Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination

by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum

A new “textual studies” and archival approach to the investigation of works of new media and electronic literature that applies techniques of computer forensics to conduct media-specific readings of William Gibson's electronic poem “Agrippa,” Michael Joyce's Afternoon, and the interactive game Mystery House.

In Mechanisms, Matthew Kirschenbaum examines new media and electronic writing against the textual and technological primitives that govern writing, inscription, and textual transmission in all erasure, variability, repeatability, and survivability. Mechanisms is the first book in its field to devote significant attention to storage—the hard drive in particular—arguing that understanding the affordances of storage devices is essential to understanding new media. Drawing a distinction between “forensic materiality” and “formal materiality,” Kirschenbaum uses applied computer forensics techniques in his study of new media works. Just as the humanities discipline of textual studies examines books as physical objects and traces different variants of texts, computer forensics encourage us to perceive new media in terms of specific versions, platforms, systems, and devices. Kirschenbaum demonstrates these techniques in media-specific readings of three landmark works of new media and electronic literature, all from the formative era of personal the interactive fiction game Mystery House, Michael Joyce's A Story, and William Gibson's electronic poem “Agrippa.”

Genres: Nonfiction, Technology, Books About Books

320 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Catherine S. Ducayen]

not rating this b/c a lot of this went over my head but i think i maybe still kind of liked it. i like that you have to run over a harddrive with an actual fucking tank for even a CHANCE at rendering its information unrecoverable. oh and the fact that the ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* vibes ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* of postmodernism have like hugely (and detrimentally) affected how media studies handles, presents and makes claims about digital media is so funny. because like, i get it. but also we can't get blinded by the swag of the screen... we can't revisionist history mundane programs like storyspace and pretend they were sooo radical and crazy and nonlinear and epic. it was probably about as cool as, like, notion. also kirschenbaum writes with like 10% more stylistic abandon in his (often excessive) footnotes so i liked that

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was leary when I first started, on account of the (for me) immensely technical nature of the first couple of chapters, but I found the book as a whole very interesting.

The book's primary shortcoming is, I think, unavoidable. It certainly succeeds at bringing the material realities of electronic texts into the larger textual studies conversation, but that achievement comes with a great deal of internal tension. Kirschenbaum's subject matter requires him to discuss a lot of subject matter (the technicalities of magnetic encoding technologies, usage of a hex editor, the binary coding behind the ASCII character set, etc.). His arguments have to assume a certain level of technological knowledge. Yet, his book is directed primarily at an audience of English professors. He makes some valiant attempts at explaining things without becoming a primer on programming, but, as a liberal arts person, I still found myself confused a lot of the time. I understand the basic principal that all things electronic also have a physical dimension, but the finer points of the discussion were lost on me. Periodically, there would be a screen shot of, for example, Mystery House opened in a hex editor. Even toward the end of the book, the only response I found myself able to have was something along the lines of “Hmmm. A long string of unintelligible symbols.” As a reader, it's frustrating, but I have to admit that even alerting me to the fact that there is such a thing as a hex editor is no small acheivement on Kirschenbaum's part. Not that I understand what, exactly, it is that a hex editor does. But at least I know that they exist and are vaguely connected with underlying code.

Overall, Mechanisms has its frustrations (besides the technical terms, I'm convinced it could have lost 50-60 pages without suffering much ill effect), but it also has plenty of interesting things to say.

[Trauman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important book. Instead of complicating the writing process by understanding it in terms of larger material contexts (which is incredibly powerful and useful), Kirschenbaum offers a strategy for material analysis that drills down into the technology itself, focusing on data storage, material persistence, and interface opacity. I'm using this book as part of my lit review to carve out some space that allows for discussion of digital writing as a "material" practice, as opposed to a "virtual" one.

[Ramona · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book for anyone interested in technology or computers. The author obviously loves both and is very good at describing them. In addition, the topic of electronic text is not addressed enough in the literature of today, this is an essential addition to any collection that considers modern media in print.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Masterful. Erudite, rich, varied, deep. An exemplary digital history.

[Erik]

I've read parts of this book, but I'm looking to go back over and fill in the gaps in my understanding and memory.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

More technical (and drawn out) than what I would normally turn to, but fun to learn about the mechanisms of the hard drive.