Deep Time of the Media

Deep Time of the Media

Author: Siegfried Zielinski

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2008-02-15

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 026274032X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A quest to find something new by excavating the "deep time" of media's development—not by simply looking at new media's historic forerunners, but by connecting models, machines, technologies, and accidents that have until now remained separated. Deep Time of the Media takes us on an archaeological quest into the hidden layers of media development—dynamic moments of intense activity in media design and construction that have been largely ignored in the historical-media archaeological record. Siegfried Zielinski argues that the history of the media does not proceed predictably from primitive tools to complex machinery; in Deep Time of the Media, he illuminates turning points of media history—fractures in the predictable—that help us see the new in the old. Drawing on original source materials, Zielinski explores the technology of devices for hearing and seeing through two thousand years of cultural and technological history. He discovers the contributions of "dreamers and modelers" of media worlds, from the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles and natural philosophers of the Renaissance and Baroque periods to Russian avant-gardists of the early twentieth century. "Media are spaces of action for constructed attempts to connect what is separated," Zielinski writes. He describes models and machines that make this connection: including a theater of mirrors in sixteenth-century Naples, an automaton for musical composition created by the seventeenth-century Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, and the eighteenth-century electrical tele-writing machine of Joseph Mazzolari, among others. Uncovering these moments in the media-archaeological record, Zielinski says, brings us into a new relationship with present-day moments; these discoveries in the "deep time" media history shed light on today's media landscape and may help us map our expedition to the media future.


Book Synopsis Deep Time of the Media by : Siegfried Zielinski

Download or read book Deep Time of the Media written by Siegfried Zielinski and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-02-15 with total page 391 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A quest to find something new by excavating the "deep time" of media's development—not by simply looking at new media's historic forerunners, but by connecting models, machines, technologies, and accidents that have until now remained separated. Deep Time of the Media takes us on an archaeological quest into the hidden layers of media development—dynamic moments of intense activity in media design and construction that have been largely ignored in the historical-media archaeological record. Siegfried Zielinski argues that the history of the media does not proceed predictably from primitive tools to complex machinery; in Deep Time of the Media, he illuminates turning points of media history—fractures in the predictable—that help us see the new in the old. Drawing on original source materials, Zielinski explores the technology of devices for hearing and seeing through two thousand years of cultural and technological history. He discovers the contributions of "dreamers and modelers" of media worlds, from the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles and natural philosophers of the Renaissance and Baroque periods to Russian avant-gardists of the early twentieth century. "Media are spaces of action for constructed attempts to connect what is separated," Zielinski writes. He describes models and machines that make this connection: including a theater of mirrors in sixteenth-century Naples, an automaton for musical composition created by the seventeenth-century Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, and the eighteenth-century electrical tele-writing machine of Joseph Mazzolari, among others. Uncovering these moments in the media-archaeological record, Zielinski says, brings us into a new relationship with present-day moments; these discoveries in the "deep time" media history shed light on today's media landscape and may help us map our expedition to the media future.

Explorers of Deep Time

Explorers of Deep Time

Author: Roy Plotnick

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2022-01-04

Total Pages: 483

ISBN-13: 0231551312

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Paleontology is one of the most visible yet most misunderstood fields of science. Children dream of becoming paleontologists when they grow up. Museum visitors flock to exhibits on dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. The media reports on fossil discoveries and new clues to mass extinctions. Nonetheless, misconceptions abound: paleontologists are assumed only to be interested in dinosaurs, and they are all too often imagined as bearded white men in battered cowboy hats. Roy Plotnick provides a behind-the-scenes look at paleontology as it exists today in all its complexity. He explores the field’s aims, methods, and possibilities, with an emphasis on the compelling personal stories of the scientists who have made it a career. Paleontologists study the entire history of life on Earth; they do not only use hammers and chisels to unearth fossils but are just as likely to work with cutting-edge computing technology. Plotnick presents the big questions about life’s history that drive paleontological research and shows why knowledge of Earth’s past is essential to understanding present-day environmental crises. He introduces readers to the diverse group of people of all genders, races, and international backgrounds who make up the twenty-first-century paleontology community, foregrounding their perspectives and firsthand narratives. He also frankly discusses the many challenges that face the profession, with key takeaways for aspiring scientists. Candid and comprehensive, Explorers of Deep Time is essential reading for anyone curious about the everyday work of real-life paleontologists.


