Variable Format: Media Poetics and the Little Database
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University of Pennsylvania ScholarlyCommons Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations 1-1-2015 Variable Forrmat: Media Poetics and the Little Database Daniel Scott nelS son University of Pennsylvania, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations Part of the Communication Commons, Comparative Literature Commons, and the History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons Recommended Citation Snelson, Daniel Scott, "Variable Forrmat: Media Poetics and the Little aD tabase" (2015). Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations. 2028. http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2028 This paper is posted at ScholarlyCommons. http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2028 For more information, please contact [email protected]. Variable Forrmat: Media Poetics and the Little aD tabase Abstract This dissertation explores the situation of twentieth-century art and literature becoming digital. Focusing on relatively small online collections, I argue for materially invested readings of works of print, sound, and cinema from within a new media context. With bibliographic attention to the avant-garde legacy of media specificity and the little am gazine, I argue that the “films,” “readings,” “magazines,” and “books” indexed on a series of influential websites are marked by meaningful transformations that continue to shape the present through a dramatic reconfiguration of the past. I maintain that the significance of an online version of a work is not only transformed in each instance of use, but that these versions fundamentally change our understanding of each historical work in turn. Here, I offer the analogical coding of these platforms as “little ad tabases” after the little magazines that served as the vehicle of modernism and the historical avant-garde. Like the study of the full run of a magazine, these databases require a bridge between close and distant reading. Rather than contradict each other as is often argued, in this instance a combined macro- and microscopic mode of analysis yields valuable information not readily available by either method in isolation. In both directions, the social networks and technical protocols of database culture inscribe the limits of potential readings. Bridging the material orientation of bibliographic study with the format theory of recent media scholarship, this work constructs a media poetics for reading analog works situated within the windows, consoles, and networks of the twenty- first century. Degree Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Graduate Group English First Advisor Charles Bernstein Keywords Cinema Studies, Format Studies, Media Studies, Periodical Studies, Poetry and Poetics, Sound Studies Subject Categories Communication | Comparative Literature | History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology This dissertation is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/edissertations/2028 VARIABLE FORMAT: MEDIA POETICS AND THE LITTLE DATABASE Daniel Scott Snelson A DISSERTATION in English Presented to the Faculties of the University of Pennsylvania in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2015 Supervisor of Dissertation Signature: _____________________ Charles Bernstein Donald T. Regan Professor of English and Comparative Literature Graduate Group Chairperson Signature: _____________________ Melissa E. Sanchez Associate Professor; Graduate Chair Dissertation Committee Jean-Michel Rabaté, Professor of English and Comparative Literature Al Filreis, Kelly Family Professor of English Craig Dworkin, Professor of English (University of Utah) ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii None of the formats discussed in this document can compete with the losses accumulated in the compression of my gratitude to this page. Beyond the document, I have been privileged to undergo innumerable transformations produced within a rich network of colleagues, friends, and family members that defies description on all levels. Despite these technical limitations, first and last, I cannot attempt to begin the computation of any thanks without the name Mashinka Firunts, with whom I have lived in collaboration over the past five years, on and off the page. Her keen editorial eye improved every passage, her conversations enhanced every idea, and her love continues to inspire all the meaning to my world. None of what follows would exist—in any format—without her. My gratitude to the committee overseeing this dissertation precedes the graduate study I have been fortunate to enjoy in their company. Before my admittance to Penn (and after inspiring my thought on the deepest levels, scholarly and otherwise), Charles Bernstein graciously welcomed me to PennSound and the world of active editorial engagement that forms the core of this dissertation. Beyond this, his unwavering support and incalculable kindnesses have laid the conditions of possibility for my work in ways I cannot now fathom. These conditions have been graciously confirmed and greatly expanded by the indefatigable Al Filreis, who gave me the freedom to experiment at the Kelly Writers House and, more importantly, kept me on track when I most needed it. This track would never have been found without the support of Jean-Michel Rabaté, with whom I have had the pleasure of interlocution across two universities and within the pages of many more periodicals. Finally, these thanks extend back to 2004, when Craig Dworkin introduced me to poetry and poetics, to scanners and magazines, to the grace and the benevolence of a mentor and a comrade. Since that time, the only thing that Craig has shaped more profoundly than my thinking is my faith in the potential for kinship within the academy. As if the compression of the preceding paragraphs were not extreme enough, I must beg the forgiveness of friends and colleagues whose thanks must remain highly compressed here. For example, it’s not possible to outline the ways in which James Hoff, Kareem Estefan, Tan Lin, Alejandro Crawford, Jessica Lowenthal, Kenny Goldsmith, Josephine Park, Zach Lesser, Tsitsi Jaji, Kazys Varnelis, Kaja Silverman, Steve McLaughlin, and Mark Johnson have shaped these pages, directly and indirectly. Further gratitude is owed to the editors that have hosted versions of these chapters and codas elsewhere: including Michael Nardone, Jason Camlot, and Darren Wershler at Amodern; Sam Hart at Avant Magazine; Alex Klein at the ICA Philadelphia; Gordon Faylor at Gauss PDF; and João Enxuto, who pieced together “Flash Artifacts” with me in 2009. Above all, my most sincere gratitude is due to Avi Alpert, whose friendship and collaboration have transformed my understanding of what either of these words might mean. This dissertation begins where I did: in Utah. Without the love and encouragement of my family—Sammy, Kristi, Luann, Scott, LesLee, Jayla, and Kylie—I would never have found my way beyond the Wasatch Front. This family has grown to include Sona Hakopian and David Arzumanyan, for whom большое спасибо could never be enough. Above all, first and last, this dissertation is dedicated, as am I, to Mashinka. ABSTRACT iii VARIABLE FORMAT: MEDIA POETICS AND THE LITTLE DATABASE Daniel Scott Snelson Charles Bernstein This dissertation explores the situation of twentieth-century art and literature becoming digital. Focusing on relatively small online collections, I argue for materially invested readings of works of print, sound, and cinema from within a new media context. With bibliographic attention to the avant-garde legacy of media specificity and the little magazine, I argue that the “films,” “readings,” “magazines,” and “books” indexed on a series of influential websites are marked by meaningful transformations that continue to shape the present through a dramatic reconfiguration of the past. I maintain that the significance of an online version of a work is not only transformed in each instance of use, but that these versions fundamentally change our understanding of each historical work in turn. Here, I offer the analogical coding of these platforms as “little databases” after the little magazines that served as the vehicle of modernism and the historical avant- garde. Like the study of the full run of a magazine, these databases require a bridge between close and distant reading. Rather than contradict each other as is often argued, in this instance a combined macro- and microscopic mode of analysis yields valuable information not readily available by either method in isolation. In both directions, the social networks and technical protocols of database culture inscribe the limits of potential readings. Bridging the material orientation of bibliographic study with the format theory of recent media scholarship, this work constructs a media poetics for reading analog works situated within the windows, consoles, and networks of the twenty-first century. CONTENTS iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................................ ii ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... iii INTRODUCTION: Variable Formats for the Study of Little Databases ................................................ 1 CHAPTER 1: Textwarez: The Executable Files of Textz.com .................................................... 25 CHAPTER 2: Distributing Services: Periodical Preservation and Eclipse .................................. 59 CHAPTER 3: Live Vinyl MP3: Echo Chambers Among the