldsmiths); Jussi Parikka (Media & Design, University of<br />Southampton); Gabriel Menotti (Audiovisual, UFES); and people from<br />Access Space (Sheffield).</div>
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Possible themes include:<br />- archaeological and anarchaeological research<br />- the repurposing of old devices (for fun & profit & art)<br />- programmed obsolescence and the temporality of materials and technologies<br />- precarious technical milieus<br />- artifact materiality and value<br />- media museography and historiography<br />- transnational contexts for zombie media<br />- industrial media and environmental hazards<br />- practices and economies of recycling technology<br />- electronic recycling and archiving of technological artifacts<br />- qualities, histories and applications of media systems and media ecologies<br />- global and local economic forces in cycles of innovation and decay</div>
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To apply, please submit a text document containing a title, a brief<br />description of your project (no more than 250 words), and a brief<br />biography to <a href="mailto:mediaarchdebris@gmail.com" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #3a6999; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">mediaarchdebris@gmail.com</a> by Sunday, April 21, 17:00 GMT.</div>
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For more information, see: <a href="http://www.technologicaldebris.info/" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(238, 238, 238); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; border-style: initial; border-top-width: 0px; color: #3a6999; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12px; font-style: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; outline-color: initial; outline-style: none; outline-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank">http://www.technologicaldebris.info</a></div>
Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-16289946585260689352013-03-14T02:21:00.003-07:002013-03-14T02:21:30.472-07:00On the moving panorama and other media archaeological inspiration<br />
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Not every professor has an office like this. Peep into Erkki Huhtamo’s (UCLA) media archaeological office through this <a href="http://dailybruin.com/2013/03/06/video-prime-artifacts-of-media-archaeology-inside-professor-erkki-huhtamos-office/" style="color: #2970a6; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">video</a>, and get a taster of his enthusiasm as a collector: zoetropes, mutoscopes, kinetoscope. It demonstrates the curiosity cabinets of media history but also the need to train specialists who are able to maintain these instruments as part of the living heritage of media cultures outside the mainstream. The devices prompt us to ask questions concerning difference: how different media culture could be, and has been.</div>
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The video is a good insight to the just released Huhtamo book on the moving panorama: <a href="https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/illusions-motion" style="color: #2970a6; line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><em style="line-height: inherit; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Illusions in Motion</em></a>, just out from MIT Press.</div>
Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-21506799734980326872013-02-07T12:55:00.002-08:002013-02-07T12:58:08.821-08:00Berlin launch of some media archaeology booksThanks to all who came to our transmediale'13 launch of<a href="http://www.polity.co.uk/book.asp?ref=9780745650258" target="_blank"><i> What is Media Archaeology?</i></a> and Wolfgang Ernst's <a href="http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/digital-memory-and-the-archive" target="_blank"><i>Digital Memory and the Archive</i></a>. We had a blast, and were able to both introduce the books and also carve out some productive differences in our approaches. Ernst brought with him the beautiful magnetic core memory that also is featured on the cover of his book. Part of the Media Archaeological Fundus' collections. For me it was great to be launching this in the midst of yet another great bunch of tm exhibitions of media archaeological resonance: the <a href="http://www.transmediale.de/content/octo-global-pipe-dream-come-true" target="_blank">Octo</a> Pneumatic Media System (a Rohrpost in action), the <a href="http://www.transmediale.de/content/evil-media-distribution-centre-0" target="_blank">Evil Media Distribution Centre</a>, <a href="http://www.transmediale.de/content/refunct-media-5" target="_blank">Refunct Media</a> vol. 5, and more.<br />
