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Biomediations: From ‘Life in Media’ to ‘Living Media’

image of Biomediations: From ‘Life in Media’ to ‘Living Media’

The aim of this article is to probe the ontological nature of the framing question of this volume, ‘What is media?’, and consider the frameworks and concepts through we can think most productively about the being of media. Its opening proposition is that we approach media first and foremost as a series of living, dynamic and entangled processes which only temporarily stabilize into (media) objects. To capture this processual dynamics of media, the author will offer the concept of ‘biomediations’, a concept that will allow her to place media activity amidst this over-encompassing yet still somewhat nebulous entity called life. More broadly, the aim of this article is to outline the author’s philosophy of media as developed in her scholarly writings across two decades, from Bioethics in the Age of New Media (2009) through to Life after New Media (2012, with Sarah Kember) and Nonhuman Photography (2017), but also as arising out of her engagements with media: photomedia practice, curatorial work as well as publishing collaborations - all of which will be discussed in the article.

Keywords: bacteria ; Barad ; Bergson ; bioart ; biomedia ; biotechnology ; cut ; life ; mediation ; phone

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Biomediations: From ‘Life in Media’ to ‘Living Media’
Intellect , 200 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1386/9781789383263_016
/content/books/9781789383263.book-part-020
/content/books/9781789383263.book-part-020
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References

  1. Barad, Karen (2007), Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
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  3. Bergson, Henri (1911), Matter and Memory (trans. N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer), London: George Allen & Unwin.
  4. ——— (1944), Creative Evolution, New York: Random House, The Modern Library.
  5. Colebrook, Claire (2010), Deleuze and the Meaning of Life, London and New York: Continuum.
  6. Deuze, Mark (2012), Media Life, Cambridge: Polity Press.
  7. Foucault, Michel (1997), Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (ed. P. Rabinow, trans. R. Hurley), London: Allen Lane.
  8. Grønstad, Asbjørn and Vågnes Øyvind (2006), ‘An interview with W.J.T. Mitchell’, Image & Narrative: Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative, Special Issue: ‘Battles around Images: Iconoclasm and Beyond’, 15, http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/iconoclasm/gronstad_vagnes.htm. Accessed 29 March 2020.
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  9. Hall, Gary (2008), Digitize This Book!: The Politics of New Media, or Why We Need Open Access Now, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
  10. Kember, Sarah and Joanna Zylinska (2012), Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  11. Lynas, Mark (2011), The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans, Kindle ed., Washington, DC: National Geographic.
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  13. Mitchell, W. J. T. (2011), Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  14. Peters, John Durham (2015), The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  15. Schrödinger, Erwin (1944), What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  16. Sellars, Nina (2013), ‘Scan’, Photomediations Machine, 30 April, http://photomediationsmachine.net/2013/04/30/scan/. Accessed 29 March 2020.
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  17. Serres, Michel (2015), Eyes (trans. A. Feenberg-Dibon), London: Bloomsbury.
  18. Sontag, Susan (2004), ‘Regarding the torture of others’, New York Times, 23 May, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/regarding-the-torture-of-others.html. Accessed 29 March 2020.
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  19. Stiegler, Bernard (1998), Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus (trans. R. Beardsworth and G. Collins), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
  20. Thacker, Eugene (2004), Biomedia, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
  21. University of Surrey (2013), ‘The hidden life on your phone – the bacteria that lurk on your mobile’, press release, 21 February, https://web.archive.org/web/20170623082532/https://www.surrey.ac.uk/mediacentre/press/2013/98476_the_hidden_life_on_your_phone_the_bacteria_that_lurk_on_your_mobile.htm. Accessed 15 April 2014.
  22. Watson, James ([2003] 2004), DNA: The Secret of Life, London: Arrow Books.
  23. Zabala, Santiago (2012), ‘I’m wired, therefore I exist’, New Statesman, 29 July, http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/sci-tech/2012/07/im-wired-therefore-i-exist. Accessed 29 March 2020.
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  24. Zylinska, Joanna (2009), Bioethics in the Age of New Media, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  25. ——— (2011), ‘Introduction: Bioethical mutations in the age of capital’, Bioethics™: Life, Politics, Economics, Ann Arbor: Open Humanities Press, http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Bioethics/Introduction. Accessed 29 March 2020.
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  26. ——— (2017), Nonhuman Photography, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