Book Synopsis Explorers of Deep Time by : Roy Plotnick

Download or read book Explorers of Deep Time written by Roy Plotnick and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-04 with total page 483 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paleontology is one of the most visible yet most misunderstood fields of science. Children dream of becoming paleontologists when they grow up. Museum visitors flock to exhibits on dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. The media reports on fossil discoveries and new clues to mass extinctions. Nonetheless, misconceptions abound: paleontologists are assumed only to be interested in dinosaurs, and they are all too often imagined as bearded white men in battered cowboy hats. Roy Plotnick provides a behind-the-scenes look at paleontology as it exists today in all its complexity. He explores the field’s aims, methods, and possibilities, with an emphasis on the compelling personal stories of the scientists who have made it a career. Paleontologists study the entire history of life on Earth; they do not only use hammers and chisels to unearth fossils but are just as likely to work with cutting-edge computing technology. Plotnick presents the big questions about life’s history that drive paleontological research and shows why knowledge of Earth’s past is essential to understanding present-day environmental crises. He introduces readers to the diverse group of people of all genders, races, and international backgrounds who make up the twenty-first-century paleontology community, foregrounding their perspectives and firsthand narratives. He also frankly discusses the many challenges that face the profession, with key takeaways for aspiring scientists. Candid and comprehensive, Explorers of Deep Time is essential reading for anyone curious about the everyday work of real-life paleontologists.

Deep Time Reckoning

Deep Time Reckoning

Author: Vincent Ialenti

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-09-22

Total Pages: 205

ISBN-13: 0262539268

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A guide to long-term thinking: how to envision the far future of Earth. We live on a planet careening toward environmental collapse that will be largely brought about by our own actions. And yet we struggle to grasp the scale of the crisis, barely able to imagine the effects of climate change just ten years from now, let alone the multi-millennial timescales of Earth's past and future life span. In this book, Vincent Ialenti offers a guide for envisioning the planet's far future—to become, as he terms it, more skilled deep time reckoners. The challenge, he says, is to learn to inhabit a longer now. Ialenti takes on two overlapping crises: the Anthropocene, our current moment of human-caused environmental transformation; and the deflation of expertise—today's popular mockery and institutional erosion of expert authority. The second crisis, he argues, is worsening the effects of the first. Hearing out scientific experts who study a wider time span than a Facebook timeline is key to tackling our planet's emergency. Astrophysicists, geologists, historians, evolutionary biologists, climatologists, archaeologists, and others can teach us the art of long-termism. For a case study in long-term thinking, Ialenti turns to Finland's nuclear waste repository “Safety Case” experts. These scientists forecast far future glaciations, climate changes, earthquakes, and more, over the coming tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands or millions—of years. They are not pop culture “futurists” but data-driven, disciplined technical experts, using the power of patterns to construct detailed scenarios and quantitative models of the far future. This is the kind of time literacy we need if we are to survive the Anthropocene.


Book Synopsis Deep Time Reckoning by : Vincent Ialenti

Download or read book Deep Time Reckoning written by Vincent Ialenti and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2020-09-22 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A guide to long-term thinking: how to envision the far future of Earth. We live on a planet careening toward environmental collapse that will be largely brought about by our own actions. And yet we struggle to grasp the scale of the crisis, barely able to imagine the effects of climate change just ten years from now, let alone the multi-millennial timescales of Earth's past and future life span. In this book, Vincent Ialenti offers a guide for envisioning the planet's far future—to become, as he terms it, more skilled deep time reckoners. The challenge, he says, is to learn to inhabit a longer now. Ialenti takes on two overlapping crises: the Anthropocene, our current moment of human-caused environmental transformation; and the deflation of expertise—today's popular mockery and institutional erosion of expert authority. The second crisis, he argues, is worsening the effects of the first. Hearing out scientific experts who study a wider time span than a Facebook timeline is key to tackling our planet's emergency. Astrophysicists, geologists, historians, evolutionary biologists, climatologists, archaeologists, and others can teach us the art of long-termism. For a case study in long-term thinking, Ialenti turns to Finland's nuclear waste repository “Safety Case” experts. These scientists forecast far future glaciations, climate changes, earthquakes, and more, over the coming tens of thousands—or even hundreds of thousands or millions—of years. They are not pop culture “futurists” but data-driven, disciplined technical experts, using the power of patterns to construct detailed scenarios and quantitative models of the far future. This is the kind of time literacy we need if we are to survive the Anthropocene.

