Eigenvalue On the Gradual Contraction of Media in Movement; Contemplating Media in Art [Sound Image Sense]
Produktdetaljer
Biographical note
Hanjo Berressem is Professor of American Literature at the University of Cologne, Germany. His publications include Pynchon’s Poetics: Interfacing Theory and Text and Lines of Desire: Reading Gombrowicz’s Fiction with Lacan.What comes to replace and improve upon the idea of identity for a world of emergence, flux and multiplicity? What is the reference point for self-regulating processes in our complex systems? The answer is eigenvalues. In this exemplary work of study between disciplines, where science and art meet and cross-pollinate, Hanjo Berressem has given us the most thorough and inspirational explanation of one of the hidden keys to modern life.
James Williams, Honorary Professor of Philosophy, Deakin University, Australia
Hanjo Berressem's <i>Eigenvalue</i> is a bold new approach to the theory of the technological and the political unconscious, one that is not centered on the individual. <i>Eigenvalue</i> is structured as two explorations in book form - one on science, and one on literature. Ranging across quantum physics, cybernetics, and chaos theory in the first book, to Alvin Lucier on the acoustic unconscious, Bill Morrison on the visual unconscious, and Thomas Pynchon on narrative literature in the second, Professor Berressem both illustrates the resonance across science and poetics and develops extremely important new theoretical contributions to studies of the unconscious.
David Holdsworth, Associate Professor, Trent School for the Environment, Canada
Introduction
1. Mathematics
2. Physics
3. Cybernetics
4. Biology
5. Literary Studies
6. Cultural Studies
Conclusion
Overture
7. Eigenfrequencies - Alvin Lucier’s Composition “I am Sitting in a Room"
8. Eigenlight - Bill Morrison’s Film Light is Calling
9. Eigenmelody - Thomas Pynchon's Literary Works
Finale
Bibliography
Index
Media not only determine our situation, as Friedrich Kittler has it; rather, our situation, our life, our thoughts only enfold and execute themselves within the medial field in the first place. Film-Philosophy has already shown that 'film thinks'. If we take this a step further, relating this approach to the whole range of media production, but also take a step back, and see what this approach basically means, we begin to see the seeds of a new Media Philosophy worthy of the name - not talking about media by way of 'philosophy proper', safeguarding disciplinary boundaries, but by realizing the philosophical qualities and impacts of each medium: it all starts from the assumption that our memory, perception, and thinking is not just a given, as an internal process that takes place behind the wall of our skull and is purely mental - there is always a 'material basis' of mediation.
The thinking media series publishes original, innovative, and transdisciplinary monographs and edited collections that advance debates in the nexus of media studies, philosophy, and the 'new sciences' (such as cognitive neurosciences and complexity theory).