[-empyre-] new media theory as critical making: Jordan Crandall

[Renate Ferro]

Thanks Simon for the reminder about the early seeds of the internet.
As I mentioned in yesterday’s discussion post, for Geert Lovink world
politics and the military industrial complex is at the crux of new
media theory.  I do not believe he discounts the early evolutions of
the internet as I read it, but merely uses that point in time during
the late 20th century when perceived dreams for a networked
decentralized free-access internet is a cyber-naïve counter point to
the contemporary re-emergence of cold war political consciousness.
“Everything you have ever clicked on can and will be used against you.
In 2014 we have come full circle and returned to a world before 1984.”
Lovink distances his own views on new media theory from those of
Galloway, Thacker and Wark whose argument in their introduction in
Excommunication appears to be grounded in cross-disciplinary
intersections:

"....we want to argue that media theory is not a new link in the grand
chain of critical theory, literary criticism, cultural studies or
visual culture.  Rather, it exits the chain entirely, turning ninety
degrees away from these disciplines.  Moving orthogonally, media
theory intersects with art theory, screen theory, science studies, the
history of technology, and many other fields.  When addressing media
form, a number of different questions start to swell in importance,
questions about the technics, politics, and economics of certain
material layers of form."

If I might suggest that we take a look at Jordan Crandall.  Crandall’s
cross-disciplinary, politically centered art interventions whose
intersections between material making and cultural and identity
politics concretizes for me new ways to think about new media theory
and communication.  Take a look at his past work on surveillance and
war technologies (Homefront, Trigger and Heatseeking)
http://jordancrandall.com
and his most recent themes of masculinity and technology (Unmanned),
intimacy and collaboration (Version) http://version.org/
and experimentation and material investigation (AS&M fabrication lab )
http://humctr.ucsd.edu/actives/

But to get back to Galloway, Thacker and Wark, they posit new futures
in excommunication or the alien or in absolutely no communication at
all.
“…we pursue not so much a post-media condition but rather a non-media
condition, not so much the extensions of man but the exodus of man
from this world. Our task is not so much a reinvigorated humanism no
matter how complicated or qualified it might need to be, but rather
glimpse into the realm of the non-human.  We seek not so much a
blasphemy but a heresy, not so much a miscommunication but an
excommunication.”

Looking forward to what others of you think.
Links and information about the texts mentioned can be found in this
month’s introductory post.
http://lists.cofa.unsw.edu.au/pipermail/empyre/2014-May/007121.html

Renate




-- 

Renate Ferro
Visiting Assistant Professor of Art,
(contracted since 2004)
Cornell University
Department of Art, Tjaden Hall Office:  306
Ithaca, NY  14853
Email:   <rferro at cornell.edu>
URL:  http://www.renateferro.net
      http://www.privatesecretspubliclies.net
Lab:  http://www.tinkerfactory.net

Managing Co-moderator of -empyre- soft skinned space
http://empyre.library.cornell.edu/