The Dead Media Handbook, literally
Garnet Hertz, 8 November 2007
These are research notes based on thinking through the literal construction of "The Dead Media Handbook", a book envisioned by Bruce Sterling in 1995.
This is being done as a dissertation proposal under the auspices (and with the support of) the Visual Studies PhD Program (Media Studies) at the University of California Irvine. See Preparing and Writing Your Visual Studies Prospectus or Destination Dissertation (Foss/Waters) as example guides. For background on Garnet Hertz's PhD logistics, see http://www.conceptlab.com/uci/phd/
Project Objectives/Focus
- Major interest in discipline: media technology and new / old, obsolescence / revivial, marginal and experimental media technologies
- Motivations: Behind the wake of "new media" is the massive (and often more interesting) residue of obsolescence. A language for articulating complex dynamics of media change is needed. Obsolete forms of media technologies articulate valuable metaphors for understanding media change as a whole. The Dead Media Handbook is a document that has been envisioned since 1995 that has not been completed.
- Texts most interested in exploring/confronting:
- Geoffrey Pinagree and Lisa Gitelman, "Introduction: What's New about New Media?" from New Media 1740-1915 (2003)
- David Thorburn and Henry Jenkins, "Introduction: Toward an Aesthetics of Transition" from Rethinking Media Change (2003)
- Lauren Rabinovitz and Abraham Geil, "Introduction" from Memory Bytes (2004)
- Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, "Did Somebody Say New Media?" from New Media, Old Media (2006)
- Bruce Sterling, "Dead Media Manifesto" (1995)
- Siegfried Zielinski, Deep Time of the Media: Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means (2006)
- Carolyn Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking about Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century (1988)
- Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium Is the Message" (Understanding Media, 1964)
- Charles Acland, "Residual Media" (Residual Media, 2007)
- Alexander Stille, "Are We Losing Our Memory? Or The Museum of Obsolete Technology" (The Future of the Past, 2002)
- Duguid, "Material Matters: Aspects of the past and futurology of the book"
- Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation (MIT Press)
- Gartner Inc., "Understanding Gartner's Hype Cycles"
- Hankins & Silverman, "Instruments and the Imagination". Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995
- Devices of Wonder : From the World in a Box to Images on a Screen (Getty Trust Publications: Getty Research Institute for the History of Art and the Humanities) -- Barbara Maria Stafford, Frances Terpak, Isotta Poggi
- Deep Time of the Media : Toward an Archaeology of Hearing and Seeing by Technical Means (Electronic Culture: History, Theory, and Practice) - Siegfried Zielinski
- Audiovisions : Cinema and Television as Entr'actes in History (Amsterdam University Press - Film Culture in Transition) - Siegfried Zielinski
- Laws of Media: The New Science - Marshall McLuhan
- Zielinski, "An Anarchaeology of Hearing and Seeing Through Technical Means"
- Zielinski, "Media Archaeology"
- Huhtamo
- General research question: What metaphors can obsolete/dead mediaforms bring to the construction of an articulate language of old/new media? or:
- In what ways do so-called obsolete media technologies reinvent themselves in thier decline? (not "residual" but "reinvented")
- What is the language of old/new media? (analog/digital)
- Catch-up.
- Steampunk.
- Present retro-futurism
- Neo-retro / retro-neo
- "Googie" media
- Present past-future
- Reverse-skeuomorphism, Inverse-skeuomorphism
- Trailing edge innovation, trailing edge ghasp
- Forward-looking backwardness.
- Old/new school.
- What metaphors (and examples from obsolete media forms) characterize the dynamics between new/old (digital/analog) media?
- Mechanical versus Digital
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Rework this question to:
- clearly identify a theoretical construct - YES, but needs clarification (language of old/new media)
- contain some suggestion of recognizability of the theoretical construct - WAY TOO BROAD
- have transendence of data - YES
- identifying how this research contributes to an understanding of the theoretical construct - YES
- have the capacity to surprise - YES
- have robustness - YES
- Method of data collection: Media archaeology (to be defined)
- Method of data analysis: TBD
Outline
- Introduction (20 pages)
- Background - The Dead Media Project
- Interviews with Bruce Sterling, Richard Kadrey and Tom Jennings
- "always imagined and proclaimed to be the cutting edge, the state of the art, and they were generally unveiled in a state of wild enthusiasm and a furious drumbeat from the press. They died because of contingency, not destiny." http://student.vfs.com/~deadmedia/speech.htm
- Definitions: "media", "necronaut", "media archaeology", "dead".
- Destroying "the Whig version of technological history" ('hagiographic', 'internalist', 'triumphalist', 'positivist', 'progressivism'.)
- Theories of Media Change
- Photostereosynthesis (40 pages)
- Theme: Visuals/Graphics
- Concept: Trajectories, Interdisciplinarity, Institutional Modes of Representation
- Example: 1910-1920s photostereosynthesis technique by Loius Lumiere
- Argument: Lumiere's film work as an exploration of depth
- Post-digital electro-mechanical handheld video games (40 pages)
- Theme: Mechanics
- Concept: Catch-up "pre-obsolete" media, old schools of technology (media) re-inventing themselves in creative ways after a paradigm shift.
