Sensorium Journal

Understanding Media Ecology

2021-04-06T16:48:13+02:00

Dennis D. Cali, Mapping Media Ecology: Introduction to the Field (Peter Lang, 2017)

Lance Strate, Media Ecology: An Approach to Understanding the Human Condition (Peter Lang, 2017)

Cybernetics: The Macy Conferences

2021-04-06T16:48:02+02:00

Claus Pias (ed.), Cybernetics: The Macy Conferences 1946–1953. The Complete Transactions (Diaphanes, 2016)

Vocabulary

2021-04-05T16:47:47+02:00

This vocabulary is inspired by ”A Short List of Gilbert Simondon’s Vocabulary” on the blog Fractalontology, but for the most part based on the article and interviews in this issue of Sensorium Journal. For more concepts, see:

Fractalontology.wordpress.com.

Introduction

2021-03-30T21:31:30+02:00

It started with curiosity: The name of the French philosopher seemed to pop up here and there, while we were working on dissertations and postdoc-projects. Not just, as we already knew, in the works of the French philosophers Gilles Deleuze, Bernard Stiegler and German media historians like Bernhard Siegert and Erich Hörl, but also in books and articles by John Durham Peters, Elisabeth Grosz and Yuk Hui. Simondon seemed to be relevant when discussing the question of technology in the Anthropocene, digging into neo-cybernetic trends within critical theory, understanding New Materialism and challenging AI-philosophy. What was it about this French philosopher that could inspire so many different thinkers and fields of thoughts?

We soon realized that we did not know very many people who had worked with the ideas of Simondon, and thus, set forth to produce some texts on him. With this issue, we do not intend to give a comprehensive introduction to Simondon’s philosophy. What we hope to do, is to offer a handful of reflections upon how to use Simondon today.

We do this by publishing an article on the politics of problems in the thinking of Simondon and Gilles Deleuze, written by Stefano Daechsel and a three-part interview on Simondon’s oeuvre with Yale-professors Gary Tomlinson, John Durham Peters and Paul North, conducted by Johan Fredrikzon. In addition, we have pieced together a few editorial texts: An overview of interesting articles and books on Simondon that we came across as we edited this volume, and a brief vocabulary of Simondonian thought.

The article and interview provide several answers to the question why Simondon is a relevant thinker today. Gary Tomlinson argues that Simondon offers key insights to evolutionary studies: He is able to bridge the gap between cultural and evolutionary biology. This is due to the Simondonian understanding of culture, Tomlinson argues, as something that arises in evolution and also shapes it. ”We were toolmakers before we were human”, as Tomlinson writes in the article ”Semiotic Epicycles and Emergent Thresholds in Human Evolution” (Glass-bead.org, 2017), which he quotes in the interview.

Furthermore, Simondon flirts with what John Durham Peters calls neo-Thomism, a view of the history of technology that is not transcendental, nor teleologically determined or based on an idea of progress, but that is nevertheless intelligible. As John Durham Peters says in his interview: ”Thomism gives you a potential of the world as an intelligible totality, much like James Joyce in Finnegan's Wake: a vision of the world as a knowable whole.” Simondon’s philosophy according to Durham Peters is ”Aristotelian in the sense that nature has a structure which in some ways corresponds to the structure of understanding (…), the processes by which nature works and the processes by which technology works are analogous”.

Most importantly, Simondon identifies possible strategies for resistance. Studying technology is necessary for us to act as political individuals, Stefano Daechsel argues in his article on Simondon and Deleuze. ”[T]here is an urgency to Simondon’s call for a technical culture that would foster a ‘genuine awareness of technical realities (…)’, such an awareness of technology ‘possesses political and social value’.” We need to delve into the technical realities, not in order to liberate ourselves from technology, but in order to modify and gain some kind of agency as technological beings. With reference to Robert de Niro’s character in Terry Gilliam’s film Brazil (1985), Paul North also reflects upon the agency of the individual through the figure of the tinkerer: ”The kind of freedom where you can do anything, like ex nihilo creation. Simondon wants nothing to do with that. It is the middle person, the one who can take an invention and actually make it into a form of life, bring it in line with the milieu and allow each to change the other, that is interesting for Simondon.”

Toward the end of the interview, North claims philosophy of technology today is looking for new resources in order to comprehend the world we live in. Mazzilli-Daechsel begins his article by stating that we need a way out of our politics of defeatism today. Simondon is a useful source to go to, in both regards. We hope this volume demonstrates that.

