Originally published in 2003, this article presents one of the first attempts
to provide a systematic summary of the new concept of cultural technique. It
is, in essence, an extended checklist aimed at overcoming the textualist bias
of traditional cultural theory by highlighting what is elided by this bias. On
the one hand, to speak of cultural techniques redirects our attention to
material and physical practices that all too often assume the shape of
inconspicuous quotidian practices resistant to accustomed investigations of
meaning. On the other hand, cultural techniques also comprise sign systems
such as musical notation or arithmetical formulas located outside the domain
of the hegemony of alphabetical literacy. The rise of the latter in particular
is indebted to the impact of the digital – both as a domain of technology and
a source of theoretical reorientation. Together, these aspects require a
paradigmatic change that challenges and supersedes the traditional
‘discursivism’ of cultural theory