- Examples: Tomy electro-mechanical videogames: Blip (1977), Hit And Missile, Digital Derby (1978), Digital Diamond (1978), Digital Daredevil (1980), Compu-Bowl, and possibly Tomy's "Pocket Arcade" series.
- Argument: New media reverberates in and through old media.
- Pigeon Post (40 pages)
- Theme: Interface
- Concept: Residual Media
- Background: Animal/Machine (Master's Thesis)
- Examples: RFC 1149, http://www.pigeon.org/pigeons_in_war.htm
- Argument: Obsolete media doesn't die, it just shifts. ("Obsolete for whom")
- Conclusion: Rethinking Taxonomy of Dead Media, Extensions (20 pages)
THE DEAD MEDIA PROJECT ARCHIVE
THE DEAD MEDIA PROJECT, CATEGORICAL LISTING OF WORKING NOTES
(This is taken directly from http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/index-cat.html)
As-yet unclassified
"Childrens" media
Mechanical calculating or measuring (is this media?!)
Anachronisms
18th/19th century contrivances with foolish names (usually inventor ego-stroking)
Electrical/electronic aural
Electrical/electronic symbolic information systems including codes
Electrical/electronic tele-communications (non-internet)
Electrical/electronic visual
Electrical/electronic writing systems (broadly defined)
Obviously foolish technology misuse (aka boy-with-hammer syndrome)
Historical revisionism
Metahistorical
23.8 Definitions and Connections
23.9 Definitions and Connections
24.6 Dead Media 1897: The Consumer Context
30.6 Age-Specific Media
37.9 Media History as Contingency
44.8 Dead Media Collectors
Victims of Moore's Law
Non or pre-computer technological symbolic machinery
Non-electrical/electronic aural
Non-electrical/electronic visual
Pre-industrial-age communication
Physical transport "media" (movement of objects)
Writing systems (NOTA)
- 34.4 Barlow's Potatograph
- 40.1 Bibliocadavers
- 02.5 Copy Press, the Hektograph, Edison's Electric Pen, Zuccato's Trypograph, Gestetner's Cyclostyle, Dick-Edison Mimeograph, Gammeter aka Multigraph, Varityper, IBM Selectric
- 24.4 Edison Electric Pen Stencil
- 13.2 Edison Electric Pen, pneumatic pen, magnetic pen, and foot-powered pen
- 18.5 Popular fiction formats
- 24.5 Poster Stamps
- 33.1 Ramelli's Book Wheel
- 33.2 Ramelli's Book Wheel
- 40.8 Spirit Duplicators
- 26.2 Tattoos as media
- 18.6 library card catalog
- 18.7 library card catalog
Not 'dead media'
Money
Electronic computers and calculators
- 19.1 Baby Mark I Computer
- 11.0 CHIPS: Dead Software, Dead Platforms
- 01.7 Comparator; Rapid Selector
- 36.8 Computer Game Designer Dies Young, But Outlives Own Games
- 28.3 Computer Game Emulators
- 08.3 Computer Games Are Dead (Part 1)
- 08.4 Computer Games Are Dead (Part 2)
- 08.5 Computer Games Are Dead (Part 3)
- 08.6 Computer Games Are Dead (Part 4)
- 27.1 Computer Jukebox
- 14.8 Computer Museum History Center; the Adidas Micropacer, the Whirlwind flight simulator, the Apricot Xi, the Cray NTDS
- 48.5 Computer media becomes obsolete
- 41.4 Dead Binary Digital Computer (The Manchester Small Scale Experimental Machine--"The Baby")
- 21.9 Dead Computer Operating Systems
- 18.8 Dead Digital Documents (Part One)
- 18.9 Dead Digital Documents (Part Two)
- 29.8 Dead Digital Documents
- 32.4 Dead Digital Documents
- 11.3 Dead Personal Computers and Typewriters: Some Recommended Books
- 00.5 Dead Personal Computers
- 00.6 Dead computational platforms, dead mainframes, and their dates
- 00.9 Dead computer languages
- 03.7 Dead memory systems
- 37.1 Dead supercomputers become furniture
- 28.4 Mattel Intellivision I/II/III, Tandyvision One, Super Video Arcade, Mattel Entertainment Computer System, INTV System III/IV, and Super Pro System
- 28.5 Mattel Intellivision I/II/III, Tandyvision One, Super Video Arcade, Mattel Entertainment Computer System, INTV System III/IV, and Super Pro System
- 47.1 Mechanical Memories (rotating disk, movable pins)
- 12.6 Nintendo Virtual Boy, the Logitech Cyberman 3D mouse, the Nintendo Power Glove
- 19.0 Officially Deleted Digital Documents
- 46.3 Old Hard Drives
- 46.2 Radio Shack TRS-80 Model 100
- 49.2 Recycling obsolete computer hardware II (Redundant Technology Initiative)
- 48.9 Recycling obsolete computer hardware
- 45.4 Shoup and Smith on early computer 'paint' systems, NASA Date: Thu, Jan 6, 2000, 07:52 PM
- 26.9 Typewriter Ribbon Tins Revived by Computer
- 42.3 Wind-Up Powerbook
- 42.3 Wind-Up Powerbook
- 03.4 Zuse Ziffernrechner; V1, Z1, Z2, Z3 and Z4 program-controlled electromechanical digital computers; the death of Konrad Zuse
Thomas Alva Edison
- 02.5 Copy Press, Hektograph, Edison's Electric Pen, Zuccato's Trypograph, Gestetner's Cyclostyle, Dick-Edison Mimeograph, Gammeter aka Multigraph, Varityper, IBM Selectric
- 24.4 Edison Electric Pen Stencil
- 13.3 Edison Electric Pen, Reed pen, and Music Ruling Pen
- 13.4 Edison Electric Pen
- 14.4 Edison Wax Cylinder
- 16.0 Edison's Vertical-Cut Records
- 46.8 Undead Media - The Edison Stock Ticker
Internet related (tread carefully here)
The magic-lantern and variants
Camera obscura and variants
Panorama (more of a cultural phenomenon than a medium, per se)
Telephony
- 03.2 Phonographic Dolls
- 03.8 Kinetophone; "Kinetophone Project"
- 04.8 Miniature Recording Phonograph, Neophone Records, Poulsen's Telegraphone, Multiplex Grand Graphophone and Photophone.
