A Peer-Reviewed Journal About POST-DIGITAL RESEARCH
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A Peer-Reviewed Journal About POST-DIGITAL RESEARCH Jamie Allen Morten Riis Christian Ulrik Andersen Eric Snodgrass Josephine Bosma Winnie Soon Christophe Bruno Bodil Marie Stavning James Charlton Thomsen Budhaditya Chattopadhyay Christian Ulrik Andersen, Florian Cramer Geoff Cox and Georgios Geoff Cox Papadopoulos (Eds.) Jonas Fritsch Robert Jackson Magnus Lawrie Alessandro Ludovico Georgios Papadopoulos Lotte Philipsen Søren Bro Pold Volume 3, Issue 1, 2014 ISSN 2245-7755 1 Contents Christian Ulrik Andersen, Geoff Cox, Georgios Papadopoulos Editorial: Postdigital Research 4 THE POST-DIGITAL CONDITION Florian Cramer What is ‘Post-digital’? 10 Eric Snodgrass Dusk to dawn: horizons of the digital/post-digital 26 Magnus Lawrie Trash Versionality for Post-Digital Culture 42 Robert Jackson Four Notes Towards Propaganda and the Post-Digital Symptom 56 Geoff Cox Prehistories of the Post-digital: Or, Some Old Problems with Post-anything 70 APPLICATIONS OF THE POST-DIGITAL Alessandro Ludovico Post-digital Publishing, Hybrid and Processual Objects in Print 78 Georgios Papadopoulos A Critical Engagement with Monetary Interfaces 86 Jonas Fritsch & Bodil Marie Stavning Thomsen An Ethology of Urban Fabric(s) 96 Josephine Bosma Post-Digital is Post-Screen: Arnheim’s Visual Thinking applied to Art in the Expanded Digital Media Field 106 Lotte Philipsen Who’s Afraid of the Audience? – Digital and Post-Digital Perspectives on Aesthetics 120 Budhaditya Chattopadhyay Object-Disoriented Sound: Listening in the Post-Digital Condition 132 POST-DIGITAL PRACTICE-BASED RESEARCH James Charlton On Remembering a Post-Digital Future 144 Christian Ulrik Andersen, Søren Bro Pold & Morten Suder Riis A Dialogue on Cassette Tapes and their Memories 156 Winnie Soon Post-digital approach: Rethinking Digital Liveness in ‘The Likes of Brother Cream Cat’ 168 Jamie Allen Critical Infrastructure 180 Christophe Bruno Psycho-Academic Dérive – a proposal 194 Contributors 198 A Peer-Reviewed Newspaper Journal About_ ISSN: 2245-7755 Editors: Christian Ulrik Andersen and Geoff Cox Published by: Digital Aesthetics Research Centre, Aarhus University Design: Mark Simmonds, Liverpool CC license: ‘Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike’ www.aprja.net EDITORIAL POSTDIGITAL RESEARCH Christian Ulrik Andersen, Geoff Cox, Georgios Papadopoulos APRJA Volume 3, Issue 1, 2014 ISSN 2245-7755 CC license: ‘Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike’. EDITORIAL ‘Post-digital Research’ is the outcome of Building on shared impressions of the post- an extensive peer process. In August 2013 digital, a common vocabulary was developed a number of researchers responded to an that included a list of words considered good open call to participate in a research/Ph.D to use in their writings (those words that were workshop organized by Aarhus University shared), alongside a list of those that were and transmediale, Berlin. In advance of considered taboo (words that only had a sin- meeting, each participant prepared a short gle instance). Over the course of two days, all text addressing the notion of the post-digital, articles were rewritten and made more con- posted it online and commented upon each cise, and in addition a script was developed others’ contributions (postdigital.projects. to analyse how each text compared to the cavi.dk). The group then met at Kunsthal common working definition of the post-digital Aarhus in October, where they — in an on- (written by Florian Cramer). Another script going peer-review process — presented, (written by James Charlton) analysed all critiqued and further developed their writings. submitted images and compared them to the This included the invention of a common average of all images (displayed overleaf). working definition of the post-digital: Whereas the newspaper reflects the post-digital in relation to the changing condi- Post-digital, once understood as a tions of research in ‘the afterglow’ of a digital critical reflection of “digital” aesthetic revolution (related to the thematic framework immaterialism, now describes the of transmediale 2014, entitled “Afterglow”), messy and paradoxical condition of the peer-reviewed journal further reflects art and media after digital technology the developed arguments of the participants’ revolutions. “Post-digital” neither research in a lengthier academic format. recognizes the distinction between Although in many ways the post-digital “old” and “new” media, nor ideological “sucks but is useful” as Florian Cramer notes affirmation of the one or the other. It in his article, the journal takes it to be a seri- merges “old” and “new”, often applying ous concept that deserves our critical atten- network cultural experimentation to tion. The journal