Handmade films and artist-run labs. The chemical sites of film’s counterculture

This article addresses handmade films and especially artist-run labs as sites of hands-on film culture that reactivate moments and materials from media history. Drawing on existing research, discourses and discussions with contemporary experimental filmmakers affiliated with labs or practicing their work in relation to film lab infrastructure, we focus on these sites of creation, preservation and circulation of technical knowledge about analog film. But instead of reinforcing the binary of analog vs. digital, we argue that the various material practices from self-made apparatuses to photochemistry and film emulsions are ways of understanding the multiple materials and layered histories that define post-digital culture of film. This focus links our discussion with some themes in media archaeology (experimental media archaeology as a practice) and to current discussions about labs as arts and humanities infrastructure for collective project and practice-based methods

Cultural Techniques of Cognitive Capitalism: Metaprogramming and the Labour of Code

This article addresses cultural techniques of cognitive capitalism. The author argues that to understand the full implications of the notion of cognitive capitalism we need to address the media and cultural techniques which conditions its range and applications. The article offers an expanded understanding of the labour of code and programming through a case study of 'metaprogramming', a software related organisation practice that offered a way to think of software creativity and programming in organisations. The ideas from the 1970s that are discussed offer a different way to approach creativity and collaborative and post-Fordist capitalism. The author brings together different theoretical perspectives, including German media theory and Yann Moulier Boutang’s thesis about cognitive capitalism. The wider argument is that we should pay more attention to the media archaeological conditions of practices of labour and value appropriation of contemporary technological capitalism as well as the cultural techniques which include 'ontological and aesthetic operations' that produce cultural, material situations

Deep times of planetary trouble

This introduction to the special section on mediated geologies contextualizes the articles that follow within recent discussions concerning cultural politics of the environment, ecological contexts of contemporary media, and debates concerning the Anthropocene. The special section approaches the topics from the angle of media studies and argues for new ways to understand media culture as read through a materials focus: from waste to building materials and from temperature control to more conceptual developments concerning new materialism. The introduction discusses these ideas as extensions of material media theory and addresses how they can complement already existing ideas in the field

La nueva materialidad del polvo

Aquest text s'ocupa de la materialitat de la pols, traçant una ruta transversal que va des dels processos d'encerat de les fundes d'iPad a les fàbriques xineses fins a un argument teòric més ampli que examina la materialitat dels mitjans, de les roques a les substàncies químiques. En poques paraules, aquest nou materialisme s'interessa per la diversitat de temps, durades, entrellaçaments i distribucions d'una àmplia gamma d'agències, algunes de les quals no humanes. Per això ens veiem obligats a reflexionar sobre els contextos del nou materialisme d'una manera nova, lleugerament més fluida que no pas simplement assumint que l'especificitat relativa a les bases tecnològiques i científiques de la cultura dels mitjans és automàticament material. En efecte, la materialitat no concerneix solament les màquines, ni tampoc afecta únicament els sòlids o les coses, ni tan sols els objectes. La materialitat es filtra en múltiples direccions, tal com demostren els residus electrònics o els efectes de la contaminació electromagnètica. És transformacional, ecològica i multiescalar.This text considers the materiality of dust. It maps a transversal route of considering dust, from the processes of polishing iPad covers in Chinese factories to a wider theoretical argument for a media materiality that starts from rocks and chemicals. In short, this kind of new materialism is interested in the various times, durations, entwinements and distributions of a whole range of agencies, several of them non-human. Hence, we are also forced to think about the contexts of new materialism in a slightly more fluid, novel way than just assuming that specificity concerning the technological and the scientific underpinnings of media culture are automatically material. Indeed, materiality is not just about machines; nor is it just solids, and things, or even objects. Materiality leaks in many directions, as electronic waste demonstrates, or the effects of electromagnetic pollution. It is transformational, ecological, and multiscalar.Este texto aborda la materialidad del polvo, trazando una ruta transversal que va de los procesos de encerado de las fundas de iPAD en las fábricas chinas a un argumento teórico más amplio que examina la materialidad de los medios, de las rocas a las sustancias químicas. En pocas palabras, este nuevo materialismo se interesa por la diversidad de tiempos, duraciones, entrelazamientos y distribuciones de una amplia gama de agencias, algunas de ellas no humanas. De ahí que nos veamos obligados a reflexionar sobre los contextos del nuevo materialismo de una forma novedosa, ligeramente más fluida que simplemente asumiendo que la especificidad relativa a las bases tecnológicas y científicas de la cultura de los medios es automáticamente material. En efecto, la materialidad no concierne solo a las máquinas, ni tampoco afecta únicamente a los sólidos o a las cosas, ni tan siquiera a los objetos. La materialidad se filtra en múltiples direcciones, tal como demuestran los residuos electrónicos o los efectos de la contaminación electromagnética. Es transformacional, ecológica y multiescalar

Counter-Futuring

Not Reviewe

Counter-Futuring

Not Reviewe

The sensed smog: smart ubiquitous cities and the sensorial body

The article analyses the idea of the media city both from the perspective of sensors and monitoring of air pollution and as a more conceptual thread that relates to air pollution itself. Smart cities are layered urban arrangements that have carried forward their earlier technological legacy in terms of infrastructure and often also in terms of the residual air pollution, like photochemical smog. This sort of an understanding feeds an alternative way of understanding technological cities. The issue of the sensorial becomes a central focus of the article ranging from the experienced air pollution to its tracking and monitoring in remote sensing solutions. These two threads, sensors and the sensed city, lead to a conceptual argument that suggests to look at the technologies of smart city as an entanglement of the materiality of the pollution as the data that keeps also the media ecologies of big data circulating. Besides issues of political economy and governance, it also points to questions where is political citizenship located

Arqueologia da mídia: interrogando o novo na artemídia

“One of the most persistent things that “new” media arts have actually cocooned during their decades of Post WWII development is an appreciation of the obsolete, old and analogue. It is such a paradox, which however makes the whole issue of media arts more interesting: that the new is potentially less interesting than how the old is remediated, recycled, recursively represented. Media art that employs the newest technologies does not necessarily match up to the innovative ways of digging up old ideas, imaginary media solutions and obsolete analog technologies as ways to demonstrate that our culture is not – and should not be – based on a onetrack assumption of linear progress. What if the parallel existence of the other reality alongside the glitzy digital […] is as important in how such old technologies persist in media art, galleries, curatorial programmes and popular culture?" (Extracted from the original paper)Um dos fatos mais relevantes das “novas” artemídias [...] é a apreciação pelo obsoleto, pelo velho e pelo analógico. [...] As artemídias que empregam as mais novas tecnologias não se equiparam com as maneiras inovadoras com que as demais escavam velhas ideias [...] como maneira de demonstrar que nossa cultura não é [...] baseada em uma única linha de progresso linear. E se a existência paralela de outra realidade ao lado do digital [...] for tão importante quanto à maneira como estas velhas tecnologias persistem nas artemídias, nas galerias, nas curadorias e na cultura popular? A arqueologia das mídias é a escavação das ideias perdidas, das histórias alternativas e das condições de existência das mídias. [...] Neste sentido, há várias maneiras de abordar a arqueologia das mídias como parte da história das artemídias