The Digging Condition:The Material Turnin Digital Humanities

Jentery Sayers | University of Victoria | @jenterysayersFuture Knowledge Lecture | Center for Digital HumanitiesUniversity of South Carolina | 13 February 2015

Follow Along?

Slidedeck Online: jentery.github.io/sc Source Files: github.com/jentery/sc

The Maker Lab @UVic

Blending Media Studies with Experimental Methods Expand Digital Humanities beyond Text Sample of Work: maker.uvic.ca

Kits for Cultural History

Remaking Technologies We Cannot Access, That Never Existed, or No Longer Function Details: maker.uvic.ca/kch

Into the Classroom

Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI) Each June"Arguing with Computers" English Graduate SeminarDHum Sequence for Undergraduate Students across Disciplines e.g., Modelling and Printing 3D Objects + Prototyping Indie Games

Keys of MLab Culture

Tacit Knowledge and Collaboration (Including Fine Arts)Conjectural Criticism and Speculative Computing Repurpose the Adjacent Possible Start with What We Know Already (Feminist Hackerspaces)

Making Humanities Matter

What If We Understand Humanities Scholarship asBuilt, Creative, Assembled, Evocative, or Constructed?Call for Papers (Abstracts Due 3 April 2015)

Today

Material Turn in Digital Humanities Some Materialities in the Field "Digging Condition" Examples from Early Magnetic Recording

Ongoing Project

"Making the Perfect Record" with American LiteratureThe Digging Condition with University of Michigan Press

The Material Turn

Digital Media Are Not Ephemeral Info-Dust "more comprehensive treatment of the material particulars ofa given technology" (Kirschenbaum, Mechanisms)

Metaphorical Materiality

What We Talk about When We Talk about Media + Information Practice: Discourse, Writing, Worldview, Communication Examples: "Knots," "Durable," "Rotting," "Stitches," "Digging" See Bowker, Star, Latour

Procedural Materiality

Physical Processes Operating across Computing Systems Practice: Code, Platform, Hardware, and Software Studies Examples: Object-Oriented Histories of Gaming Systems See Bogost, Fuller, Montfort, Marino

Forensic Materiality

The Inscriptions and Matter Fundamental to New Media Practice: Textual Studies, Recovery, Versioning, Emulation Examples: Preserving Virtual Worlds See Kirschenbaum, Kraus, Reside, Lowood, Internet Archive

Withdrawn Materiality

Immanent to the Medium, Inaccessible by Us Practice: Antiquarianism, Computer Vision, Bots, Media Art Examples: Media Archaeology, Steampunk, New Aesthetic, OOO See Parikka, Huhtamo, Emerson, Ernst, Bridle

Glitch Materiality

Machine Interruption Inherent to Systems Practice: Bending, Modding, Exploits, Noise Examples: "It's not a bug; it's a feature." See Arcangel, Rodgers, Collins, Anthropy, Sample

Welded Materiality

Media as Matter and Event Structures the Senses Practice: Sensual Labor, Cinema, Spectacle Examples: The Attention Economy, Google AdSense See Beller, Debord, Kracauer, Frankfurt School

Landscape Materiality

The Topography of Big Data Practice: Scraping, Formatting, Slurping, Visualizing Examples: Distant Reading, Macroanalysis, Cultural Analytics See Moretti, Manovich, Jockers, Underwood

Learning from the Turn

Cannot Reduce Media to Concepts, Environments, or Discourse Anthropomorphism and Narrative Too Often Drive Method Objects of Inquiry Are Also Agents of Inquiry Consider an Ontology of Suspicion with Respect to the Subject Critique Need Not Be Negative or Secondary Humanities Research Can Privilege Surprise

Digging Condition

Object-Oriented in the Last Instance Extracting or Emulating History State of Wonder, Awe, or Whiz Bang Binary Thinking (e.g., Person or Machine)

"So, where are we left if everyone insists on being interested in materiality?" (Parikka, What Is Media Archaeology?)

Speculative Media

Blending Social and Object Orientation Entanglement of Subjects, Objects, and Materials How Object-Orientations Demand Cultural Imagination The Transduction of Material Culture (How This Becomes That) See Barad, Hayles, Rosner, Chun, Nowviskie, Kraus, Gitleman, Sterne

Object Lesson: Telegraphone

Three Perspectives

Social: An Effect to Render Listening Productive Object: A Machine in Constant Need of Operator Assistance Speculative: An Entanglement of Storage and Memory

Thank You

Jentery Sayers | University of Victoria | @jenterysayers

Special thanks to David Miller, Colin Wilder, and John Knox