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Juan Quinones / transmediale, <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/transmediale/8450300513/" target="_blank">source</a>.)</div>
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Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-58862509051929514762013-01-13T03:21:00.000-08:002013-01-13T23:26:55.310-08:00The Underbelly of the UndergroundLondon, 1860s. <br />
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So much had to be in place and happen before Colonel Yolland acting on behalf of the Government stepped in and down. He was there to inspect the Underground, soon planned to be running with tightly set schedules. Every ten minutes from eight in the morning to eight in the evening, from Paddington and Farringdon stations. Before that, from six onwards, and after eight until twelve, every 20 minutes. Not bad service for 1863. And even the third class customers had light -- gas light, of course.<br />
<br />
In order to celebrate <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAacD_twq7M" target="_blank">the 150 years of London tube service</a>, and before the Colonel himself made those last rounds - he was after all the man you had to call when an accident happened, he was after all Britain’s Chief Inspector of Railways and fierce proponent of railway safety measures - so much hard work had happened that was not just an expression of Victorian spirit for grand architectural projects. Indeed, on the microlevel, imagine the work and consideration that had to be in place. For years, planning and building, engineering the project; considerations of ventilation and sewage had to the priority. Discussions about the soil and shafts, a true mining project that provided the underground transport media it's viability that 150 years later seems more idealistic.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-llSfLMLeZ7A/UPKWJXb_ctI/AAAAAAAAAXU/F0qs40KAF8w/s1600/the+times+feb+1+1860+page+7.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-llSfLMLeZ7A/UPKWJXb_ctI/AAAAAAAAAXU/F0qs40KAF8w/s320/the+times+feb+1+1860+page+7.png" width="297" /></a></div>
<br />
(The Times, Feb 1, 1860).<br />
<br />
And it was not without its dangers. Remember the Schivelbusch line, familiar from Virilio as well? That every technology co-produces its accident? The train comes with the train accident, but not all railway accidents and dangers have to do with trains. Indeed, there was a lot more to be worried about before trains were running. Does not take much imagination to remember that it might have rained a lot. June 1862 was especially rainy, to an extent that it caused it's dangers to tbe bricklayers in the tunnels. Accidents were feared, and even without casualties, you can imagine the damage a flooding of the tunnels with massive rain water causes. And the smell and the actions needing to be taken: redirecting through sewers, repairing of the damages, starting again.<br />
<br />
This is the microhistory of engineering projects, of transport and media: it takes into account the various seemingly grey elements which actually precede any events and dates that are then deemed of significant from a symbolic point of view. Instead of 150 years of London Underground, we have a longer history of the underbelly of the Underground and its relation to the soil, engineering, labour and other material formations. The city lives not only on top of the surface. It has its guts, where we also move, but also other things move, and our life support has to flow; sewers and ventilation, an underground teeming with life, in the soil. Ask the rats.<br />
<br />
