Notes from the Media Archaeology Summer Class: working with Action Max and Pong Sports IV
If media archaeology can be defined as a militant approach to the study of media in its privileging non-canonical history, by taking this class, I have been primarily interested in the meanings that a practical, hands-on, approach on media objects add to the traditional framework of a graduate seminar.
Thinking Materialist Media Archaeology through the E-book Reader
Introduction The strand of media archaeology that looks at the concrete technology supporting the complex media infrastructure and identifies a meaningful agency to nonhuman elements is particularly influenced by the work of F. Kittler. In the 4th chapter of What is Media Archaeology?, Parikka examines Kittler’s major theorizations to establish a link between what is usually referred to as German Media Theory and the most recent threads in media studies. In this probe, I will highlight how a media archaeology that gives primary importance to the engineering of media machines is particularly relevant in the deconstruction of the rhetorical discourse on the immateriality of digital culture. Moreover, I will highlight the major problematic nodes that emerge from Parikka’s critique and...
The Gendered Relationship with Cameras: an Archival Research of Visual Advertisements
The material turn in media studies invites us to consider different approaches through which we can analyze the relation between media and gender. Indeed, giving importance to the material, concrete, and tactical aspect of media implies a shift from a focus on media contents, and from the spectators/users’ practices of resisting and negotiating meanings proposed by popular media. On the contrary, a material approach in the study of media and gender implies, first of all, a focus on media technologies, foregrounding how they emerged and came to determine particular uses not only through their specific technical standards, but also through their external materiality that enabled the cultural circulation of the media technologies themselves. A media archaeological approach can take into...