In addition to the section on Simondon, this issue of Sensorium Journal features two reviews, on the recent complete transcript of the Macy Conferences edited by Claus Pias and two books in the series “Understanding Media Ecology”. We hope you enjoy your reading!

3. Constrained Freedom

2021-04-06T10:01:33+02:00

Johan Fredrikzon spent one and a half years as a visiting research assistant at the Film and Media Studies Program at Yale University 2018/2019. Some months before he arrived, a two-day workshop on Simondon was held by the Yale-Du?sseldorf Working Group on Philosophy and Media, titled Modes of Technical Objects, with scholars from the US and Germany. Fredrikzon decided to engage a few of the workshop participants for this special issue of Sensorium, with the purpose to discuss perspectives on Simondon as a theoretical instrument for thinking technology, how the French philosopher matters in their work, and why there seems to be a revival in the interest in the writing of Simondon these days. On behalf of the Sensorium journal, the interviewer would like to thank the three interviewees for their generous participation.

About Paul North:

Paul North is Professor at the Department of Germanic Languages & Literatures at Yale University. He teaches on media and literature from Ancient Greece through the romantic and enlightenment traditions into 20th century literary and critical theory. In The Yield: Kafka’s Atheological Reformation (Stanford, 2015) North presented a largely unknown Kafka based on readings of the famous writer’s theoretical works at the end of World War I. Paul North’s new book, Bizarre Privileged Items in the Universe: The Logic of Likeness (Zone Books, 2021) diverges from centuries of thought focused on the idea of difference to engage deeply with the concept of likeness: in evolution, in natural and social worlds, in language and in art. More on: paulnorth.org.

2. Simondon as a Neo-Scholastic?

2021-04-06T10:01:13+02:00

About John Durham Peters:

John Durham Peters is María Rosa Menocal Professor of English and of Film & Media Studies at Yale University. Peters has been a creative force in media studies for many years and his thinking continues to influence academic environments throughout the world. His book The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media (Chicago, 2015) was an attempt to rethink the concept of media by including weather, dolphins and fire to the infrastructural landscape of digital communications and climate change. His new book, in cooperation with Kenneth Cmiel, is called Promiscuous Knowledge: Information, Image, and Other Truth Games in History (Chicago, 2020).

Simondon’s Technical Culture and a Politics of Problems

2021-04-06T10:00:21+02:00

There is a timeliness to Gilbert Simondon’s call in On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects (1958) for a technical culture that fosters a ”genuine awareness of technical realities.” Writing in the context of mid-20^thcentury France, Simondon worried about a lack of technological understanding and envisaged a technical culture in which technological education would be considered as essential as literacy to meaningful participation in society. Sixty years on, the need for widespread technological awareness is greater than ever. The aim of this article is to clarify and support this claim by examining it through the lens of a politics of problems that can be found in Deleuze’s Difference and Repetition (1968).

1. Abstract Machines

2021-04-06T10:00:52+02:00

About Gary Tomlinson:

Gary Tomlinson is John Hay Whitney Professor of Music and the Humanities and director of the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University. Tomlinson has taught and written about the history of opera and early-modern musical thought and practice, but also on the philosophy of history and anthropological theory. In his current research, he combines humanistic theory with evolutionary science and archaeology to search for the role of culture in the evolution of man. Following A Million Years of Music: The Emergence of Human Modernity (MIT Press, 2015), his new book Culture and the Course of Human Evolution (Chicago, 2018) deepens the theoretical framework on how culture has shaped biology.

Gyroskopiske konsekvenser

2021-01-19T12:41:31+01:00

Mark Seltzer
The Official World
Duke University Press, 2016

Molnet på jorden

2019-09-25T12:19:27+02:00

Tung-Hui Hu
A Prehistory of the Cloud
MIT Press, 2015

Det perikapitalistiska landskapet

2019-09-25T12:19:27+02:00

The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins
Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
Princeton University Press, 2015

Singing Satellites and Sounding Birds

2019-09-25T12:19:26+02:00

History changed on October 4th 1957 when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite, and sent the first man-made object in orbit around Earth. Only one month later the Russians launched a second satellite, this time with a living passenger onboard – the famous space dog Laika. When the satellite reentered into earth’s atmosphere 162 days later, Laika had already been dead for a long time. The following year, the Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, became the first human to journey into outer space and NASA was founded. The accelerating space race between the Soviet Union and the US was a fact and became a crucial component of the cold war era.

