Wolfgang Ernst: Digital Memory and the Archive (2012)

“In the popular imagination, archives are remote, largely obsolete institutions: either antiquated, inevitably dusty libraries or sinister repositories of personal secrets maintained by police states. Yet the archive is now a ubiquitous feature of digital life. Rather than being deleted, e-mails and other computer files are archived. Media software and cloud storage allow for the instantaneous cataloging and preservation of data, from music, photographs, and videos to personal information gathered by social media sites.

In this digital landscape, the archival-oriented media theories of Wolfgang Ernst are particularly relevant. Digital Memory and the Archive, the first English-language collection of the German media theorist’s work, brings together essays that present Ernst’s controversial materialist approach to media theory and history. His insights are central to the emerging field of media archaeology, which uncovers the role of specific technologies and mechanisms, rather than content, in shaping contemporary culture and society.

Ernst’s interrelated ideas on the archive, machine time and microtemporality, and the new regimes of memory offer a new perspective on both current digital culture and the infrastructure of media historical knowledge. For Ernst, different forms of media systems—from library catalogs to sound recordings—have influenced the content and understanding of the archive and other institutions of memory. At the same time, digital archiving has become a contested site that is highly resistant to curation, thus complicating the creation and preservation of cultural memory and history. ”

Edited and with an Introduction by Jussi Parikka
Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2012
Volume 39 of Electronic Mediations
ISBN 0816677670, 9780816677672
265 pages

Reviews: Liam Cole Young (Reviews in Cultural Theory, 2013), Peter Ward (Information & Culture, 2014).

Worldcat

PDF

For more from Wolfgang Ernst see Monoskop wiki.

Domenico Quaranta, Geraldine Juárez (eds.): The F.A.T. Manual (2013)

“In more than five years of activity, the Free Art and Technology Lab (F.A.T. Lab) produced an impressive series of projects, all developed with open source software, shared online and documented in a way that allows everybody to copy, improve, abuse or simply use them. This approach situates F.A.T. Lab in a long tradition of DIY, processual, sharable artistic practices based on instructionals, and reveals a democratic idea of art where Fluxus scores meet hacker culture (and rap music).

Featuring texts by Régine Debatty, Evan Roth, Domenico Quaranta, Geraldine Juárez and Randy Sarafan, The F.A.T. Manual is a selection of more that 100 projects, done in the belief that printing these bits on paper will allow them to spread in a different way, infiltrate other contexts, and germinate. An archive, a catalogue, a user manual and a software handbook documenting five years of thug life, pop culture and research and development.”

Publisher Link Editions, Brescia, 2013
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
ISBN 9781291577914
224 pages

Publisher

PDF, PDF (36 MB, updated on 2024-2-3)

Pool (2011-2012)

“Pool is a platform dedicated to expanding and improving the discourse between online and offline realities and their cultural, societal and political impact on each other.”

Contributors: Absis Minas, Andreas Ervik, Andrew Norman Wilson, Ann Hirsch, Anne de Vries, Billy Rennekamp, Bunny Rogers, Caitlin Denny, Casey A. Von Gollan, Constant Dullaart, Daniel G. Baird, Devin Kenny, Duncan Malashock, Erik Stinson, Eugene Kotlyarenko, Gene McHugh, Ginger Scott, Harry Burke, Isabel Gylling & Matthew Ferguson, Jaakko Pallasvuo, Jennifer Chan, Jimmy Chen, Joanne McNeil, Jordan Tate, Joshua Simon, Karen Archey, Kate Steciw, Katja Novitskova, Leo Merz, Louis Doulas, Marisa Olson, Martin Jaeggi, Nicholas O’Brien, Patrick Armstrong, Riyo Nemeth, Robert John, Robert Lorayn, Ry David Bradley, Ryan Barone, Samuel Riviere, Sofia Leiby, Timur Si-Qin, Tom Moody, Wyatt Niehaus

Editor: Louis Doulas
Contributing editors: Absis Minas, Ria Roberts, Sofia Leiby
PDF design: Rasmus Svensson
Pool can easily be physically distributed and stocked at any gallery, shop, library, etc. by simply downloading each month’s PDF issue and printing.

Magazine website

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