issue is divided into three analog technologies which it re- sections, that address the term itself, its ge- investigates and re-uses. It tends to nealogy and wider connotations, as well as focus on the experiential rather than its potential usefulness across different fields the conceptual. It looks for DIY agency (including art, acoustics, aesthetic theory, outside totalitarian innovation ideology, political economy and philosophy). Given and for networking off big data capital- that the term comes from practice, it also ism. At the same time, it already has addresses how the post-digital potentially become commercialized. operates as a framework for practice-based research that relate to material and historical Following this, the current issue of A conditions. As part of this, the journal includes Peer-reviewed Newspaper (Volume 3 Issue a commissioned artwork, Psychoacademic 1), and the current issue of A Peer-reviewed dérive by Christophe Bruno, to make com- Journal About Post-digital Research (Volume ment on the political economy of academic 3 issue 1) have been developed. The peer- citation. reviewed newspaper was developed as a ‘sprint’, where the group decided to rewrite Aarhus, February 2014 their contributions using a set of constraints. Overleaf: All images combined. 5 APRJA Volume 3, Issue 1, 2014 6 7 APRJA Volume 3, Issue 1, 2014 8 THE POST-DIGITAL CONDITION 9 Florian Cramer WHAT IS ‘POST-DIGITAL’? APRJA Volume 3, Issue 1, 2014 ISSN 2245-7755 CC license: ‘Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike’. Florian Cramer: WHAT IS ‘POST-DIGITAL’? forms of visual culture such as comic strips, Typewriters vs. imageboard they are anonymous creations — and as memes such, even gave birth to the now-famous Anonymous movement, as described by (Klok 16-19). Other important characteristics of imageboard memes are: creation by us- ers, disregard of intellectual property, viral dissemination among users, and potentially infinite repurposing and variation (through collage or by changing the text). As low- resolution images with small file sizes, they can be created and disseminated almost instantly, in contrast with the much slower creation, editing and distribution processes characteristic of traditional publishing media. The ‘digital’ imageboard meme portrays the ‘analog’ typewriter hipster as its own polar opposite — in a strictly technical sense however, even a mechanical typewriter is a digital writing system, as I will explain later in this text. also, the typewriter’s keyboard makes it a direct precursor of today’s per- sonal computer systems, which were used for typing the text of the imageboard meme in question. Yet in a colloquial sense, the Figure 1: “You’re not a real hipster – until you take typewriter is definitely an ‘analog’ machine, your typewriter to the park.” as it does not contain any computational electronics. In January 2013, a picture of a young man In 2013, using a mechanical typewriter typing on a mechanical typewriter while rather than a mobile computing device is, as sitting on a park bench went ‘viral’ on the the imageboard meme suggests, no longer popular website Reddit. The image was a sign of being old-fashioned. It is instead a presented in the typical style of an ‘image deliberate choice of renouncing electronic macro’ or ‘imageboard meme’ (Klok 16-19), technology, thereby calling into question with a sarcastic caption in bold white Impact the common assumption that computers, as typeface that read: “You’re not a real hipster meta-machines, represent obvious techno- — until you take your typewriter to the park”. logical progress and therefore constitute a The meme, which was still making logical upgrade from any older media tech- news at the time of writing this paper in nology — much in the same way as using late 2013 (Hermlin), nicely illustrates the rift a bike today calls into question the common between ‘digital’ and ‘post-digital’ cultures. assumption, in many Western countries Imageboard memes are arguably the best since World War II, that the automobile is example of a contemporary popular mass by definition a rationally superior means of culture which emerged and developed en- transportation, regardless of the purpose or tirely on the Internet. Unlike earlier popular context. 11 APRJA Volume 3, Issue 1, 2014 Typewriters are not the only media all-pervasive digital surveillance systems, which have recently been resurrected as this disenchantment has quickly grown from literally post-digital devices: other examples a niche ‘hipster’ phenomenon to a main- include vinyl records, and more recently also stream position — one which is likely to have audio cassettes, as well as analog photog- a serious impact on all cultural and business raphy and artists’ printmaking. And if one practices based on networked electronic examines the work of contemporary