The End of Progress on Earth

2019-09-25T12:19:25+02:00

How cars and airplanes shaped the writing of Gertrude Stein.

Skywriting, Signals, and Poetry Systems

2019-09-25T12:19:25+02:00

The changing of the spaces for reading and listening in the 1960s.

Flatland

2019-09-25T12:19:24+02:00

Excerpt from Derek Beaulieus Flatland

Excerpt from Flatland: A romance of many dimensions (1884)

2019-09-25T12:19:24+02:00

To The Inhabitants of SPACE IN GENERAL and H. C. IN PARTICULAR. This Work is Dedicated By a Humble Native of Flatland

Om Flatland (1884) och Flatland (2007)

2019-09-25T12:19:23+02:00

År 1884 kunde man i de engelska bokhandlarna finna en tunn liten bok med titeln Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions publicerad under pseudonymen ”A. Square”. Boken som till en början inte rönte ett särskilt stort intresse visade sig snart vara skriven av den vid tiden välkände brittiske humanisten, samhällsdebattören och teologen Edwin A. Abbott och när upplagan sköt i höjden började snart författarens verkliga namn att dyka upp inom parentes på omslaget.

Turing-maskin

2019-09-25T11:50:20+02:00

Deras ödmjukhet kan vi aldrig efterlikna,
mjuka tjänare av beständigare material:
de lever flärdfritt
i komplicerade reläer och strömkretsar.

Utdrag fra Miniput

2019-09-25T11:50:30+02:00

ONSDAGEN DEN 12 JUNI

Fick änligen (sic!) veta litet mera om den stora anläggning som upptar hälften av en barack och som kallas simulator.
Anläggningen – en gång byggd för en rad olika forskningsuppdrag vid en av de vetenskapliga institutionerna – är ingenting annat än vad namnet anger, en simulator. När uppgifterna var klara och anläggningen blivit omodern i sitt sammanhang hade den inte längre fyllt någon funktion och man hade föreslagit att Kreativet skulle överta den. Under sammanträdet idag lämnade de tekniska och psykologiska sektionerna en redogörelse för ett försök som gjorts i den under inövningstiden de första veckorna på Kreativet. Det hade gällt uppgiften om bland annat människans förhållande till teknisk automatik och överlämnandet av kontrollerande funktioner till den. I den bakgrund som lämnades oss talades det om att den moderna människans tekniska miljö för de oinsatta framstår som en organism med eget liv och egen vilja och vars godtycke man är underkastad.

IF I TOLD HIM – A COMPLETED PORTRAIT OF PICASSO

2019-09-25T12:05:12+02:00

Danish translation of IF I TOLD HIM. A COMPLETED PORTRAIT OF PICASSO. Translated by Solveig Daugaard, Tania Ørum, Lene Asp og Laura Luise Schultz.

Stein i Stuttgart

2019-09-25T11:48:37+02:00

Johanna Schwanauers oversettelse av Steins tale «What Are Master-pieces and Why Are There So Few of Them» (1935), trykt i Benses tidsskrift augenblick i mai 1958, kan ses som startskuddet på et intenst kjærlighetsforhold til Stein.

Hvorfor notationel ikonicitet er en form for operationel ikonicitet

2019-09-25T12:19:22+02:00

1. Det fonografiske dogme

Hvad betyder ‘inskription’? Få spørgsmål forekommer lettere at besvare: en inskription er sprog, som er blevet nedskrevet. Den holder det talte ords flygtighed på afstand og befrier kommunikation fra talens ansigt-til-ansigt-forankring. Det skrevne ord overfører den akustiske sekvens til en visuel konfiguration; det udvider kommunikationen over afstande i tid og rum. At forvandle det talte til det skrevne muliggør ligeledes kontrol, rettelser og kritik, ligesom det åbner for spredning og arkivering af det der kommunikeres som tekst.

