A Geology of Media (Electronic Mediations) by Jussi Parikka

Media historical past is hundreds of thousands, even billions, of years outdated. that's the premise of this pioneering and provocative booklet, which argues that to thoroughly comprehend modern media tradition we needs to set out from fabric realities that precede media themselves—Earth’s heritage, geological formations, minerals, and effort. And to take action, writes Jussi Parikka, is to confront the profound environmental and social implications of this ubiquitous, yet rarely ephemeral, realm of modern day life.

Exploring the source depletion and fabric resourcing required for us to exploit our units to reside networked lives, Parikka grounds his research in Siegfried Zielinski’s broadly mentioned proposal of deep time—but takes it again millennia. not just are infrequent earth minerals and lots of different fabrics had to make our electronic media machines paintings, he observes, yet used and out of date media applied sciences go back to the earth as residue of electronic tradition, contributing to starting to be layers of poisonous waste for destiny archaeologists to consider. He exhibits that those fabrics has to be thought of along the usually harmful and exploitative hard work methods that refine them into the units underlying our probably digital or immaterial practices.

A Geology of Media demonstrates that the surroundings doesn't simply encompass our media cultural world—it runs via it, permits it, and hosts it in an period of remarkable weather swap. whereas taking a look backward to Earth’s far-off previous, it additionally appears to be like ahead to a extra expansive media theory—and, implicitly, media activism—to come.