The Anthrobscene

Forerunners: Ideas First

by Jussi Parikka

Smartphones, laptops, tablets, and e-readers all at one time held the promise of a more environmentally healthy world not dependent on paper and deforestation. The result of our ubiquitous digital lives is, as we see in The Anthrobscene, actually quite the opposite: not ecological health but an environmental wasteland, where media never die. Jussi Parikka critiques corporate and human desires as a geophysical force, analyzing the material side of the earth as essential for the existence of media and introducing the notion of an alternative deep time in which media live on in the layer of toxic waste we will leave behind as our geological legacy. 

Genres: Theory, Philosophy, Technology, Nonfiction, Anthropology, Science, History

70 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 22, 2014

About the author

Jussi Parikka is a Finnish new media theorist and Professor in Digital Aesthetics and Culture at Aarhus University, Denmark. He is also Professor in Technological Culture & Aesthetics at Winchester School of Art as well as Visiting Professor at FAMU at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.

Reviews

[Roger Whitson · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my mind, Jussi Parikka's book is probably the most important theoretical contribution to media studies in quite a while. This book, part of a much larger text to be published soon by U of Minnesota Press called The Geology of Media, proposes that we take Siegfried Zielinski's notion of the deep time of media literally: that we develop a geological temporal scale for media devices. "Inside the earth," Parikka says, "one finds a metallic reality, which feeds into metal metaphysics and digital devices." He looks at figures like James Hutton and Charles Lyell, who developed the notion of deep time in the nineteenth century, as well as philosophers like Gilles Deleuze and Friedrich Kittler in order to develop a theory of media that is able to respond to the climate change and ecological disasters of our day.

[Paz · Rating 5 out of 5]

This a short critical essay that, after almost ten years, is still relevant as it has opened a path to understanding media and digital tech in the context of planetary disaster.

[melancholinary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice little companion piece to A Geology of Media. I like that in here it also addresses the problem of labour in the media studies and materiality discourse. A deep time analysis of media is good but amongst the many work media studies conducted on the materiality and infrastructural aspect of media, we need more studies on the labour aspect (ethnographer of miners?). Though this little book is not focusing on that, but I think a brief mention in here is a good starting point.

[cab · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Data mining might be a leading hype term for our digital age of the moment but it is enabled only by the sort of mining that we associate with the ground and its ungrounding. Digital culture starts in the depths and deep times of the planet.”

[Loki Aldebaran · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gran ensayo que nos devela la actual era geológica en la que vivimos, una obscena realidad que explota nuestros recursos.

[Aaron Schuschu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brief little thing on the advances in media technology being what they are, are what they are, because of a violation of our environment- thus it is an obscene era.

[LaanSiBB]

Classic anthro- reading.

[Abdul · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is full of fascinating ideas, but I had a hard time understanding it.

[David Carrasquillo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Explain how the technological is not all it is sold to be. Technology is promised as a solution to most of our daily social, financial and even environmental problems. This book argues that not only is not a solution, but an integral part of the problem(s) producer(s). Is a very short book with a lot of important and condensed content.

[Lette Hass · Rating 4 out of 5]

... how to talk about the materiality of media technology.

[Ondřej Trhoň · Rating 4 out of 5]

Média jsou materiální (i cloud je tvořen datacentry z křemíku a drahých kovů), odráží se v nich strata alternativního času vývoje země (ropa/minerály), měli bychom si to uvědomit. Parikka navazuje na Heideggerovu představu země jako zdroje a rozvíjí podklad své geologie médií, která se právě k materiálním podmínkám vzniku nových komunikačních prostředků obrací. Krátké, úderné a stojí za to.

Hint: Deleuze je tam asi jen pětkrát!