Tuesday, 17 February 2015
Media 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: if you cannot beat them, join them.
(Popular Mechanics, 1956).
Monday, 2 February 2015
"Pour une archéologie des virus. Entretien avec Jussi Parikka"
I ran into this earlier interview on the media archaeology and software politics of (computer) viruses again. It's in French but I thought to post a link here as well.
Saturday, 3 January 2015
The Anthrobscene
This blog was originally used as the work blog of material related to the What is Media Archaeology?-book project. However, I wanted to briefly post the link to the recently published The Anthrobscene-publication: a short-ebook that works as a single or a preview of the forthcoming A Geology of Media.
The Anthrobscene does touch on some media archaeological theory too. It starts from a reading of Zielinski's notion of deep time 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.
The Anthrobscene does touch on some media archaeological theory too. It starts from a reading of Zielinski's notion of deep time 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.
Sunday, 19 January 2014
On the Temporal Logic in Ernst
There is a very nice review in Postmodern Culture on Wolfgang Ernst's Digital Memory and the Archive. 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 "The Temporal Logic of Digital Media Technologies" 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).
Wednesday, 10 July 2013
Gender 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 What is Media Archaeology?, but there is also something else that we need to attend to.
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.
For instance Zoe Beloff's 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!)
Lori Emerson is an active figure in the field through her Media Archaeology Lab. 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 When Old Technologies Were New 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 per se... - 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.
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 Bios, but as well as Zoe: the very fundamental dynamics of life on the planet and beyond. Feminism also extends outside the questions traditionally considered about gender.
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.
For instance Zoe Beloff's 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!)
Lori Emerson is an active figure in the field through her Media Archaeology Lab. 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 When Old Technologies Were New 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 per se... - 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.
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 Bios, but as well as Zoe: the very fundamental dynamics of life on the planet and beyond. Feminism also extends outside the questions traditionally considered about gender.
Thursday, 23 May 2013
A German Affair?
Simone Natale reviews Media Archaeology alongside other media archaeology books (Zielinski and Kluitenberg).
The full review came out in the Canadian Journal of Communication and you can find it here. But the first footnote is good and interesting. I better quote it in full:
"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."
The full review came out in the Canadian Journal of Communication and you can find it here. But the first footnote is good and interesting. I better quote it in full:
"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."
Tuesday, 23 April 2013
What is Media Archaeology? reviewed in Neural
A new review of What is Media Archaeology in Neural (April 2013):
"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." [...]
"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." [...]
The Archival Command: To Transmit and to Preserve
Whether 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.
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.
Consider Foucault:
“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.”
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 Discourse Networks 1800/1900 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 Discourse Networks. It speaks of Foucault's methods, not his theory, acknowledging that difference inside Foucault's own writings and research.
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”.
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.
Consider Foucault:
“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.”
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 Discourse Networks 1800/1900 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 Discourse Networks. It speaks of Foucault's methods, not his theory, acknowledging that difference inside Foucault's own writings and research.
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”.
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
Media Archaeology and Technological Debris
An event at Goldsmiths College in London:
Postgraduate Workshop & Conference: Media Archaeology and Technological Debris
Thursday, June 20 – Friday, June 21, 2013, Goldsmiths, University of London
Thursday, June 20 – Friday, June 21, 2013, Goldsmiths, University of London
This workshop aims to bring academics and PhD students together to
discuss emerging research projects on the field of media studies. It
means to combine the thriving approach of media archaeology with the
growing environmental concerns about technological debris, emphasizing
the complementary character of these topics in the construction of a
material understanding of media practices=92 past, present and future.
We expect to gather a number of emerging investigations that can shed
new light over the socio-political, economic, cultural, technological,
material and aesthetic dimensions of the continuous phenomena of
novelty and obsolescence of media systems. In doing so, we also hope
to create conditions to examine the systems of relationship formulated
around these topics, paying particular attention to the regimes of
value that define media objects either as museum artifacts or as
rubbish in different global/local contexts (such as Europe and Latin
America).
discuss emerging research projects on the field of media studies. It
means to combine the thriving approach of media archaeology with the
growing environmental concerns about technological debris, emphasizing
the complementary character of these topics in the construction of a
material understanding of media practices=92 past, present and future.
We expect to gather a number of emerging investigations that can shed
new light over the socio-political, economic, cultural, technological,
material and aesthetic dimensions of the continuous phenomena of
novelty and obsolescence of media systems. In doing so, we also hope
to create conditions to examine the systems of relationship formulated
around these topics, paying particular attention to the regimes of
value that define media objects either as museum artifacts or as
rubbish in different global/local contexts (such as Europe and Latin
America).