Deep Time

Deep Time

Author: David Darling

Publisher: First Edition Design Pub.

Published: 2013-05-14

Total Pages: 109

ISBN-13: 162287322X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What would it be like to see the whole history of the universe, from the moment of creation to the farthest future? Deep Time shows us - through the eyes of a single particle that emerges from the fires of genesis then journeys across countless billions of years to glimpse the ultimate fate of the cosmos. Along the way, we watch the formation of stars and galaxies, narrowly avoid falling into a black hole, witness the birth of the sun and earth, trace the evolution of life and intelligence, and blast off into space again with our particle now part of the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Then we travel on, across immense vistas of space and time, toward the end of all things - and a strange new beginning." David Darling is the author of about 50 books, including narrative science titles Megacatastrophes!, We Are Not Alone, Gravity's Arc, Equations of Eternity, a New York Times Notable Book, and Deep Time. He is also the author of Teleportation: The Impossible Leap, Zen Physics, The Universal Book of Astronomy, The Complete Book of Spaceflight, and The Universal Book of Mathematics, as well as more than 30 children's books. His articles and reviews have appeared in Astronomy, Omni, Penthouse, New Scientist, the New York Times, and the Guardian among others. He has lectured widely, including at the Royal Institution in London. David Darling was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, England, lived in the United States for many years, and now lives in Dundee, Scotland. He earned his B.Sc. in physics from Sheffield University in 1974 and his Ph.D. in astronomy from Manchester University in 1977. David Darling is also a professional singer/songwriter and runs a major science website. Please visit the Worlds of David Darling - www.daviddarling.info Keywords - Universe, Astrophysics, Astronomy, Particle, Space, Cosmos, Evolution, David Darling, Sun, Earth, Travel


Book Synopsis Deep Time by : David Darling

Download or read book Deep Time written by David Darling and published by First Edition Design Pub.. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 109 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What would it be like to see the whole history of the universe, from the moment of creation to the farthest future? Deep Time shows us - through the eyes of a single particle that emerges from the fires of genesis then journeys across countless billions of years to glimpse the ultimate fate of the cosmos. Along the way, we watch the formation of stars and galaxies, narrowly avoid falling into a black hole, witness the birth of the sun and earth, trace the evolution of life and intelligence, and blast off into space again with our particle now part of the Voyager 2 spacecraft. Then we travel on, across immense vistas of space and time, toward the end of all things - and a strange new beginning." David Darling is the author of about 50 books, including narrative science titles Megacatastrophes!, We Are Not Alone, Gravity's Arc, Equations of Eternity, a New York Times Notable Book, and Deep Time. He is also the author of Teleportation: The Impossible Leap, Zen Physics, The Universal Book of Astronomy, The Complete Book of Spaceflight, and The Universal Book of Mathematics, as well as more than 30 children's books. His articles and reviews have appeared in Astronomy, Omni, Penthouse, New Scientist, the New York Times, and the Guardian among others. He has lectured widely, including at the Royal Institution in London. David Darling was born in Glossop, Derbyshire, England, lived in the United States for many years, and now lives in Dundee, Scotland. He earned his B.Sc. in physics from Sheffield University in 1974 and his Ph.D. in astronomy from Manchester University in 1977. David Darling is also a professional singer/songwriter and runs a major science website. Please visit the Worlds of David Darling - www.daviddarling.info Keywords - Universe, Astrophysics, Astronomy, Particle, Space, Cosmos, Evolution, David Darling, Sun, Earth, Travel

Scenes from Deep Time

Scenes from Deep Time

Author: Martin J. S. Rudwick

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 1995-12-15

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 9780226731056

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

How did the earth look in prehistoric times? Scientists and artists collaborated during the half-century prior to the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species to produce the first images of dinosaurs and the world they inhabited. Their interpretations, informed by recent fossil discoveries, were the first efforts to represent the prehistoric world based on sources other than the Bible. Martin J. S. Rudwick presents more than a hundred rare illustrations from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to explore the implications of reconstructing a past no one has ever seen.


