Matter Transmission: Mediation in a Paleocyber Age

Description

Arguing for a paleocybernetic approach to current media studies debates, Nicolas Salazar Sutil develops an original framework for a new media ecology that embraces the primitive, the prehistoric, and the brute. Paying serious attention to materials used for cultural mediation that are unprocessed, unexplained, and raw such as bones and limestones, Salazar Sutil posits that advanced industrialisation of new media technology has prompted countercultural movements that call for radical new ways of transmitting culture, for instance through an experiential and high-tech appreciation of prehistoric landscape heritage. The future calls for a Palaeolithic awareness of living landscape as medium for the embodied transmission of cultural imaginaries and memories. The more media technology spurs mass forms of instantaneous media communication, the greater the need for primitive knowledge of earthling body and earthly landscape, our prime media for sustainable cultural transmission. Title Page Copyright Page Contents Prologue Matter is media Brute materialism The chapters Chapter 1: Biographies of Matter I: Limestone Mattering Landscapes Limestones Movements Experiences Breaths Commodities Fatalities Chapter 2: Biographies of Matter II: A Cave’s Life The site Lascaux I Lascaux II Lascaux III Lascaux IV Chapter 3: Human to Humus Ashes to Ashes Species to species Seism to jism Bone to stone Flesh to slush Chapter 4: When Walls Could Speak Parables of the cave Writing on the wall Beast of Lascaux Speaking of walls Colors of Altamira Hill against hillside Chapter 5: Prehistories of Media I: Immersion I Walked to Prehistory The grotesque immersion VR media goes back to the cave Chapter 6: Prehistories of Media II: The Screen Despite the Passing Reference Modern art claims the cave Cinema claims the cave Film animation, ditto Chapter 7: What Is Paleocybernetics? The Reinvention of Paleo Living Paleocybernetics Paleolithic State Practicing paleo Chapter 8: Astronauts and Cavemen Interstellar Cave Painting Earth relativism Coming back to the cave My own personal prehistory Epilogue Notes Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 References Index