“This changes everything. Again.”

by Anna Lemberger

On October 21, the Center’s first international guest speaker of the year, Dr. Jussi Parikka of Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK, presented his research to a full house in Curtin 368. I had no idea of what to expect from a lecture entitled “Media Archaeology as Zombie Media Research,” but overall found the talk extremely interesting. Although I may have benefited from having a dictionary on hand and a list of names with the German people he continually referenced, I actually understood and made connections with a lot of his points.

The first concept I had to deconstruct was “media.” Clearly it plays an important role, being twice mentioned in the lecture title, but my JMC idea of media does not seem to fit Parikka’s model. It seems media as it functions in his research is more of a medium, a tactile object of transmission or of a digital culture in general. He began by discussing waste in the U.S. and the idea of obsolescence. Some bigger and better technology is just around the corner; by next week my innovative new smart phone will be a really awesome paperweight. An iPhone 4 ad provided a humorous example, the tagline being “This changes everything. Again.” According to Parikka, our society is centered on trashing the old and obsolete, of constantly buying new and not reusing. It seems this notion has grown out of a historical move to tax objects past their use. While this never materialized, it left a legacy of expiration dates and artificially decreasing the lifespan of products so consumers are forced to buy new products more often. Here is where Parikka introduced the object as a “black box.” Objects are no longer designed to be fixed—you cannot just replace a battery in an mp3 player. It also seems like a shift in the consumer mindset, to trash and buy new. I mean, do people actually go to get their shoes resoled anymore? For consumers and non-experts, an object, like a printer, is a black box; things go in and things come out but what happens in between is a mystery. To Parikka, however, media is never really dead despite our tendency to consider it trash.

Another aspect of this research is the potential for artistic methods. Parikka introduced the ideas of circuit bending, hardware hacking and the DIY movement among other artistic tendencies related to his research. One example he used was a project that rewired found objects, like children’s electronic toys, into musical instruments.

In the end, this research, for Parikka, is a way to understand eco disaster. How has our media culture produced a toxic environment?  An important and timely topic in my opinion.  Although not everything he discussed was clear to me, it did present an opportunity for self-reflection of my own consumer mentality and habits. Several of the post-talk questions were very interesting as well: do our mounds of trash have the potential for meaning just as the pyramids did for the Egyptians?  Are the suggestions of reuse economical and practical?

Hopefully, Dr. Parikka’s first visit to the U.S. was fruitful for him as well as the audience. I certainly would be interested in learning more. But enough with the work, Professor Parikka! Make sure to experience some real Wisconsin culture while you’re here. I’d recommend the deep fried cheese curds and a local brew.