Book Synopsis Scenes from Deep Time by : Martin J. S. Rudwick

Download or read book Scenes from Deep Time written by Martin J. S. Rudwick and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1995-12-15 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did the earth look in prehistoric times? Scientists and artists collaborated during the half-century prior to the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species to produce the first images of dinosaurs and the world they inhabited. Their interpretations, informed by recent fossil discoveries, were the first efforts to represent the prehistoric world based on sources other than the Bible. Martin J. S. Rudwick presents more than a hundred rare illustrations from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to explore the implications of reconstructing a past no one has ever seen.

Deep Time

Deep Time

Author: Gregory Benford

Publisher: Harper Collins

Published: 2000-11-21

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0380793466

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Combining the logical rigor with the lyrical finesse of a novelist, award-winning author Gregory Benford explores these and other fascinating questions in this provocative analysis of humanity's attempts to make its culture immortal. In "Deep Time" he confronts our growing influence on events hundreds of thousands of years into the future and explores the possible "messeges" we may transmit to our distant descendants in the language of the planet itself, from nuclear waste to global warming to the extinction of species. As we begin our incredible journey down the path of eternity, Gregory Benford masterfully calls forth some of the intriguing, astounding, undreamed-of futures which may await us in deep time.


Book Synopsis Deep Time by : Gregory Benford

Download or read book Deep Time written by Gregory Benford and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2000-11-21 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Combining the logical rigor with the lyrical finesse of a novelist, award-winning author Gregory Benford explores these and other fascinating questions in this provocative analysis of humanity's attempts to make its culture immortal. In "Deep Time" he confronts our growing influence on events hundreds of thousands of years into the future and explores the possible "messeges" we may transmit to our distant descendants in the language of the planet itself, from nuclear waste to global warming to the extinction of species. As we begin our incredible journey down the path of eternity, Gregory Benford masterfully calls forth some of the intriguing, astounding, undreamed-of futures which may await us in deep time.

Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance

Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance

Author: Nele Wynants

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Published: 2019-01-12

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9783319995755

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book develops media archaeological approaches to theatre and intermediality. As an age-old art form, theatre has always embraced ‘new’ media. To create theatrical effects and optical illusions, theatre makers were ready to integrate state-of-the-art technics and technologies, and by doing so they playfully explored and popularized scientific knowledge on mechanics, optics and sound for live audiences. This book highlights this obvious but often overlooked relation between media developments and the history of intermedial theater. By considering the interplay between present intermedial performances and their archaeological traces, the authors assembled here revisit old and often forgotten media approaches and theatre technologies. This archaeology is understood less as the discovery of a forgotten past than as the establishment of an active relationship between past and present. Rather than treating archaeological remains as representative tokens of a fragmented past that need to be preserved, the authors stress the return of the past in the present, but in a different, performative guise.


Book Synopsis Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance by : Nele Wynants

Download or read book Media Archaeology and Intermedial Performance written by Nele Wynants and published by Palgrave Macmillan. This book was released on 2019-01-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book develops media archaeological approaches to theatre and intermediality. As an age-old art form, theatre has always embraced ‘new’ media. To create theatrical effects and optical illusions, theatre makers were ready to integrate state-of-the-art technics and technologies, and by doing so they playfully explored and popularized scientific knowledge on mechanics, optics and sound for live audiences. This book highlights this obvious but often overlooked relation between media developments and the history of intermedial theater. By considering the interplay between present intermedial performances and their archaeological traces, the authors assembled here revisit old and often forgotten media approaches and theatre technologies. This archaeology is understood less as the discovery of a forgotten past than as the establishment of an active relationship between past and present. Rather than treating archaeological remains as representative tokens of a fragmented past that need to be preserved, the authors stress the return of the past in the present, but in a different, performative guise.

