Materialist Media Theory: An Introduction

Description

Our technologies rely on an ever-expanding infrastructure of wires, routers, servers, and hard drives—a proliferation of devices that reshape human interaction and experience prior to conscious knowledge. Understanding these technologies requires an approach that foregrounds media as an agent that collaborates in the production of the world beyond content or representation. Materialist Media Theory provides an accessible, synthetic account of the cutting edge of the theoretical humanities, examining a range of approaches to media’s physical, infrastructural role in shaping culture, space, time, cognition, and life itself. More than a mere introduction, Materialist Media Theory provides a critical intervention into matter and media, of interest to students and researchers in media studies, communication, cultural studies, visual culture, and beyond. Media determine our reality, and any politics of media must begin by foregrounding the media’s materiality Title Page Copyright Page Contents Introduction: Thinking About(and in) the Materiality of Media The materiality of the book you are currently reading The fear of writing Not under conditions of our own making About media versus in media From meaning to performing Chapters: Key concepts for a renewed medium theory Chapter 1: Representations and Performances Bodies in games The exhaustion of representational critique From realism to idealism . . . . . . To representation as a performative practice Conclusion Chapter 2: Inscriptions and Techniques Marginalia Inscribing sound History: Discourse and the archive Social relation: Documentality Bodies: The performance of technique Conclusion Chapter 3: Spaces and Times Textiles and paint tubes The biases of communication Marshall McLuhan’s global village Digital media and time The differential politics of time and space Conclusion Chapter 4: Bodies and Brains Brains, bodies, and metaphors Materialism in the philosophy of mind Media restructure consciousness Gesture and motion Cognition and embodiment Cognition, decision, and plasticity Materiality and epistemology Conclusion Chapter 5: Objects and Affects Objects and relations Subjects and objects Objects and things Withdrawn objects Vital objects and affective energies Relations and oppositions Conclusion Conclusion: Ten Theses on the Materiality of Media 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Acknowledgments Works Cited Index