- 06.8 Popular Science 1932: Naumburg's Visagraph, Electric Eye Linotype, Ordering Music by Phone
- 07.8 PhoneVision
- 09.5 Museum of the Moving Image: Jenkins Radiovisor, Bell Picture Telephone, RGA/Oxberry CompuQuad,
- 09.6 Theatrophone; electrophone
- 09.7 Theatrophone; electrophone
- 10.1 Telephonic Jukeboxes: Shyvers Multiphone, Phonette Melody Lane, AMI Automatic
- 12.4 Theatrophone, electrophone
- 16.2 Flame Organ; Burning Harmonica; Chemical Harmonica; Kastner's Pyrophone
- 16.5 Phonograph History Part 1
- 16.6 Phonograph History Part 2
- 16.7 Phonograph History Part 3
- 25.2 Mobile Cavalry Telephone
- 21.3 Mechanical and string telephony
- 21.5 Mechanical Telephony
- 28.2 Organetta, Organette, Aurephone, Cecilla, Organina Cabineto, Tournaphone, Cabinetto, Melodia, Musical Casket, Gately Automatic Organ, Tanzbar, Seraphone, and Celestina
- 30.7 AT&T Telephotography; AT&T Picturephone
- 31.7 Phonovid Vinyl Video
- 39.2 Flowers's Phonoscribe; Flowers's Phonetic Alphabet
- 43.6 Acoustic telephone
- 45.8 Telegraphone
Photography and non-electrical/electronic still-image recording and reproduction
Pigeons pigeons pigeons!
Pneumatic tubes
Radio
Sirens and large-scale public aural signals
Electronic musical
Telegraphy
- 19.5 Bain's Facsimile Telegraphy
- 38.2 British Foreign Office Abandons Telegrams
- 19.3 Caselli's Pantelegraph (Part One)
- 19.4 Caselli's Pantelegraph (Part Two)
- 20.5 Fire Alarms, Burglar Alarms, Railroad-Signal Systems, Hotel Annunciators, District Messenger Services
- 02.6 Military Telegraphy, Balloon Semaphore
- 02.7 Mirror Telegraphy: The Heliograph, the Helioscope, the Heliostat, the Heliotrope
- 32.9 Optical Telegraphy; Heliography
- 32.0 State-supported dead media; causes of media mortality; Roman relay runners, Mongol horse post, Polybius's fire signals, British Naval Howe Code, Pony Express, Aztec signals, optical telegraphy
- 20.4 Telegraph: Bain's Chemical Telegraph, the telegraph, quadruplex telegraph, House's Printing Telegraph, Hughes's Printing Telegraph, Phelps's Printing Telegraph, Bakewell's Fac Simile Telegraph, Dial Telegraph
- 20.7 Telegraph: Inductive Telegraphy
- 20.3 Telegraph: Morse Pendulum Instrument, Morse Register
- 22.2 Telegraph: Wheatstone's Telegraphic Meterometer; *Scientific American* Dead Media References 1867-1875
- 20.8 Telegraph
- 39.4 Telegraphic Paper Tape; Digital Paper Tape; Baudot Code; Dead Encoding Formats; ILLIAC; TTY
- 17.1 Telegraphy Bibliography
- 25.7 Telegraphy: Cablese, Wirespeak, Phillips Code, Morse Code
- 29.7 Telegraphy
- 22.4 Teleplex Morse Code Recorder
- 05.5 'Writing telegraph;' Gray's Telautograph; military telautograph; telewriter; the telescriber
- 08.0 Union telegraph balloons, Confederate microfilm
Television
Typewriter
Garnet Hertz, http://www.conceptlab.com