Hans Günther, Sabine Hänsgen (eds.): Soviet Power and the Media (2006) [Russian]

Proceedings from the conference “The Political as Communicative Space in History” (Bielefeld, October 2003) devoted to the comparative analysis of the media in the Soviet Union of the 1920s and 1930s provide a pioneering media-theoretical exploration of the role of radio, film, photography and print in the engineering of the communist Soviet power.

Sovetskaya vlast’ i media [Советская власть и медиа]
Publisher Akademicheskiy proekt, St. Petersburg, 2006
Open Access
ISBN 5733103353, 9785733103358
621 pages

Reviews: Wolfgang Schlott (Die Welt der Slaven, 2007, DE, PDF), Alexander Prokhorov (Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema, 2007), Alexander Ulanov (Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2007, RU), Jana Klenhova (ArtMargins, 2008), Yuliya Liderman (Usloviya teatra, RU, 2010).

PDF (broken link fixed on 2014-1-28)
PDFs

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.

Vilém Flusser: Into the Universe of Technical Images (1985–) [DE, HU, CZ, EN]

Poised between hope and despair for a humanity facing an urgent communication crisis, this work by Vilém Flusser forecasts either the first truly human, infinitely creative society in history or a society of unbearable, oppressive sameness, locked in a pattern it cannot change. First published in German in 1985 and now available in English for the first time, Into the Universe of Technical Images outlines the history of communication technology as a process of increasing abstraction.

Flusser charts how communication evolved from direct interaction with the world to mediation through various technologies. The invention of writing marked one significant shift; the invention of photography marked another, heralding the current age of the technical image. The automation of the processing of technical images carries both promise and threat: the promise of freeing humans to play and invent and the threat for networks of automation to proceed independently of humans.

Originally published in German as Ins Universum der technischen Bilder, European Photography, 1985

Czech edition: Do universa technických obrazů
Translated by Jiří Fiala
Publisher OSVU, 2002
ISBN 8023875698
162 pages

English edition
Translated by Nancy Ann Roth
Introduction by Mark Poster
Publisher University of Minnesota Press, 2011
Volume 32 of Electronic Mediations
ISBN 0816670218, 9780816670215
224 pages

Review (Bob Hanke, International Journal of Communication)

Translator (EN)
Publisher (EN)

Ins Universum der technischen Bilder (German, 1985, added on 2016-8-4)
A technikai képek univerzuma felé (Hungarian, trans. József Maleczki, 2001; revised trans. Dalma Török, 2011; HTML, added on 2014-2-14)
Do universa technických obrazů (Czech, Jiří Fiala, 2002, no OCR, added on 2013-4-1)
Into the Universe of Technical Images (English, trans. Nancy Ann Roth, 2011, updated on 2012-7-17)