A Geology of Media

A Geology of Media

Author: Jussi Parikka

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2015-03-27

Total Pages: 202

ISBN-13: 1452944571

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Media history is millions, even billions, of years old. That is the premise of this pioneering and provocative book, which argues that to adequately understand contemporary media culture we must set out from material realities that precede media themselves—Earth’s history, geological formations, minerals, and energy. And to do so, writes Jussi Parikka, is to confront the profound environmental and social implications of this ubiquitous, but hardly ephemeral, realm of modern-day life. Exploring the resource depletion and material resourcing required for us to use our devices to live networked lives, Parikka grounds his analysis in Siegfried Zielinski’s widely discussed notion of deep time—but takes it back millennia. Not only are rare earth minerals and many other materials needed to make our digital media machines work, he observes, but used and obsolete media technologies return to the earth as residue of digital culture, contributing to growing layers of toxic waste for future archaeologists to ponder. He shows that these materials must be considered alongside the often dangerous and exploitative labor processes that refine them into the devices underlying our seemingly virtual or immaterial practices. A Geology of Media demonstrates that the environment does not just surround our media cultural world—it runs through it, enables it, and hosts it in an era of unprecedented climate change. While looking backward to Earth’s distant past, it also looks forward to a more expansive media theory—and, implicitly, media activism—to come.


Book Synopsis A Geology of Media by : Jussi Parikka

Download or read book A Geology of Media written by Jussi Parikka and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2015-03-27 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Media history is millions, even billions, of years old. That is the premise of this pioneering and provocative book, which argues that to adequately understand contemporary media culture we must set out from material realities that precede media themselves—Earth’s history, geological formations, minerals, and energy. And to do so, writes Jussi Parikka, is to confront the profound environmental and social implications of this ubiquitous, but hardly ephemeral, realm of modern-day life. Exploring the resource depletion and material resourcing required for us to use our devices to live networked lives, Parikka grounds his analysis in Siegfried Zielinski’s widely discussed notion of deep time—but takes it back millennia. Not only are rare earth minerals and many other materials needed to make our digital media machines work, he observes, but used and obsolete media technologies return to the earth as residue of digital culture, contributing to growing layers of toxic waste for future archaeologists to ponder. He shows that these materials must be considered alongside the often dangerous and exploitative labor processes that refine them into the devices underlying our seemingly virtual or immaterial practices. A Geology of Media demonstrates that the environment does not just surround our media cultural world—it runs through it, enables it, and hosts it in an era of unprecedented climate change. While looking backward to Earth’s distant past, it also looks forward to a more expansive media theory—and, implicitly, media activism—to come.

Long History, Deep Time

Long History, Deep Time

Author: Ann McGrath

Publisher: ANU Press

Published: 2015-08-17

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 1925022536

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The vast shape-shifting continent of Australia enables us to take a long view of history. We consider ways to cross the great divide between the deep past and the present. Australia’s human past is not a short past, so we need to enlarge the scale and scope of history beyond 1788. In ways not so distant, these deeper times happened in the same places where we walk today. Yet, they were not the same places, having different surfaces, ecologies and peoples. Contributors to this volume show how the earth and its past peoples can wake us up to a sense of place as history – as a site of both change and continuity. This book ignites the possibilities of what the spaces and expanses of history might be. Its authors reflect upon the need for appropriate, feasible timescales for history, pointing out some of the obstacles encountered in earlier efforts to slice human time into thematic categories. Time and history are considered from the perspective of physics, archaeology, literature, western and Indigenous philosophy. Ultimately, this collection argues for imaginative new approaches to collaborative histories of deep time that are better suited to the challenges of the Anthropocene. Contributors to this volume, including many leading figures in their respective disciplines, consider history’s temporality, and ask how history might expand to accommodate a chronology of deep time. Long histories that incorporate humanities, science and Indigenous knowledge may produce deeper meanings of the worlds in which we live.


