Media matter : the materiality of media, matter as medium /

"What is a medium? If Nietzsche was right in claiming that "our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts," that media help us "think," and if different media allow for different ways of thinking, then the "body" of the respective medium in question, its materiality, shapes and influences the range and direction of how media make us think. Shouldn't we consequently speak of informed matter and of materialized information?Launching Bloomsbury's Thinking Media series, Media Matter introduces readers to the nascent field of media-philosophy by a focus on cinema, especially appropriate because cinema has already inspired a philosophically oriented approach to media theory. Contributors urge readers to re-adjust their ideas of Media Studies, by both extending the understanding of "medium" in such a way as to include a concept of materiality that also includes "non-human" transmitters (elements such as water, earth, fire, air) and by understanding media not only in the context of cultural or discursive systems or apparatuses, relays, transistors, hardware or "discourse networks," but more inclusively, in terms of a "media ecology."Beginning with more general essays on media and then focusing on particular themes (neuroplasticity, photography, sculpture and music), especially in relation to film, Herzogenrath and contributors redefine the concept of "medium" in order to think through media, rather than from it"--"A materialist attempt to redefine the concept of "medium" by expanding it to include the elemental"--"What is a medium? If Nietzsche was right in claiming that "our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts," that media help us "think," and if different media allow for different ways of thinking, then the "body" of the respective medium in question, its materiality, shapes and influences the range and direction of how media make us think. Shouldn't we consequently speak of informed matter and of materialized information?Launching Bloomsbury's Thinking Media series, Media Matter introduces readers to the nascent field of media-philosophy by a focus on cinema, especially appropriate because cinema has already inspired a philosophically oriented approach to media theory. Contributors urge readers to re-adjust their ideas of Media Studies, by both extending the understanding of "medium" in such a way as to include a concept of materiality that also includes "non-human" transmitters (elements such as water, earth, fire, air) and by understanding media not only in the context of cultural or discursive systems or apparatuses, relays, transistors, hardware or "discourse networks," but more inclusively, in terms of a "media ecology."Beginning with more general essays on media and then focusing on particular themes (neuroplasticity, photography, sculpture and music), especially in relation to film, Herzogenrath and contributors redefine the concept of "medium" in order to think through media, rather than from it"--"A materialist attempt to redefine the concept of "medium" by expanding it to include the elemental"--Includes bibliographical references and index.Machine generated contents note: -- Media Matter: An IntroductionBernd Herzogenrath (Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany)Theory-MatterChapter 1: The Meta-Physics of MediaWalter Seitter (University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria)Chapter 2: Media Matter: Materiality and Performativity in Media TheoryKaterina Krtilova (Bauhaus-Universita;t Weimar, Germany)Text-MatterChapter 3: Between Print Matter and Page Matter: The Codex Platform as Media SuppoortGarrett Stewart (University of Iowa, USA)Chapter 4: 'Local Color': Light in Faulkner Hanjo Berressem (University of Cologne, France)Film-MatterChapter 5: Figure-Ground: Stills from the Films of Bill Morrison Bill Morrison (Hypnotic Pictures)Chapter 6: Matter that Images: Bill Morrison's Decasia,Bernd Herzogenrath (Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany)Chapter 7: Moving Images as Ontographic ImagesLorenz Engell (Bauhaus-Universita;t Weimar, Germany)Chapter 8: Brain Matter and New Phrenologies; Challenging Brains with Melancholy and Vice VersaBenjamin Betka (Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany)Chapter 9: The Media Boundary Objects Concept: Theorizing Film and Media Florian Hoof (Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany)Art-MatterChapter 10: Borderline: Nauman's Balls and Acconci's ShootEva Ehninger (University of Bern, Switzerland)Chapter 11: The Romantic Readymade: Towards a Material Vitalism of Contemporary ArtStephen Zepke (University of Applied Arts Vienna, Austria)Sound-MatterChapter 12: Revisiting the Voice in Media and as Medium: New Materialist PropositionsMilla Tiainen (University of Helsinki, Finland)Chapter 13: Sonic Matter: The Material Cut-Ups of Christian MarclaySebastian Scherer (Goethe-University Frankfurt, Germany)Chapter 14: Media Disenchantments Thomas Köner (Composer, Sound-Artist, Belgrade, Serbia, and Nice, France).Biltereyst, Danië