Materializing New Media: Embodiment in Information Aesthetics

253 Pages·2006·2 MB·English

by  Anna Munster

materializing new media
INTERFACES:Studies in Visual Culture
Editors Mark J. Williams and Adrian W. B. Randolph, Dartmouth College
This series, sponsored by Dartmouth College Press, develops and promotes the study
of visual culture from a variety of critical and methodological perspectives. Its impetus
derives from the increasing importance of visual signs in everyday life, and from the
rapid expansion of what are termed “new media.” The broad cultural and social dynam-
ics attendant to these developments present new challenges and opportunities across
and within the disciplines. These have resulted in a trans-disciplinary fascination with
all things visual, from “high” to “low,” and from esoteric to popular. This series brings
together approaches to visual culture—broadly conceived—that assess these dynamics
critically and that break new ground in understanding their effects and implications.
Recent books in this series
Anna Munster, Materializing New Media: Embodiment in Information Aesthetics
Luc Pauwels, ed., Visual Cultures of Science: Rethinking Representational Practices in
Knowledge Building and Science Communication
Lisa Saltzman and Eric Rosenberg, eds., Trauma and Visuality in Modernity
For the complete list of books in this series, please visit www.upne.com and
www.upne.com/series/IVSS.html
materializing new media
embodiment in information aesthetics
anna munster
dartmouth college press
hanover, new hampshire
published by university press of new england
hanover and london
Dartmouth College Press
Published by University Press of New England,
One Court Street, Lebanon, NH 03766
www.upne.com
© 2006 by Anna Munster
Printed in the United States of America
5 4 3 2 1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Munster, Anna.
Materializing new media : embodiment in information aesthetics / Anna Munster.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(Interfaces, studies in visual culture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN–13: 978–1–58465–557–2 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN–10: 1–58465–557–7 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN–13: 978–1–58465–558–9 (pbk. : alk paper)
ISBN–10: 1–58465–558–5 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Computers and civilization. I. Title. II. Series.
QA76.9.C66M86 2006
303.48(cid:2)33—dc22 2005031080
For Michele

contents
List of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: The Body in the Machine 1
1 Sampling and Folding: The Digital and the Baroque 25
2 Natural History and Digital History 55
3 Virtuality: Actualizing Bodies, Abstracting Selves 86
4 Interfaciality: From the Friendly Face of Computing to the
Alien Terrain of Informatic Bodies 117
5 Digitality: An Ethico-Aesthetic Paradigm for Information 150
Postscript: Emerging Tendencies in Embodied Information Aesthetics 178
Notes 187
Bibliography 211
Index 225

illustrations
figure 1
Frontispiece to Ferrante Imperato, Historia Naturalae(Venice, 1672). 12
figure 2
Stelarc, Ear on Arm(2003). 20
figure 3
Juan de Valdés Leal, The Assumption of the Virgin(1659), oil on canvas. 46
figure 4
An example of a “patch” written using the MAX/MSP
programmingenvironment. 49
figure 5
Pockets Full of Memoriesvisual map (2005) by George Legrady. 59
figure 6
Attributes screen of Pockets Full of MemoriesQuestionnaire
(2001) by George Legrady. 59
figure 7
Frontispiece to Olaus Worm, Museum Wormianum Seu Historia
Rerum Rarariorum(1655). 74
figure 8
Table xlv in James Petiver, Opera Historiam Naturalem Spectantia
or Gazophylacium,vol. 1 (1764). 75
figure 9
Screenshot of the “petri” interface from 1:1by Lisa Jevbratt
and c5 (1999). 83
figure 10
Screenshot of the “every” interface from 1:1by Lisa Jevbratt and c5
(2001 and ongoing). 84
figure 11
Installation shot of The Virtual Bodyby Catherine Richards (1993). 87
figure 12
Screenshots of BorderXing Guideby Heath Bunting (2001). 105
figure 13
A participant interacts with Anatomically Lifelike Interactive
Biological Interface (ALIBI) from “The Madhouses: 2001–2004.
Pandaemonium,” by Alan Dunning and Paul Woodrow. 107
figure 14
Virtual Environment Workstation Project at NASA-Ames
Research Center. 110
figure 15
David Rokeby in Very Nervous System(1986–90). The interface
is installed in a street in Potsdam. 119
figure 16
Screenshot of Memory Flesh 2.0: A Micro Media Record(2004)
by Diane Ludin. 121
figure 17
Stelarc, Skin for Prosthetic Head(2002). 131
ix