Det var nøjagtig debatten omkring ‘mundtlighed og skriftlighed’ (Goody 1968, 1986; Havelock 1976, 1986; Ong 1982)[1] i den sidste tredjedel af det forgangne århundrede, som afdækkede skriftens kreativitet og hævede det skrevne ord til det samme niveau som det talte. Siden da er det talte og det skrevne ord blevet betragtet som to forskellige former for sprog, hver med sin egen ‘performance profil’ i relation til deres mediale, sproglige, og kulturelantropologiske karakter (Echlich 1994; Koch/Oesterreicher 1985, 1994; Olson 1991; Parry 1971; Raible 1991, 1993; Zumthor 1984).

På trods af denne genopdagelse af skriftlighed, er en traditionel antagelse – nærmest en vedtaget sandhed i debatten om skriftlighed – forblevet uudfordret: Troen på skriftens sproglignende karakter. I forbindelse med den almindelige tvedeling mellem sprog og billede, placeres skriften udelukkende inden for sprogets felt. Skrift fortolkes som en form for sprog og ikke som en form for billede. Den i mellemtiden klassiske håndbog Schrift und Schriftlichkeit. Writing and its use (Günther/Ludwig (red.) 1994), opsummerer udfaldet af skriftlighedsdebatten og definerer skrift som “den mængde af skriftlige tegn gennem hvilken et talt sprog optegnes” (Günther/Ludwig (red.) 1994: VIII.; Koch 2009: 58). Vi vil kalde det synspunkt at skrift først og fremmest er en fikseret version af et talt sprog for det fonografiske dogme (Krämer 2003b: 520).

The Sympoiesis of Superheroes

2019-09-25T12:19:21+02:00

Through the neocybernetic concept sympoiesis, the comic book Black Orchid can be understood as a media ecology, where the feedback between the reader and the material environment of the comic book emerges as a distributed cognition. I will argue that the reader of the comic book participates in the production of aesthetic experience, and, more importantly, that this participation is not only a question of joining in on the hermeneutic circle, where the reader interprets the comic book and creates a storyworld. From a media-ecological perspective, aesthetic participation is also material and embodied; it is a question of participating in the emergence of an environment. In such a reading, Black Orchid tangibly stages an act of becoming, an event of ontogenesis.

Vad är mediearkeologi?

2019-09-25T12:19:21+02:00

1. Vad är ”mediearkeologi” enligt din åsikt? Är det en teori, en metod eller något tredje? (Hur förhåller sig begreppet till exempel till närliggande termer som mediehistoria, medieestetik, medieekologi och det post-digitala?)

2. Hur, mer konkret, är begreppet användbart i din egen forskning?

3. Mediearkeologin är intresserad av såväl de konkreta, historiska, teknologiska föremålen (artefakt), som de förändringar teknologierna medför i diskurser, praktiker, biopolitik, etc. (struktur). Hur förhandlar begreppet enligt din förståelse mellan artefakt och struktur?

Respondenter: THOMAS GÖTSELIUS, JOHN BRUMO, SOLVEIG DAUGAARD, JAKOB LIEN, JOHAN FREDRIKZON, SØREN POLD, RAGNILD LOME, JESPER OLSSON, KNUT OVE ELIASSEN, PELLE SNICKARS, JACEK SMOLICKI

Editorial

2019-09-25T12:19:17+02:00

”Since Sputnik, the planet has become a global theatre under the proscenium arch of man-made satellites. Our psyches acquire thereby a totally new rim-spin.” (Marshall McLuhan, Culture is our business, 1970)

With these words by Marshall McLuhan, you are hereby welcomed to the second issue of Sensorium Journal. This issue includes papers from the Geomedia conference in Karlstad 2017, about skywriting, singing birds, satellites and airplanes. In a media archeological vein, works on (artifical) flatness are featured, the sympoiesis of comic books is discussed and a section is reserveed for reviews of challenging new theoretical titles by Tung-Hui Hu, Anna Tsing and Mark Seltzer.

The essay “Notational Iconicity” by professor of language and media philosophy at Freie Universität, Sybille Krämer, is translated into Danish by our editor Solveig Daugaard. Krämer, who is an honorary doctor at Linköping University, visited Östergötland in 2017 to discuss a series of texts related to her concept of “artifical flatness”, one of which we are proud to present in this issue. Krämer’s strikingly cogent take on some of the foundational questions of media philosophy regarding the intricate relations between thinking, speech and systems of written notation provide an interesting antipole to the somewhat wordier approach of many leading media theorists today. As an artistic spin to the theoretical ideas of Krämer, we confront it with an excerpt from the 1884-novel Flatland by British author and theologian Edwin A. Abbott, originally published under the witty alias “A Square” along with the visual reinterpretation of the novel by Canadian poet Derek Beaulieu from 2007, introduced by Jakob Lien. The featured image in this editorial (above) is from Beaulieus book.

