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Post media at the ICA German new media philosophy. 26/05/11

Media does not distribute sense or convey meaning, if it does it is a secondary

function.

This talk was curated by Peter Osbourne of the philosophical department of

Kingston University. Speakers included Boris Groys, Lorenz Engell, BernhardSiegert and Eric Alliez. Groys, Engell and Siegert were there to help clear the

German philosophy of new media. Each speaker delivered a paper with their

position and concerns regarding the philosophy of new media.

Boris talked first announcing that many of his students now talk about the death

of the subject that initially sounds as ambiguously utopian as the death of the

audience. There is no longer a subject, as we attempt to find ways to analyse

communication mediums. It has been long noted that content and subjects are

not the analysis, its the form that carries the content that contains the mechanics

of new media theory. So nothing changed since McLuhan released the medium is

the massage in 1967. Groys then connected Hegel and talked about society neverbeing able to master its own desire. He talked of a capitalised subject where the

content provider was the master, we are serving subjects to the Internet

agencies (facebook, google etc). These agencies that have operational control

where the subject surrenders to these networked agencies. This still felt like

familiar territory, lefty paranoia of corporate media giants. Groys pushed further

the need to analyse the mechanics of these operational agencies, by relating

them to current news regarding the arrest of Julian Assange. Groys quoted

Assanges comment on Wikileaks and how it allows information to flow free in

an anarchic way. However this is example emphasises the importance of the

medium over the message, as Julian and wikileaks is more discussed than the

content it exposes.

Groys ended his paper by asking how the subject can challenge being a servant of

the oppressive systems of the media provider.

Lorenz Engell illustrated the trend of media studies to attempt to classify the

properties of media, when the most important element of understanding media

theory is in identifying the processes and operations of the medium. This seems

pointless when media is so self-aware already, medias self-awareness makes it

stronger. Through media we have an inter production of operative assembles

that reproduce objects, artefacts and ourselves. The subject is the effect of all

these tactile operations. Media does not distribute sense or convey meaning, if it

does it is a secondary function.

Bernard Siegel The map is not the territory. Siegel took a historical abstraction

of new media theory, telling a mythical tale of when a King desired a map so life-

size, to a 1:1 scale. Maps are instruments that portray spaces of representation.

Maps have proved useful artefacts as markers to how society interpreted the

semiotics of the world that surrounded them. Siegel suggests that the media

forms of today will be studied as portrayals of society during this time. Because

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