(Update/postscript: Someone just suggested Neil Gaiman's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwhere_(novel)" target="_blank">Neverwhere</a> as the accompanying novel for this line of thought of the underbelly London...And I also just learned that this was first a tv-serial too.). Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-76391131955078897312013-01-10T02:35:00.003-08:002013-01-10T02:35:46.651-08:00An Alternative Deep Time of the Media: A Geologically Tuned Media Ecology Next week I am participating in this very exciting symposium at the Ruhr-University in Bochum, Germany. Convened by prof. Erich <span class="st">Hörl</span>, it focuses on the <i>General Ecology of Media and Technology</i> -- as a direction discussing media ecology and the ecological paradigm in critical theory and humanities.<br />
<br />
You can find the programme and more info <a href="http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/general-ecology/symposium.html" target="_blank">here</a>.<br />
<br />
My talk focuses on some new ideas I am having concerning "a geology of media"(yes, a nod towards Deleuze and Guattari's Geology of Morals.)<br />
<br />
In short, it is a way to tap into the mineral and material constitution of media technologies -- a media history of matter, so to speak that takes into account the long duree of mineralisation (some 500 million years ago) as constituting a layer of hardware and hardwork that characterises our current idealisation of "cognitive" capitalism too. Hence, we are not dealing only with psychopower/-technologies of contemporary capitalist media culture but also with psychogeophysicalpowers. I like the phrase <i>hardware and hardwork</i>, coined in this nice game project <a href="http://i-mine.org/" target="_blank">i-mines</a>, and that double articulation after so much talk of software, softpower, etc. reminds of the very material logistics/labour that are a necessary support, an affordance, for digital economy.<br />
<br />
My abstract:<br /><b>An Alternative Deep Time of the Media: A Geologically Tuned Media Ecology </b><br /><br />This talk picks up on Siegfried Zielinski's notion of a deep time of the media -- not straightforwardly media archaeological, but an anarchaeological call for methodology of deep time research into technical means of hearing and seeing. In Zielinski's vision, which poetically borrows from Jay Gould's paleontological epistemology at least in its vision, the superficiality of media cultural temporality is exposed with antecedents, hidden ideas, false but inspiring paths of earlier experimenters from Empedocles to Athanius Kircher, Johann Wilhelm Ritter to Cesare Lombroso. <br />
<br />
As an alternative deep time, I suggest that instead of male heroes, we approach a more geologically tuned deep time - deep in various senses, down to mineral excavation, and picking up some themes of media ecological sort. The talk aims to introduce a more geologically oriented notion of depth of media that is interested in the mineral and raw material basis of technological development, as well as presents some media historical points of how one might adapt to a material perspective in terms of ecological temporality.<br />Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-79694476046899246912013-01-06T03:36:00.001-08:002013-01-06T03:36:40.044-08:00Mareorama ResurrectedErkki Huhtamo's Audiovisual Performance Production "Mareorama Resurrected" now available for viewing online<br />
<br />
An edited version of UCLA Design Media Arts Professor <a href="http://dma.ucla.edu/faculty/profiles/?ID=9" target="_blank">Erkki Huhtamo's</a>
acclaimed illustrated lecture performance "Mareorama Resurrected" is now
available online. The Performance took place during the Art &&
Code 3D Conference at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, in October
2011.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://artandcode.com/3d/otherevents/the-moving-panorama" target="_blank">http://artandcode.com/3d/other<wbr></wbr>events/the-moving-panorama</a><br />
<br />
Program notes:<br />
<br />
"Performed throughout the 1800s, moving panoramas were among the most
popular entertainment of the 19th century. In this poetic
lecture-demonstration, scholar and media archeologist Erkki Huhtamo
draws on his research into moving panoramas and dioramas to discuss
various historical apparata that laid the groundwork for 20th and 21st
century immersive applications—including those created now by game
designers and media artists. The particular focus of this presentation
will be on the Maréorama, a huge multi-sensory spectacle created by Hugo
d’Alesi and his team for the Universal Exposition of 1900 in Paris.