One of the theoretical interests of the editors of this journal is media archaeology. We therefore approached a number of scholars in Scandinavia for this issue, who have worked with the concept, and asked them three questions we ourselves have struggled with. What is media archaeology in their view? How, more concretely have they used the media archaeological framework in their research? And how do they understand the relation between artefact and structure within media archaeology? In addition, we also asked our colleagues in the network to contribute and openly reflect on the same questions. The resultant survey gives the impression of a theoretical framework that – at least in the past decade – has played an intriguing role for media oriented aesthetic thinking in Scandinavia, and still has wide potential for exploration and further development for research in the field.

Since the last issue, Sensorium Network has organized two workshops. One on non-human languages in Umeå in 2016, and one on autopoiesis in Linköping in 2017. In addition, preparations have started, for transforming part of Sensorium Journal into a peer reviewed publication in 2018. The journal will still be a place for collective writing and artistic contributions but will in addition feature a section of articles that have gone through a double blind referee process. Make no mistake! The idea behind the journal is still the same; the mixture of peer reviewed articles and the more open main section of the journal is meant to mirror the collaborative idea behind Sensorium.

The change in the structure of the journal also bear with it some very intriguing news: From the next issue on, Sensorium Journal will be equipped with a scientific board, whose members will be announced later this fall, as well as three new editors: Jenny Jarlsdotter Wikström is a doctoral student in comparative literature and gender studies at Umeå University, Johan Fredrikzon is a doctoral student in history of ideas at Stockholm University, and Per Isreaelson recently defended his thesis on the media ecologies of fantastic in literary history. We expect lots of fun, sharp and lively discussion as well as new initiatives to spring from their involvement as editors of the journal.

Enjoy Sensorium Journal 2!

DEATH OF DR SAROLEA

2019-09-25T11:29:20+02:00

Dr. Sarolea is dead but his book collection is alive.

Rörelser mellan bild och kod

2019-09-25T11:03:38+02:00

Konstnären Manfred Mohr skrev 1974 ett datorprogram för att med dator och oscilloskopliknande apparatur producera filmen Complementary Cubes.^[1] Det filmobjektet som utgör resultatet har Mohr visat på diverse konstinstitutioner genom åren, men koden han skrev har aldrig offentliggjorts. Allt vi har tillgång till är ett filmobjekt, produkten av en kod vi inte känner till. I det följande kommer jag beskriva tre försök att i en omvänd rörelse extrahera koden ur Mohrs film, i syfte att bryta med den linjära berättelsen om hur kod leder till process som leder till resultat, och därigenom vidga förståelsen för datorbaserade medier och hur de är delaktiga i vårt mänskliga tankearbete.

Digitala strukturer i den fysiska dikten

2019-09-25T11:02:47+02:00

Bokens strukturer har i flera avseenden överförts till digitala publiceringsplattformer. Sidorna i läsplattans texter kan ibland till och med ”bläddras” fram och tillbaka på ett sätt som visuellt imiterar den fysiska bokens sidvändningar. Samtidigt har digitaliseringen av texter medfört ett antal mediespecifika möjligheter, exempelvis hyperlänkarnas förmåga att genom ett klick förflytta läsarens fokus från ett avsnitt till ett annat. I motsats till vad många befarade när boken fick konkurrens av digitala alternativ har digitaliseringen av texter medfört ett nytt intresse för bokmediet och dess unika möjligheter. Samtidigt kan vi notera att digitala strukturer letar sig in i den fysiska litteraturen. Jag kommer här att lyfta fram två böcker i vilka digitala hyperlänkstrukturer kan identifieras: Tom Phillips A Humument (1970) samt Elisabeth Tonnards Whiteout (2006). Båda dessa diktsamlingar kan beskrivas som Erasure Poetry, eller raderingspoesi, vilket innebär att de tillkommit genom raderingar i befintliga texter.[1] Det är således en form av återbrukspoesi som, till skillnad från medeltida palimpsester, inte bara återanvänder skrivmaterialet/boksidan utan även själva källtexten.[2] Ny text framträder genom överstrykningar i äldre. Snarare än att ses som frambringad ur ett konkret behov bör raderingspoesin kopplas till ett intresse för boken som medium och till en medvetenhet om det intertextuella nätverk litterära texter ingår i och till det problematiserande av författarrollen som aktualiserats under 1900-talet.