10-15 PhD students will be selected to participate. The workshop
itself will last for two days: The first day will be composed of
closed reading groups in which the seasoned researchers will act as
respondents and mediators for the presentation of the participating
students, while the second day will be a small conference open to the
public. As such, the workshop intends to create a platform for
exchanging ideas and research methods upon this interdisciplinary
field.
itself will last for two days: The first day will be composed of
closed reading groups in which the seasoned researchers will act as
respondents and mediators for the presentation of the participating
students, while the second day will be a small conference open to the
public. As such, the workshop intends to create a platform for
exchanging ideas and research methods upon this interdisciplinary
field.
The event is being organized by students and graduates of Goldsmiths’
Department of Media and Communications, and is sponsored by
Goldsmiths’ Graduate School.
Department of Media and Communications, and is sponsored by
Goldsmiths’ Graduate School.
Confirmed speakers: Sean Cubitt (Media & Comms, Goldsmiths); Graham
Harwood (Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths); Jennifer Gabrys (Sociology,
Goldsmiths); Jussi Parikka (Media & Design, University of
Southampton); Gabriel Menotti (Audiovisual, UFES); and people from
Access Space (Sheffield).
Harwood (Cultural Studies, Goldsmiths); Jennifer Gabrys (Sociology,
Goldsmiths); Jussi Parikka (Media & Design, University of
Southampton); Gabriel Menotti (Audiovisual, UFES); and people from
Access Space (Sheffield).
Possible themes include:
- archaeological and anarchaeological research
- the repurposing of old devices (for fun & profit & art)
- programmed obsolescence and the temporality of materials and technologies
- precarious technical milieus
- artifact materiality and value
- media museography and historiography
- transnational contexts for zombie media
- industrial media and environmental hazards
- practices and economies of recycling technology
- electronic recycling and archiving of technological artifacts
- qualities, histories and applications of media systems and media ecologies
- global and local economic forces in cycles of innovation and decay
- archaeological and anarchaeological research
- the repurposing of old devices (for fun & profit & art)
- programmed obsolescence and the temporality of materials and technologies
- precarious technical milieus
- artifact materiality and value
- media museography and historiography
- transnational contexts for zombie media
- industrial media and environmental hazards
- practices and economies of recycling technology
- electronic recycling and archiving of technological artifacts
- qualities, histories and applications of media systems and media ecologies
- global and local economic forces in cycles of innovation and decay
To apply, please submit a text document containing a title, a brief
description of your project (no more than 250 words), and a brief
biography to mediaarchdebris@gmail.com by Sunday, April 21, 17:00 GMT.
description of your project (no more than 250 words), and a brief
biography to mediaarchdebris@gmail.com by Sunday, April 21, 17:00 GMT.
For more information, see: http://www.technologicaldebris.info
Thursday, 14 March 2013
On the moving panorama and other media archaeological inspiration
Not every professor has an office like this. Peep into Erkki Huhtamo’s (UCLA) media archaeological office through this video, 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.
The video is a good insight to the just released Huhtamo book on the moving panorama: Illusions in Motion, just out from MIT Press.
Thursday, 7 February 2013
Berlin launch of some media archaeology books
Thanks to all who came to our transmediale'13 launch of What is Media Archaeology? and Wolfgang Ernst's Digital Memory and the Archive. 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 Octo Pneumatic Media System (a Rohrpost in action), the Evil Media Distribution Centre, Refunct Media vol. 5, and more.
(image:
(image:
Juan Quinones / transmediale, source.)
Sunday, 13 January 2013
The Underbelly of the Underground
London, 1860s.
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.
In order to celebrate the 150 years of London tube service, 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.
(The Times, Feb 1, 1860).
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.
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.
(Update/postscript: Someone just suggested Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere 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.).
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.
In order to celebrate the 150 years of London tube service, 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.
(The Times, Feb 1, 1860).
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.
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.
(Update/postscript: Someone just suggested Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere 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.).
Thursday, 10 January 2013
An 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 Hörl, it focuses on the General Ecology of Media and Technology -- as a direction discussing media ecology and the ecological paradigm in critical theory and humanities.
You can find the programme and more info here.
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.)
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 hardware and hardwork, coined in this nice game project i-mines, 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.
My abstract:
An Alternative Deep Time of the Media: A Geologically Tuned Media Ecology
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.
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.
You can find the programme and more info here.