References

  1. Barad, Karen (2007), Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning, Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
  2. Barthes, Roland (1977), ‘From work to text’, in Image Music Text, Hammersmith: Fontana Press, pp. 155–64.
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Bergson, Henri (1911), Matter and Memory (trans. N. M. Paul and W. S. Palmer), London: George Allen & Unwin.
  4. ——— (1944), Creative Evolution, New York: Random House, The Modern Library.
  5. Colebrook, Claire (2010), Deleuze and the Meaning of Life, London and New York: Continuum.
  6. Deuze, Mark (2012), Media Life, Cambridge: Polity Press.
  7. Foucault, Michel (1997), Ethics: Subjectivity and Truth (ed. P. Rabinow, trans. R. Hurley), London: Allen Lane.
  8. Grønstad, Asbjørn and Vågnes Øyvind (2006), ‘An interview with W.J.T. Mitchell’, Image & Narrative: Online Magazine of the Visual Narrative, Special Issue: ‘Battles around Images: Iconoclasm and Beyond’, 15, http://www.imageandnarrative.be/inarchive/iconoclasm/gronstad_vagnes.htm. Accessed 29 March 2020.
     [Google Scholar]
  9. Hall, Gary (2008), Digitize This Book!: The Politics of New Media, or Why We Need Open Access Now, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
  10. Kember, Sarah and Joanna Zylinska (2012), Life after New Media: Mediation as a Vital Process, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  11. Lynas, Mark (2011), The God Species: Saving the Planet in the Age of Humans, Kindle ed., Washington, DC: National Geographic.
  12. Margulis, Lynn and Sagan, Dorian (2000), What Is Life?, Berkeley: University of California Press.
     [Google Scholar]
  13. Mitchell, W. J. T. (2011), Cloning Terror: The War of Images, 9/11 to the Present, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  14. Peters, John Durham (2015), The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  15. Schrödinger, Erwin (1944), What Is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  16. Sellars, Nina (2013), ‘Scan’, Photomediations Machine, 30 April, http://photomediationsmachine.net/2013/04/30/scan/. Accessed 29 March 2020.
     [Google Scholar]
  17. Serres, Michel (2015), Eyes (trans. A. Feenberg-Dibon), London: Bloomsbury.
  18. Sontag, Susan (2004), ‘Regarding the torture of others’, New York Times, 23 May, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/magazine/regarding-the-torture-of-others.html. Accessed 29 March 2020.
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Stiegler, Bernard (1998), Technics and Time, 1: The Fault of Epimetheus (trans. R. Beardsworth and G. Collins), Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
  20. Thacker, Eugene (2004), Biomedia, Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press.
  21. University of Surrey (2013), ‘The hidden life on your phone – the bacteria that lurk on your mobile’, press release, 21 February, https://web.archive.org/web/20170623082532/https://www.surrey.ac.uk/mediacentre/press/2013/98476_the_hidden_life_on_your_phone_the_bacteria_that_lurk_on_your_mobile.htm. Accessed 15 April 2014.
  22. Watson, James ([2003] 2004), DNA: The Secret of Life, London: Arrow Books.
  23. Zabala, Santiago (2012), ‘I’m wired, therefore I exist’, New Statesman, 29 July, http://www.newstatesman.com/sci-tech/sci-tech/2012/07/im-wired-therefore-i-exist. Accessed 29 March 2020.
     [Google Scholar]
  24. Zylinska, Joanna (2009), Bioethics in the Age of New Media, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  25. ——— (2011), ‘Introduction: Bioethical mutations in the age of capital’, Bioethics™: Life, Politics, Economics, Ann Arbor: Open Humanities Press, http://www.livingbooksaboutlife.org/books/Bioethics/Introduction. Accessed 29 March 2020.
     [Google Scholar]
  26. ——— (2017), Nonhuman Photography, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

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