När kommunikationen bryter samman

2019-09-25T11:01:21+02:00

Frågan om mänskligt språk och kommunikationens gränser har alltid varit oerhört central för människan, inte minst under tider av teknologisk acceleration. Detta går att spåra i litteraturen.

Collecting Faces

2019-09-25T10:58:41+02:00

The notion of the archive has attracted attention in the aftermath of what is sometimes called “an archival turn” within the humanities – it has been discussed both as a metaphor for power and in terms of its materiality and dependency on media practices.[1] The archives structure our knowledge and determine what can be said at a certain time, as Michel Foucault famously pointed out in the late 1960s. But are there differences in kind between the use of archives by the various disciplines within the humanities, for example art historians and historians?

My take on Media Aesthetics

2019-09-25T10:56:59+02:00

Retracing my route to media aesthetics.

Kåta växter

2019-09-25T10:57:55+02:00

Drivs växter av ett behov att föröka sig som kan liknas vid vardaglig mänsklig kåthet? Vad säger föreställningar om växters förökningsprocesser om hur vi begripliggör växtlig agens? De här frågorna vill jag diskutera i relation till feministisk teori och några specifika exempel ur populärvetenskapliga verk om växter, bland annat David Attenboroughs BBC-producerade dokumentärserie The Private Life of Plants från 1995 och samtida skönlitterära författares och konstnärers försök att närma sig växtligt begär, växters känslor och växtlig agens.

Det farlige allmediet

2019-09-25T10:54:59+02:00

En maskinstormerisk frykt, en forkjærlighet for dystopiske beretninger, blandet med en genuin nysgjerrighet på menneskets intrikate avhengighet av teknologi, kan spores i hele forfatterskapet til forfatteren og journalisten Nils Leijer; fra hans voldsomme og erotikkladede roman om den gryende bilkulturen i Bilburen (1963), satiren over de nye betingelsene i- og makten til reklamebransjen i Köpsugen (1965), til den SF-inspirerte Miniput (1968).

I sistnevnte roman tar den svenske forfatteren utgangspunkt i en dystopisk grunnfortelling, hvor menneskene er blitt for mange og overbelaster jordklodens ressurser. Mennesket beskrives som et begjærsdrevet vesen som «smutsar ner sin omgivning» (Leijer 1968: 16). For å overleve er menneskeheten nødt til å endre seg på et fundamentalt plan, og en forskningsbase opprettes, som arbeider med flere løsninger på overbefolkningsproblemet. En av løsningene, som romanen har fått navn etter, er å krympe menneskene til miniatyrer, kun 50 cm lange, for å forhindre at belastningen på jordens ressurser øker. Parallelt med dette igangsettes et storslagent simuleringseksperiment, hvor det man tenker på som menneskelig – kjærlighet og omsorg –, forsøkes forvandles til reproduserbar, og dermed også manipulerbar informasjon, som man kan bruke til å stimulere og manipulere mennesker til å handle mer forsvarlig. Miniput kan derfor leses som en roman om den teknologiske medieringen av det vi kaller det menneskelige, samtidig som romanen står trygt plassert i en klassisk modernitetskritikk av teknologien. Leijers roman uttrykker et paradoks: Teknologien er samtidig det som fjerner oss fra vår naturlige relasjon til hverandre og grunnlaget for det vi kaller menneskelig.

Det følgende er et forsøk på å kartlegge hvordan medieringen beskrives i romanen, dens relasjon til sin samtid, hvilke konsekvenser som følger av den nye teknologiske situasjonen som romanen fremtenker, og hva slags paradokser som skjuler seg i romanens tenkning om forholdet mellom teknologi og mennesket.

Ordbehandling som vansinne

2019-09-25T10:53:33+02:00

Är ordbehandling ett oskyldigt hjälpmedel för att producera mer effektiv prosa? Nedslag i det datorstödda skrivandets historia tyder på en mer komplicerad syn.

