Археология медиа: о "глубоком времени" аудиовизуальных технологий

by Siegfried Zielinski, Зигфрид Цилински

Данное издание осуществлено в рамках совместной издательской программы музея современного искусства «Гараж» и «Ад Маргинем Пресс». Книга известного немецкого теоретика медиа Зигфрида Цилински — это историческое исследование взаимодействия технологий, искусства и науки, в котором он предлагает пересмотреть понятие о медиа как о «комплексе взаимодействующих сложных технических и культурных систем», возникшем на Западе во второй половине XX века. Подобно геологам и палеонтологам, Цилински работает с «глубинными слоями» привычных концепций и исследовательских разработок, обращаясь к феноменам медиа, предшествующим индустриальной эпохе.

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

384 pages, Paperback

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.