Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means

by Siegfried Zielinski

Deep Time of the Media takes us on an archaeological quest into the hidden layers of media development -- dynamic moments of intense activity in media design and construction that have been largely ignored in the historical-media archaeological record. Siegfried Zielinski argues that the history of the media does not proceed predictably from primitive tools to complex machinery; in Deep Time of the Media, he illuminates turning points of media history -- fractures in the predictable -- that help us see the new in the old.Drawing on original source materials, Zielinski explores the technology of devices for hearing and seeing through two thousand years of cultural and technological history. He discovers the contributions of "dreamers and modelers" of media worlds, from the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles and natural philosophers of the Renaissance and Baroque periods to Russian avant-gardists of the early twentieth century. "Media are spaces of action for constructed attempts to connect what is separated," Zielinski writes. He describes models and machinesthat make this conncection: including a theater of mirrors in sixteenth-century Naples, an automaton for musical composition created by the seventeenth-century Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, and the eighteenth-century electrical tele-writing machine of Joseph Mazzolari, among others. Uncovering these moments in the media-archaeological record, Zielinski says, brings us into a new relationship with present-day moments; these discoveries in the "deep time" media history shed light on today's media landscape and may help us map our expedition to the media future.

Genres: History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Art, Technology, Science, Academic

389 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Siegfried Zielinski is a German media theorist. He held the chair for Media Theory: Archaeology and Variantology of the Media at Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), he is Michel Foucault Professor for Techno-Culture and Media Archaeology at the European Graduate School in Saas Fee, and he is director of the International Vilém-Flusser-Archive at the Berlin University of the Arts. In 2016 until March 2018, he succeeded Peter Sloterdijk as head of the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design (HfG Karlsruhe).

Reviews

[Mjhancock · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this book, Zielinski proposes his conception of a media archaeology, one that focuses on the experimental. To illustrate his point, he travels through European history, with a focus on figures such as Empedocles, Giovan della Porta, Athanasius Kircher, Johann Ritter, Cesare Lombroso, Aleksej Gastev. As you may guess from that list, the topics are similarly diverse--from cryptography and criminology to optics and electricity-- but all have the common strand as fields that led to modern media. I would have liked a tighter focus, and I don't think Zielinski's method is as radical as he purports it to be, but it's a welcome outline of what an archaeology of media could be.

[Jacob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clarified some Foucault but overall this seems more a compendium of neat technology than a theoretical meditation on anything. Though it might be worthwhile in that it highlights some less familiar innovator names that are usually glossed over in tech histories (in that I'd never heard of them and this poked holes in my theory of my knowing everything).

[Aivaras Žukauskas · Rating 3 out of 5]

The biographies of the lesser-known visionaries are for sure interesting and even revealing at times, but in terms of theoretical knowledge-building you would be fine if you just read the Introduction and the Conclusions.

[Braden Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastique

[Roger Whitson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes the book overwhelmingly cites white, male practitioners of media. I feel like I should knock off several points for that, particularly since media archaeology still struggles with issues of race, gender, and gender identity/sexuality. But Zielinski's writing is so gorgeous and the scope of his vision directly taking on Foucauldian descent and applying it to the texture of media history is so breathtaking, that I have a hard time rating this book. It's certainly a must-read for anyone interested in the methodologies of media archaeology and thinking of media beyond the new media / digital humanities context.

[Steen Ledet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book on what is in essence the bioluminescence of media; how media impact our understanding of ourselves.