A medium is a medium is a medium is a medium

2019-09-25T11:53:36+02:00

At the symposium Media Archaeology and Artistic Practice held September 17th 2015, a discussion was raised by invited keynote speaker Garnet Hertz, artist and associate professor at Emily Carr University, concerning the discourse around the media archeological lab and the humanities lab, and if this perhaps was mainly a question of naming. Can the desire to construct labs instead of other, more traditional, humanist and artistic workspaces such as studios, seminar rooms, offices etc. from one particular perspective be seen as a superficial gesture, one that boils down to attaching a new name to the same old practice, in order to get hands on new funding? As the discussion progressed it was stressed, that there are obvious attractions in this particular name – connoting hard science, collective work processes and experimental approach – as well as a material hands-on-quality that agrees with the theoretical discours of media archaeology. But also, that there are in fact substantial qualities of the lab as a concrete space that could generate new energy and new types of knowledge production when transferred to the artistic and humanistic context.

The conversation made me think of the title of our present conference A medium is medium is medium as it also addresses the question of what is in a name.

The title is a quote from Friedrich Kittler, who in Discourse Networks 1800/1900 uses the sentence to stress the untranslatable quality of the medium: The important fact that any transfer from one medium to another involves a distortion – and thus always will be to some degree arbitrary. But in Kittler the sentence is also a reminder about how the medium of language, as it is put to use in literature, has been considered as something close to an ideal channel – a channel of communication working without friction. By adding a third and final medium to his sentence, Kittler reminds us, essentially, that a medium is never just a channel or a technology of communication – it is always also something more. The material base makes a difference.

Even if Kittler does not give a reference, it is rather obvious that he is here paraphrasing Gertrude Stein’s signature sentence ”a rose is a rose is a rose is a rose” and as a Stein scholar I have not been able to refrain from a mild irritation that Kittler missed a part, he has only three times medium against Stein’s four times rose.

Stein’s sentence brings us back to the question of what’s in a name. As has often been suggested, it addresses the famous passage from Romeo and Juliet, where Juliet is trying to disavow the importance of the name (due to the fact that her beloved Romeo is a Montague):

What’s in a name.
that which we call A rose
by any other name would smell as sweet

As we all know, in the tragedy, the power of the name proves invincible and Juliet’s pragmatic attitude does not help her much against the ruling discourse of the encompassing society breeding strife between her name and Romeo’s. And even if Stein’s sentence in the first instance may look like merely a very insistent statement that a rose, when all is said and done, is still a rose – just as Juliet claims – there is a lot more to say about it.

Stein herself said, among other things:

When I said.
A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
And then later made that into a ring I made poetry and what did I do I caressed completely caressed and addressed a noun.
(“Poetry and Grammar,” Lectures in America )

She also claimed, that with this sentence, she made the rose red for the first time in English poetry for at least 100 years (and knowing Stein one shouldn’t miss the homonymic play upon red – it is both the color and the past tense of read. With Stein’s sentence – the rose is both red and read for the first time.) What is particularly elegant in this embrace by Stein’s of a noun, or of a name, is that in this very embracing movement she is putting the word’s grammatical status into serious doubt. When the third part is added to “a rose is a rose” an unresolvable syntactical confusion is introduced – it becomes impossible to determine whether the second part is the end or the beginning of a clause – but as the forth part is introduced both the sounds and the grammar of language starts dissolving and transform into genuine play. And every time the words “a rose”, the article and the noun, are repeated and “caressed” they sound more like a verb – “arose”. What seemed like an ultimate insistence upon the reality of a noun, is suddenly transformed into a verb – what appeared to be pure substance turned into action.

Similarly current research in the fields of media history and media aesthetics – if we are to take the varied contributions made to this conference as representative – is concerned with regarding the medium as something more than an artifact: To take into account the essential materiality that, according to Kittler, is irreducible in any communication, but to also continuously understand the medium as something relational and entangled in dynamic processes.

The conference A medium is a medium is a medium was intended as a kick-start of the network Sensorium for young researchers working in the field between aesthetics, technology and materiality. What the network is going to be and do in the future is up to us to work out at this conference and in the time to come. A warm welcome to every one!

Editorial: Sensorium Journal 1

2019-09-25T10:49:37+02:00

This is the first issue of Sensorium Journal. Sensorium Journal is an academic publication, a platform for research and artistic practices that are sensitive to materiality, aesthetics and media technology. Sensorium Journal is collaborative, inclusive and open in its form. Thus, it is academically ambitious but not peer-reviewed, and it is a part of Sensorium, a new Nordic network for young scholars and artists.