Drawing from high-resolution scans and the original piano music composed
for the Maréorama by Henri Kowalski, Huhtamo reconstructs several
sequences from this simulated sea voyage on the Mediterranean. The
performance features live piano accompaniment by Stephen L. I. Murphy."Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-4619911442426971272012-12-27T06:57:00.000-08:002012-12-27T07:01:45.266-08:00Hit & Run: On Finnish Baseball and War<style>
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It’s war on the school playing ground. Pitch and duck, run
and take cover. The just barely disguised educational aims of Finnish sports
are more cruel when you scratch the surface. Obviously, it applies to all
sports, especially in school, with the cruelty that only kids are capable of. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But there is something curious about some of
the Finnish sports that kids like me had to – and still do – play on a regular
basis, for years during their school career. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j-an6m840OM/UNxihsNXqzI/AAAAAAAAAWw/qniKMMKIxUg/s1600/pesis3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="94" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-j-an6m840OM/UNxihsNXqzI/AAAAAAAAAWw/qniKMMKIxUg/s200/pesis3.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
In terms of Finnish baseball, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pes%C3%A4pallo" target="_blank">p<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">esäpallo</span></a>, what
intrigues me are its military roots. Invented by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lauri_Pihkala" target="_blank">Lauri “Tahko” Pihkala</a>, a far
right leaning cultural spokeman and sportsman, p<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">esäpallo</span> took
form as a Finnish variation of the American and already existing European
versions. However, what the rather militaristic Pihkala planned, just in the after
wake of Finnish independence, and the bloody civil war, was a form of education
of the body. I would like to think of him as the Finnish equivalent of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_J%C3%BCnger" target="_blank">Ernst <i><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-style: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Jünger</span></i></a>, of sorts. War is the
mobilisation of the body, and drilling of the national body to the specific
requirements of war. Of course, there was a sense of antiquated aspiration in
this. In the coming militarised war, the blitz, a different sort of management
of speed was needed, although one has to say that for such specific war fronts like
the wintery Finland of 1930s and 1940s, men on skis had their use. Indeed, for
Pihkala, preparation for military manoeuvres starts from the sports field. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
With roots in late 19<sup>th</sup> century, the idea for
this particular game grew in his head for twenty years, with the first test
match in 1920 in Helsinki between a military battalion (<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">Pioneeripataljoona 1)</span>
and a quasi-military right wing group (Suojeluskunta). Even the rules of the
games were officialised as an appendix to a military brief in 1921 (Armeijan <span style="mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";">päiväkäsky</span>).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Reading Pihkala’s thoughts is fascinating in the jungeresque
way. It is a form of cultivation – a cultural technique one can say – of the
physical body in relation to a wider set of social goals for survival. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-chPlMjnAIj0/UNxiq4oJ0YI/AAAAAAAAAW4/4tejt-OVMoA/s1600/1143_Pesa%CC%88pallo2211.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-chPlMjnAIj0/UNxiq4oJ0YI/AAAAAAAAAW4/4tejt-OVMoA/s200/1143_Pesa%CC%88pallo2211.jpg" width="148" /></a></div>
<span class="A6"><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ansi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">”<i>What else than training for hunting and
fighting was the basis of sport in those times: running and jumping, throw-ing,
clubbing, shooting, wrestling and boxing. In those times every man who wished
to stay alive had to be an able huntsman and a soldier, that is a good athlete
– thus became sport both an </i>everyday task <i>and a </i>national service.” </span></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is an important part in the cultural history of 1920s
and 1930s – both in terms of a prelude to WWII as well as the anthropological
theories of play articulated at that time. Indeed, in Pihkala’s ideas, plans
and writings, the two streams coalesce.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="Pa2" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span class="A6"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ansi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">”<i>Only man is capable of </i>training<i>, an activity requiring
systematic, far-sighted deliberation and patience that are essential for sport.</i>”