Book Synopsis Long History, Deep Time by : Ann McGrath

Download or read book Long History, Deep Time written by Ann McGrath and published by ANU Press. This book was released on 2015-08-17 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vast shape-shifting continent of Australia enables us to take a long view of history. We consider ways to cross the great divide between the deep past and the present. Australia’s human past is not a short past, so we need to enlarge the scale and scope of history beyond 1788. In ways not so distant, these deeper times happened in the same places where we walk today. Yet, they were not the same places, having different surfaces, ecologies and peoples. Contributors to this volume show how the earth and its past peoples can wake us up to a sense of place as history – as a site of both change and continuity. This book ignites the possibilities of what the spaces and expanses of history might be. Its authors reflect upon the need for appropriate, feasible timescales for history, pointing out some of the obstacles encountered in earlier efforts to slice human time into thematic categories. Time and history are considered from the perspective of physics, archaeology, literature, western and Indigenous philosophy. Ultimately, this collection argues for imaginative new approaches to collaborative histories of deep time that are better suited to the challenges of the Anthropocene. Contributors to this volume, including many leading figures in their respective disciplines, consider history’s temporality, and ask how history might expand to accommodate a chronology of deep time. Long histories that incorporate humanities, science and Indigenous knowledge may produce deeper meanings of the worlds in which we live.

Variations on Media Thinking

Variations on Media Thinking

Author: Siegfried Zielinski

Publisher: U of Minnesota Press

Published: 2019-10-15

Total Pages: 411

ISBN-13: 1452960704

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A diverse, enriching volume of media analysis from a pioneering thinker in the field Expanding on Siegfried Zielinski’s groundbreaking inquiry into “deep time” of the media, the essays in Variations on Media Thinking further the eminent media theorist’s unique method of expanded hermeneutics, which means for him interpreting technical artifacts as essential parts of our cultural lives. Covering such topics as the televisualized “Holocaust,” the ubiquity of media today, the Internet, the genealogy of sound art, and history’s first hacker movement, these essays further diversify Zielinski’s insight into the hidden layers of media development, which he first articulated in his pioneering work Deep Time of the Media. Including many previously untranslated and scarce essays, these “written time machines” open new lines of investigation for cultural scholars. From the automata of the Arabic-Islamic Renaissance (800–1200) to the largest and loudest techno-event ever, known as The Symphony of Sirens—which transformed Baku in 1922 into an immense music box of modern noise—Variations on Media Thinking covers Zielinski’s inquiries since 1975. Richly illustrated and full of provocation, brilliant insight, and fascinating research, this volume is perfect for students of media archaeology, philosophy, and technology, as well as any adventurous, rigorous thinkers engaged with culture and media.


Book Synopsis Variations on Media Thinking by : Siegfried Zielinski

Download or read book Variations on Media Thinking written by Siegfried Zielinski and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A diverse, enriching volume of media analysis from a pioneering thinker in the field Expanding on Siegfried Zielinski’s groundbreaking inquiry into “deep time” of the media, the essays in Variations on Media Thinking further the eminent media theorist’s unique method of expanded hermeneutics, which means for him interpreting technical artifacts as essential parts of our cultural lives. Covering such topics as the televisualized “Holocaust,” the ubiquity of media today, the Internet, the genealogy of sound art, and history’s first hacker movement, these essays further diversify Zielinski’s insight into the hidden layers of media development, which he first articulated in his pioneering work Deep Time of the Media. Including many previously untranslated and scarce essays, these “written time machines” open new lines of investigation for cultural scholars. From the automata of the Arabic-Islamic Renaissance (800–1200) to the largest and loudest techno-event ever, known as The Symphony of Sirens—which transformed Baku in 1922 into an immense music box of modern noise—Variations on Media Thinking covers Zielinski’s inquiries since 1975. Richly illustrated and full of provocation, brilliant insight, and fascinating research, this volume is perfect for students of media archaeology, philosophy, and technology, as well as any adventurous, rigorous thinkers engaged with culture and media.