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Electronic Mediations
Electronic Monuments (Volume 15)
While corporations, governmental groups, and public relations firms debated the best way to memorialize the event of 9/11, sites of commemoration could be seen across the country and especially on the Internet. Greg Ulmer suggests that this reality points us to a new sense of monumentality, one that is collaborative in nature rather than iconic.
From a do-it-yourself Mount Rushmore to an automated tribute to the devastating annual toll of traffic deaths in the United States, Electronic Monuments describes commemoration as a fundamental experience, joining individual and collective identity, and adapting both to the emerging apparatus of “electracy,” or digital literacy. Concerns about the destruction of civic life caused by the society of the spectacle are refocused on the question of how a collectivity remembers who or what it is.
Ulmer proposes that the Internet makes it possible for monumentality to become a primary site of self-knowledge, one that supports a new politics, ethics, and dimension of education. The Internet thus holds the promise of bringing citizens back into the political equation as witnesses and monitors.
Gregory L. Ulmer is professor of English and media studies at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
From a do-it-yourself Mount Rushmore to an automated tribute to the devastating annual toll of traffic deaths in the United States, Electronic Monuments describes commemoration as a fundamental experience, joining individual and collective identity, and adapting both to the emerging apparatus of “electracy,” or digital literacy. Concerns about the destruction of civic life caused by the society of the spectacle are refocused on the question of how a collectivity remembers who or what it is.
Ulmer proposes that the Internet makes it possible for monumentality to become a primary site of self-knowledge, one that supports a new politics, ethics, and dimension of education. The Internet thus holds the promise of bringing citizens back into the political equation as witnesses and monitors.
Gregory L. Ulmer is professor of English and media studies at the University of Florida, Gainesville.
320 pages, Paperback
First published November 25, 2005
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July 14, 2010Ulmer is a supreme punster. It was smart to follow Hannah Arendt's The human condition with this book by Ulmer. Although I was superficially aware of his CATTt logic and heuristical approach to the study and invention of new media, I am stimulated by his thought experiments...his attempt to bring the humanities and performance art into the public and political sphere.
I'll write again once I have a better grasp of the ideas in this book.
I'll write again once I have a better grasp of the ideas in this book.
February 21, 2013
Ulmer is a genius. If you like his stuff, read this book. If you haven't heard of him but love theory and experimental writing, try it out. I just find his writing style too cumbersome to enjoy.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews