From Digital to Analog: «Agrippa» and Other Hybrids in the Beginnings of Digital Culture (New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies)

Description

From Digital to Analog delves into the origins of digitization and its effects on contemporary culture. The book challenges the «common sense» assertion that digitization is just another step in the evolution of the culture of the editorial, film and recorded music industries and their enforcement of copyright laws. Digital technologies in contemporary culture have paradoxically undermined and, at the same time, strengthened such practices, provoking an unprecedented quarrel over the possession of, and access to, cultural products. Agustín Berti uses the release of Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) in 1992 to study this paradox. The importance of Agrippa for digital culture studies is proven through the discussion of the frequently understated importance of the materiality of digital culture. The book develops a critique of digital technology and its alleged neutrality and transparency. Ultimately, it illustrates how Agrippa anticipated a number of contemporary phenomena such as piracy, leaks, remixes, memes, and more, forcing us to rethink the concept of digital content itself and thus the way in which culture is produced, received and preserved today. From Digital to Analog is ideal reading for a graduate student readership, especially Master candidates in the fields of Literature, Arts, Digital Humanities, Digital Culture and New Media Studies. Cover Table of contents Preface: Pirate Havens and Digital Coyotes Abstractions Concretions Record and Data Trafficking Contemporary Necromancers Deep Roots Chapter 1: Introduction: Milestones between Matter and Digits Outside Ourselves Stereotypes Milieus Standards Abstractions Territories Chapter 2: Bit Rot Digital Objects? Meta-milieus Digital Objects or Computing Objects? Multiple Multiple Realizabilities Identity and Limits of Digital Objects Arts Computing Indiscretions Principles of Analysis Storage Devices Chapter 3: Crossing Borders Digital/Digitized Pre-digital Works in the Age of Digitization Digitized Works: The Passage of Books Chapter 4: Illegalized Aliens in the Land of the Copyrighted Digital Works Drifters in the Digital Realm Artworks and the Analog/Digital Divide Hybrid Manifestations Chapter 5: The Book of the Dead and the Death of Books The Nature of the Game Agrippa (A Book of the Dead): The Book Object “Agrippa (A Book of the Dead)”: The Poem The Work of Art and the Art of Copying Epilogue: Hybrid Genealogies in Digital Culture Negotiations between Matter and Digits Works, Storage, and Code Notes Works cited References Index