</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Play/sports are a second-order cultural technique of
cultivation: training of the bodily senses which as an activity attaches to
such widely discussed modern themes like patience and attention. So much of the
anthropology of the urban, modern life was of course geared towards this
specific theme that is not solely about observation, but that more specific
nature of attention (indeed, psychopower of sorts, that with theorists like
Stiegler has been the recent years been picked up as part of analyses of
attention economy, but has these long roots in media and social theory).</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sports is war, and war is less about killing than about the
drilling, training of the body. In Pihkala’s words:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="A6"><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ansi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">”<i>Sport is more or less methodical training
for martial tasks that appeal to our instincts either because of their ancient
origins or because of the speed they implicate in order to gain the maximum
performance.</i>”</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="A6"><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ansi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Aim and throw, duck and run -- the mobile
warfare. Hit and run: the game is a modulation of speed. Apparently Pihkala had
considered that whereas the American version is more like trench warfare, his
version would be equipped for a more speed-oriented mobile war that according
to some sources was planned to support the specific requirements of the milieu
of Finland: forest warfare. Shoot and move. It’s a sort of a <a href="http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/pesapallo_markkinoitiin_suojeluskunnille_sotakunnon_kehittajana_78757.html" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">simulation</i></a> of warfare in this sense. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="A6"><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ansi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Much later, in the 1960s, Pihkala was
introducing another new sport, “flash ball” (<a href="http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/pesapallon_isa_keksi_toisenkin_lajin_78306.html#media=77964" target="_blank">salamapallo</a>). Worried about the
increasing sitting down that is crippling our culture (remember, Finland was
too on its way from primarily agricultural mode of production to a more service
based urban culture), Pihkala was keen to pitch <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">running</i> as a key to healthy cultural state. Here too, in a radio
column by him, Pihkala is talking about how running/agility/movement are
essential to ability to defend oneself, which I am sure he allegorically meant
as part of a national task as well. In general, the column is an interesting
listen from the perspective of cultural techniques of running.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="A6"><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ansi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">A further chapter to this invention of Finnish
national sport as a military mode of training is when one would discuss that
through Friedrich Kittler. Kittler’s enthusiasm for war and media technologies
is known, as is his fondness, of sort, of </span></span><i><span style="font-family: Cambria; font-style: normal; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-style: italic; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Jünger. There would be curious narratives to be
written from the Finnish perspective too, as a way to understand cultural
techniques of drill and distraction.</span></i><span class="A6"><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ansi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="A6"><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ansi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">Some sources:</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span class="A6"><span style="font-family: Cambria; mso-ansi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><a href="http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/pesapallon_isa_keksi_toisenkin_lajin_78306.html%23media=78860">http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/pesapallon_isa_keksi_toisenkin_lajin_78306.html#media=78860</a></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; mso-bidi-font-family: Futura;"><a href="http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/pesapallo_markkinoitiin_suojeluskunnille_sotakunnon_kehittajana_78757.html" target="_blank">http://yle.fi/elavaarkisto/artikkelit/pesapallo_markkinoitiin_suojeluskunnille_sotakunnon_kehittajana_78757.html </a></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.indianpesapallo.com/history.html">http://www.indianpesapallo.com/history.html</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.pesis.fi/2012/?x2169147=2169160">http://www.pesis.fi/2012/?x2169147=2169160</a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Also, <a href="http://www.socialtoolbox.com/runand.pdf" target="_blank">here as PDF</a> the Finnish art group Iconoclast (<span class="A0"><span style="mso-ansi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Söderlund