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.)
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 hardware and hardwork, coined in this nice game project i-mines, 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.
My abstract:
An Alternative Deep Time of the Media: A Geologically Tuned Media Ecology
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.
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.
Sunday, 6 January 2013
Mareorama Resurrected
Erkki Huhtamo's Audiovisual Performance Production "Mareorama Resurrected" now available for viewing online
An edited version of UCLA Design Media Arts Professor Erkki Huhtamo's 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.
http://artandcode.com/3d/other
Program notes:
"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."
An edited version of UCLA Design Media Arts Professor Erkki Huhtamo's 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.
http://artandcode.com/3d/other
Program notes:
"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."
Thursday, 27 December 2012
Hit & Run: On Finnish Baseball and War
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. 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.
With roots in late 19th 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 (Pioneeripataljoona 1)
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 päiväkäsky).
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.
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.
”Only man is capable of training, an activity requiring
systematic, far-sighted deliberation and patience that are essential for sport.”
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).
Sports is war, and war is less about killing than about the
drilling, training of the body. In Pihkala’s words:
”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.”
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 simulation of warfare in this sense.
Much later, in the 1960s, Pihkala was
introducing another new sport, “flash ball” (salamapallo). 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 running 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.
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 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.
Some sources:
Also, here as PDF the Finnish art group Iconoclast (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.
Saturday, 22 December 2012
Moil
The 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.
China Miéville's writings are quite inspirational, and some of his books with a clear steampunkish edge to them as well. However, Un Lun Dun (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.
Of interest to the fans of the obsolete are the constructions of moil: Mildly Obsolete in London, but completely useful in the tinkering Un Lun Dun:
"[..] 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:
"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."
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.
As for moil, 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!). Moil 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.
Hence, you have princesses of discarded typewriters, and jacks of cracked glass, the pope of empty mousetraps -- a whole royalty of obsolescence.
Miéville's moil 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 unbrellas.
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 The City & The City, another weird materialist story of space/unspace.
China Miéville's writings are quite inspirational, and some of his books with a clear steampunkish edge to them as well. However, Un Lun Dun (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.
Of interest to the fans of the obsolete are the constructions of moil: Mildly Obsolete in London, but completely useful in the tinkering Un Lun Dun:
"[..] 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:
"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."
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.
As for moil, 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!). Moil 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.
Hence, you have princesses of discarded typewriters, and jacks of cracked glass, the pope of empty mousetraps -- a whole royalty of obsolescence.
Miéville's moil 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 unbrellas.
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 The City & The City, another weird materialist story of space/unspace.
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
New reviews
Some new reviews -- Insect Media and Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications and Implications were reviewed in Information, Communication & Society.
And What is Media Archaeology? has received it's first reviews. A new one came out in Literary & Linguistic Computing, an Oxford University Press journal.
And What is Media Archaeology? has received it's first reviews. A new one came out in Literary & Linguistic Computing, an Oxford University Press journal.
Monday, 17 December 2012
An interview with Wolfgang Ernst
The countdown to the Wolfgang Ernst volume, Digital Memory and the Archive, is on...only a couple of weeks. Meanwhile, listen to this new audio interview with Ernst - in English!
Friday, 2 November 2012
A Review of What is Media Archaeology?
An interesting take on What is Media Archaeology? in Reviews in History. Not sure if I agree with all of the notes made by the reviewer, for instance:
"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."
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 -- and 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".
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 Bildwissenschaften 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.
"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."
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 -- and 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".
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 Bildwissenschaften 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.
Thursday, 18 October 2012
Don't call him a media philosopher!
It was one year ago that Friedrich A. Kittler died. The German newspapers reacted, and slowly, The Guardian 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 The Guardian.
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 Cultural Politics Volume 8, Issue 3, and a forthcoming ZKM conference Of Gods and Scripts around the Mediterranean, newspapers are doing more stories.
Some newspaper stories did second rounds through social media repostings. Here is for instance FAZ: Jede Liebe war eine auf den ersten Blick.
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.
However, don't inscribe "media philosopher" on his grave stone.
And no, he did not like being called a media archaeologist either.
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 Cultural Politics Volume 8, Issue 3, and a forthcoming ZKM conference Of Gods and Scripts around the Mediterranean, newspapers are doing more stories.
Some newspaper stories did second rounds through social media repostings. Here is for instance FAZ: Jede Liebe war eine auf den ersten Blick.
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.
However, don't inscribe "media philosopher" on his grave stone.
And no, he did not like being called a media archaeologist either.
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