History and Philosophy of Media 2012 Seminar 10

1. MECM90015 History and Philosophy of Media 2012
10. Mediation and Media Formations

2. The matters of true philosophical interest at
this point in history are those in which Hegel,
agreeing with tradition, expressed his
disinterest. They are non-conceptuality,
individuality and particularity . . . a matter of
urgency to the concept would be what it fails
to cover, what its abstractionist mechanism
eliminates, what is not already a case of the
concept.
(Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 8)

3. PROBLEMS OF DISTRIBUTION
AMATEUR included
REFUGEE excluded
GOVERNANCE/DESIGN included
‘DEAD LABOUR’ excluded

4. (needed because of normativity [eg arithmetic enumera-
Renewal of The Economic tion {commodity}, actuarial averaging {biopolitics}] and
falling rate of profit)
premised on including rights to property and to secrecy
Politico-Legal
renewal of (two expressions of PRIVATION)
through Objects (opposite of
recognition of COMMUNICATION,
required for
RECOGNITION)
(previously
of government as
deprived of role as
subjects of politics:
non-human
non-living Subjects
dead)
PROBLEMS OF ORDER

5. QUESTIONS OF ETHICS
if admitting new subjects creates a new polity . . . what kind of subjects do we
wish to become?
what is the Good which we wish a renewed polity to achieve?
Flow subjected to Order
(primordial connectivity) produces
Privation or Communication
eg intellecttual property

6. ‘One may not cast a picture of utopia in a
positive manner . . . And insofar as we are
not allowed to cast the picture
of utopia, insofar as we do not
know what the correct thing
would be, we know exactly, to
be sure, what the false thing is
. . . What is really important,
however, is the will that it be
different ‘ Theodor Adorno,
‘Something’s Missing’ 10, 12.
‘Hope is not confidence. If it
could not be disappointed, it
would not be hope . . . hope is
critical and can be disappointed’
Ernst Bloch, ‘Something’s Missing’ 16-17,
The Utopian Function of Art and Literature

7. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a
nightmare on the brains of the living - Karl Marx
VIRTUAL ACTUAL
Those who do not understand history are
condemned to repeat it - George Santayana

8. INSTRUMENTALITY
PRODUCTION
TECHNE
ge
Te
s
MEMORY
Us
AUTONOMY
gie
an
chn
e
TRADITION/FIXED CAPITAL
ch
lo
Ex
no
iqu
ch
MEDIA
es
Te
MATTER-ENERGY
Economies
DISTRIBUTION Attention AUDIENCING
PHYSIS
Projective
VIRTUAL-ACTUAL
SPACE-TIME EMERGENCE-ENTROPY VECTOR
TECHNE
STATE
CITIZEN -SUBJECT
MEDIATION
(Becoming Human)
Co
te
mm
iva
o
POLIS
Pr
n
Subjective Objective
DRIVE-INSTINCT DEMAND-OBJECT
CUT
Sean Cubitt 2012
Public PIXEL
PHYSIS POLIS
MARKET NETWORK
CONSUMER-PROSUMER MIGRANT-NATIVE