& Suonpää) publication “Hit and Run” that acted as key inspiration for this
little text. Some of the Pihkala quotes are from that art publication.</span></span></div>
Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-47905197777828034082012-12-22T00:56:00.000-08:002012-12-22T09:04:38.834-08:00MoilThe amount of discarded electronics, like broken or almost-broken televisions, computers nearly spewing their guts on the sides of streets - you do know where it all goes? Well, some of it goes to UnLunDun.<br />
<br />
China Miéville's writings are quite inspirational, and some of his books with a clear steampunkish edge to them as well. However, <i>Un Lun Dun </i>(2007) -- UnLondon - is one weird mix of the other side of London; ever so slightly alternative universe into which the two girl protagonists Zanna and Deeba are transported.<br />
<br />
Of interest to the fans of the obsolete are the constructions of <i>moil</i>: Mildly Obsolete in London, but completely useful in the tinkering Un Lun Dun:<br />
<br />
"[..] a building made from typewriters and dead televisions", that they pass from an itself obsolete abandoned London double-decker bus. The "Em Oh Aye Ell"s are pieces of discarded stuff, like old computers and radios, abandoned on the streets:<br />
<br />
"Sometimes rubbish collectors have taken it, but often as not it ends up here, where people find other uses for it. It seeps into UnLondon. You might see residue: maybe a dried-up puddle on a wall. That's where the moil dripped through. And here, it sprouts like mushrooms on the streets."<br />
<br />
And it's the whole system of media/transport; old buses, diesel trains but more importantly not just obsolescence but even the play with existence/non-existence where they are going: the other "abcities", such as Parisn't, No York, Helsunki, Lost Angeles, Sans Francisco, Hong Gone, Romeless - a network of existing non-places.<br />
<br />
As for <i>moil</i>, it's not really just "old manky rubbish", like Zanna's judgment goes. It too organises (although, one has to say the smog that escaped London while developing a brain of its own is a thingy in its own class!). <i>Moil</i> is organised to tribes, with their own leaders, pointing to the organisation of rubbish - rubbish just is not rubbish. It has histories, pasts, futures, modes of organisation. Indeed, "Certain substances in UnLondon exist in prologue form in London, and enter a second life-cycle here with new purposes, even as sentient denizens of the abcity", this logic is later explained in slightly more detail.<br />
<br />
Hence, you have princesses of discarded typewriters, and jacks of cracked glass, the pope of empty mousetraps -- a whole royalty of obsolescence.<br />
<br />
Miéville's <i>moil</i> points to the fact that when things break down, they become something else. Losing purpose does not mean disappearance, like broken media just does not disappear. Umbrellas become <i>unbrellas</i>.<br />
<br />
Miéville is so good on this point: the persistent duration of materiality that insists on its transformational quality. Something persists, and yet changes; the other worlds are those transformations, topological, or to account for the spatial qualities, grosstopical too - to use a term he uses in <i>The City & The City</i>, another weird materialist story of space/unspace.<br />
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Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-45681635280085252632012-12-19T02:51:00.005-08:002012-12-19T02:51:45.736-08:00New reviewsSome new reviews -- <i>Insect Media</i> and <i>Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications and Implications </i>were reviewed in <i><a href="http://thinkingculture.wordpress.com/2012/12/17/reviews-of-media-archaeology/" target="_blank">Information, Communication & Society</a></i>. <br />
<br />
And <i>What is Media Archaeology?</i> has received it's first reviews. A new one came out in <a href="http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2012/11/30/llc.fqs061.extract?sid=bde64253-22d0-41a6-9190-fed70c2e0478" target="_blank"><i>Literary & Linguistic Computing</i></a>, an Oxford University Press journal. Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-51104256686527278712012-12-17T11:11:00.002-08:002012-12-17T11:11:43.857-08:00An interview with Wolfgang ErnstThe countdown to the Wolfgang Ernst volume, <a href="http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/digital-memory-and-the-archive" target="_blank"><i>Digital Memory and the Archive</i></a>, is on...only a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, listen to <a href="http://rwm.macba.cat/en/sonia/wolfgang_ernst/capsula" target="_blank">this new audio interview</a> with Ernst - in English!Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-57160413730922389222012-11-02T01:42:00.003-07:002012-11-02T04:27:37.268-07:00A Review of What is Media Archaeology?An interesting take on <i>What is Media Archaeology?</i> in <a href="http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/1343" target="_blank">Reviews in History</a>. Not sure if I agree with all of the notes made by the reviewer, for instance:<br />
