Media Archaeology Quotes

Archaeology, Concrete Poetry, Media and Communications, Festival and Theatre Administration, Comparative Religion, Stage Set and Design, the Russian Short Story, Politics and Gender. On finishing his studies – and it was never entirely clear when and whether he had finished his studies, on account of no one at the university being certain how many modules made a totality – Treslove found himself with a degree so unspecific that all he could do with it was accept a graduate traineeship at the BBC.

Archaeology here means digging into the background reasons why a certain object, statement, discourse or, for instance in our case, media apparatus or use habit is able to be born and be picked up and sustain itself in a cultural situation.

It is well known that in subsequent years a “European constitution” was drafted, with the unexpected consequence—which should have been anticipated—that it was rejected by the “citizens as people” [“popolo dei cittadini ”] who were asked to ratify what was certainly not an expression of their constituent power. The fact is that, if to Grimm and the theorists of the people-constitution nexus one could object that they still harked back to the common presuppositions of language and public opinion, to Habermas and the theorists of the people-communica- tion one could easily object that they ended up passing political power into the hands of experts and the media. What our investigation has shown is that the holistic state, founded on the immediate presence of the acclaiming people, and the neutralized state that re- solves itself in the communicative forms without subject, are opposed only in appearance. They are nothing but two sides of the same glorious apparatus in its two forms: the immediate and subjective glory of the acclaiming people and the mediatic and objective glory of social communication. As should be evident today, people-nation and people-communication, despite the differences in behavior and figure, are the two faces of the doxa that, as such, ceaselessly interweave and separate themselves in contemporary society. In this interlacing of elements, the “democratic” and secular theorists of communicative action risk finding them- selves side by side with conservative thinkers of acclamation such as Schmitt and Peterson; but this is precisely the price that must be paid each time by theoretical elaborations that think they can do without archaeological precautions.

Even Mr. Masrani’s announcement of his plans to open a park had been shrouded in mystery. The man had a flair for drama. It started when packages containing amber-handled archaeological tools—the kind that paleontologists use to dig up bones—began arriving. At first, it was journalists, social media influencers, actors, pop stars, the leading professors and minds of the world. Then, as the buzz began to start, the tools began arriving at random people’s doorsteps across the world. Everyone starting talking about it because it was so weird—and the selection of people who got the tools was so broad and varied. The tools came with no note, just a simple card that had the profile of a T. rex skeleton stamped upon it. Two more packages arrived for the lucky recipients over the next few weeks. It became this status thing to post about them. Everyone was trying to trace the company that sent them, but no one could figure it out. The second package contained a compass; carved on the back was that same T. rex stamp. When the third and final package arrived, it caused a sensation. Each person’s box had three clues—a jagged tooth, a curled piece of parchment with the sketch of a gate in spidery ink, and an old-fashioned-looking key, one clearly not made to unlock anything. The speculation this caused throughout the world was unparalleled. What did these objects mean? Did they relate to each other? Was this just some elaborate prank? The first person to discover how to activate the boxes was a farmer’s son in Bolivia. After he disassembled the wooden box the trinkets were sent in, he noticed a strange indentation in the top of the lid and placed his key inside. Once he posted his discovery on YouTube, people across the globe were inserting their key in the notch, activating a hidden hologram chip embedded in the key’s handle. This beamed a message. Two silver words. One date. They’re coming. May 30, 2005 By the time Mr. Masrani held his press conference the next day, the entire world was buzzing about the possibility of a new park and a chance to get close to the dinosaurs. Both of the islands had been restricted for so long, it was the only thing anyone could talk about. It’s one of those things you compare notes on with other people: Where were you when Masrani announced Jurassic World?

In this spirit, one key methodological guideline would be: if you want to understand contemporary media technological culture, look at its science and military contexts, instead of the content of what is consumed as entertainment media.

We need to ask ourselves: how do we keep such a transdisciplinary spirit of curiosity and intellectual radicality alive and updated in a situation in which university degrees are being reduced to only being ‘qualifications’ for particular jobs?

Steam punk is also a good symbol for the media-archaeological spirit of thinking the new and the old in parallel lines, and cultivating enthusiasm for media, technology and science through aesthetics, politics and other fields of critical inquiry.

The aesthetic tactics and various ‘minor’ methods such as circuit bending, hardware tinkering and so forth are important links to a wider activist stance towards technical media.

In other words, media critique is not only about saying things, it is about design and materiality – doing critique in an alternative fashion, against the grain, so to speak (see Lovink 2003: 11). Through such material existence, the media-archaeological work puts the spectator/user/viewer into a new relation with the imaginary, and hence forces us to engage creatively with the presence of media – new and old, imagined and real.