<br />
"Alongside the sophisticated middle-class consumer preferences and
jaundiced post-Cold War politics sit references to all the popular
cultural theories imbibed by the part of that generation that stayed on
at university to get PhDs."<br />
<br />
Indeed, I go through the consumer culture fascinated by "Retro", but to me it is better to take that aboard, instead of neglecting it. The reviewer writes earlier that I spend a bit too time on quirky things, instead of docile normality, but then also writes that I focus on "middle-class consumer preferences...". I would just say that indeed, I do both. Both the consumerised retro and vintage, and fascination with the past -- <i>and</i> the more interesting alternative insights into how to think technology and time. The slightly twisted, alternative, parallel and just off the radar approaches in artistic projects and historical examples are ways to actually approach the "normal".<br />
<br />
Also, in terms of "popular cultural theories" I thought actually that the likes of Zielinski, Ernst, Siegert recent platform studies, software studies, and even Kittler are not really that well known (, especially in the Anglo-American world (Kittler is definitely not well known in UK academia) -- hence instead of exactly focusing on the canon (except for instance Foucault), I decide to do focus on slightly less debated theorists, and emerging directions, to illustrate new ways of understanding the theoretical force of media studies. Even the likes of Aby Warburg, or more generally German tradition of <i>Bildwissenschaften</i> are not always well known in current discussions in art and cultural theory/academia! This is why at times the "rediscovery" of writers such as Flusser makes exciting things happen. They open new paths in the brain, even in academia.<br />
<br />
<br />Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-17442135372513270742012-10-18T13:26:00.003-07:002012-10-19T00:27:31.748-07:00Don't call him a media philosopher! It was one year ago that Friedrich A. Kittler died. The German newspapers reacted, and slowly, <i>The Guardian</i> too, with a couple of writings and a podcast. I think that was it, for the English-speaking mainstream press. I wrote this piece for <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/oct/29/friedrich-kittler-technology-education-open-free" target="_blank"><i>The Guardian</i></a>.<br />
<br />
The academic discussion picked up speed even more, during the past year. It has included fantastic pieces like the memoir by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young of the Kittler-before-Kittler (i.e. the early 1980s one) '"Well What Socks is Pynchon Wearing Today?" A Freiburg Scrapbook in Memory of Friedrich Kittler' in <i>Cultural Politics</i> Volume 8, Issue 3, and a forthcoming ZKM conference <a href="http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/stories/storyReader$8172" target="_blank">Of Gods and Scripts around the Mediterranean</a>, newspapers are doing more stories.<br />
<br />
Some newspaper stories did second rounds through social media repostings. Here is for instance FAZ: <a href="http://www.faz.net/aktuell/zum-tod-von-friedrich-kittler-jede-liebe-war-eine-auf-den-ersten-blick-11497216.html" target="_blank">Jede Liebe war eine auf den ersten Blick</a>.<br />
<br />
Indeed, Kittler got the human (well, actually "spirit", "the mind", Geist - Geisteswissenschaften) out of humanities, and inserted the machine. Suddenly, inside the body we found all kinds of hardware. Typewriters, grammophones, circuit boards, computer chips. <br />
<br />
However, don't inscribe "media philosopher" on his grave stone.<br />
<br />
And no, he did not like being called a media archaeologist either.Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-60550226914806472332012-10-11T05:01:00.001-07:002012-10-11T05:01:44.576-07:00A Kittlerian moment with numbers<br />
Pythagorian prayer to the Tetractys<br />
"Bless us, divine number, thou who generated gods and men! O holy,
holy Tetractys, thou that containest the root and source of the
eternally flowing creation! For the divine number begins with the
profound, pure unity until it comes to the holy four; then it begets the
mother of all, the all-comprising, all-bounding, the first-born, the
never-swerving, the never-tiring holy ten, the keyholder of all".<br />
- quoted from the tweet by Symposion (@Kittler_ZKM), posted Thu 11th Oct, 2012.<br />
Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-79602767878743085792012-07-22T14:55:00.002-07:002012-07-22T14:56:52.944-07:00Low light of the past<style>
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<i><span style="font-family: Cambria;">"</span></i><span style="font-family: Cambria;">We make our journeys out there in the low
light of the future, and return to the bourgeois day and its mass delusion of
safety, to report on what we've seen. What are any of these 'utopian dreams' of
ours but defective forms of time-travel?</span>" <br /></div>
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These are the words of Thomas Pynchon in <i>Against the Day</i> (2006), one of the favorite fiction writers for media theorists and media archaeologists.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Could we say the same thing about the
past , as journeys to the past that are like defective forms of time-travel? To
past times when old technologies were once new, and puzzled and awed, with
their low lighting, crackling, noise, and pixelated style? </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><br />See for instance some of <a href="http://www.torstenlauschmann.com/" target="_blank">Torsten Lauschmann's</a> works...also on now at <a href="http://www.hansardgallery.org.uk/" target="_blank">John Hansard Gallery</a>, in Southampton. </span></div>Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-28141718706805620952012-06-04T10:19:00.001-07:002012-06-04T10:19:41.554-07:00Technological Archaeologies of FetishFor some while, before really picking up on researching and writing what turned out as <a href="http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/insect-media" target="_blank"><i>Insect Media</i></a> I was gathering material and ideas for something on "Technological Perversions" - a sort of a theory/cultural history of the entanglement of perversions and modern technology. Similarly as Insect Media turned out to be a reading of technology and media through the non-human (compound) lense(s) of the insect, this book was to become a similar take - but through sexual perversions. Fetish, perversions, desire gone awry, etc. as the insights into modern relations to/with/in technology. <br /><br />The underbelly of such narratives and dispositifs reveals a more interesting insight into the proximity with technology as desire - and one involving truly non-human objects. As such, there is indeed something there of the beautifully fetishistic relation that one finds more often from classifications of sexual perversions. Kraft-Ebing's grounding work would in this sense have to be read as part of the constellation, but also captured in poetic form in a range of literary work.<br />
<br />
Indeed, Thomas Pynchon would have a special place in that book - here writing of the "top of a lady's stocking, this transition from silk to bare skin and suspender", in <i>Gravity's Rainbow</i> (A book of weird entanglements of erections, engineering and modern science indeed):<br />
<br />
"It's easy for non-fetishists to sneer about Pavlovian conditioning and let it go at that, but any underwear enthusiast worth his unwholesome giggle can tell you there is much more here--there is a cosmology: of nodes and cusps and points of osculation, mathematical kisses . . . singularities!"<br />
<br />
Within a couple of sentences, Pynchon carries this topological connection to further topologies: stocking to singularities, to cathedral spires, mountain peaks, the Rocket in the sky.Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-30119994128315446952012-06-03T12:54:00.004-07:002012-06-03T12:54:59.518-07:00How Many Media Archaeologies?I gave recently some talks in Canada -- a talk and a seminar at Western University in London, Ontario, and then the keynote at the Canadian Communication Association-conference. <br /><br />Here is the first talk, <a href="http://archive.org/details/JussiParikka--MediaArchaeology" target="_blank"><i>How Many Media Archaeologies?</i></a> as an audio recording.<br />
<br />Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4185241624690833781.post-52849431594455601092012-03-20T02:31:00.005-07:002012-03-20T02:37:11.896-07:00Cultural Technique?If you are wondering what the term Cultural Technique(s), or in its native language, Kulturtechniken, refers to - this is the quote you need. In most articles on the topic, Thomas Macho's words are recounted, and used so why not recirculate them once more:<br /><br />"Cultural techniques—such as writing, reading, painting, counting, making music—are always older than the concepts that are generated from them. People wrote long before they conceptualized writing or alphabets; millennia passed before pictures and statues gave rise to the concept of the image; and still today, people sing or make music without knowing anything about tones or musical notation systems. Counting, too, is older than the notion of numbers. To be sure, most cultures counted or performed certain mathematical operations, but they did not necessarily derive from this a concept of number."<br /><br />- Thomas Macho, “Zeit und Zahl: Kalender- und Zeitrechnung als Kulturtechniken,” in<br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Bild-Schrift-Zahl</span>, ed. Sybille Krämer and Horst Bredekamp (Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag,<br />2003), 179. (The passage translated by Geoffrey Winthrop-Young).<br /><br />Quoting this also hints at what I am occupied with now - together with Winthrop-Young and Ilinca Iuraşcu; a special issue on Cultural Techniques for Theory, Culture & Society.Jussi Parikkahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07238564048913933403noreply@blogger.com0