Professional Documents
Culture Documents
DEEP TIMES of
PLANETARY TROUBLE
Jussi Parikka
279
Cultural Politics, Volume 12, Issue 3, 2016 Duke University Press
DOI: 10.1215/17432197-3648846
Jussi Parikka
architecture and art. Such discussions have the sense of the present is. Although a
been instrumental in articulating the con- planetary concept such as the Anthropo-
nection across time-scales and focusing on cene has a unifying force, it also forces
how the geological expands into issues of us to reject the idea of a shared planetary
temporality of cultural reality: not only the moment. The postcolonial and neoco-
intersections of issues of cultural memory lonial (Cubitt 2014) contexts of waste
and media culture but also the timespan distribution, hand-in-hand with the violent
of the Anthropocene as it manifests to us processes of resource extraction, are one
(see Beck 2014). The question of the mul- such expression of the present not
tiple overlapping times also raises other always being present as one experience
questions about the concepts, methods, of what we are facing now. The nature of
and even fields of knowledge in which the problem is not merely the unification
geology could be discussed without falling but the geographical and temporal distri-
into mere cultural commentary of the hard bution of the term and its weight. Hence,
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shape in the arts and critical humanities: the threshold of having to negotiate its
some, such as the Capitalocene, are partic- relation to the wider material worlds (see
ularly apt to consider the entanglement of Grosz 2005: 186; see also Braidottis arti-
contemporary modes of production as an cle in this issue).
inherent part of the environmental disas- This special section takes a related
ter (Moore 2015; see also Wark 2015); route to such questions but with an
some, such as the Anthrobscene, view emphasis on the role of media in the
technical media culture as one relay in the discussions of the Anthropocene and
production of planetary level obscenity the alternative terms that want to situate
(Parikka 2014, 2015); and some, such as it in the historical and critical contexts,
Donna Haraways (2015: 160) powerful including gender and the postcolonial
feminist term Chthulucene, conceptually debates. As such, it is not about the term
express the complexity of the situation, Anthropocene but about the geologies,
which entangles myriad temporalities and thermocultures, environmental ethics, and
spatialities and myriad intra-active entities- new materialities that constitute key parts
in-assemblages including the more-than- of the contemporary material politics of
human, other-than-human, inhuman, and media. Broadly speaking, it is about the
human- as- humus. The Anthropocene environment in contexts of media culture,
and its kin have also become terminolog- with an emphasis on how the question
ical sites where conceptualization of the of the environment is not resolved into a
complex spatiotemporal events that cannot subject-object pairing of general terms: we
be resolved by way of a human-centered humans, that nature. Instead, the complex
cultural politics takes place. entanglements range from the small and
Even without the use of the A-word, seemingly mundane (microchips, for exam-
the humanities have adopted a language ple, or bare hands ripping apart obsolete
of layers and deep timesfrom the media electronics) to questions of technocultural
archaeological deep times proposed by practices: human embodiment in media
writers such as Siegfried Zielinski (2006) environments that are far removed from
to the environmental humanities. Both the promise of immateriality. We were told
within and beyond the Anthropocene and to expect artificial intelligence and cyber-
its conceptual friends (or kin, see Haraway space; we also got dirty landscapes of
2015), we are dealing with issues of time discarded toxic electronics.
scales that are not necessarily authored This section gathers together articles
only by the loose category of humans. that involve fresh methodological ways
Instead, we find ourselves orienting in non to address issues of materiality in urban
human long durations, as Kathryn Yusoff technological worlds, including the toxic
CULTURAL POLITICS
(2013: 785) points out, arguing for a residue of technological culture, by letting
geological turn in the critical humanities, surprising themes narrate the argument.
as well. In short, this emphasis, whether it Mud, temperature, plastics, copper, and
is a turn or a return, informs the question synthetic silicon are some of the material
about what nonhuman, or even inhuman, agencies that become anchors of cultural
forces produce the human and also makes analysis.
clear that the humanities, as a formation of The articles do not refer to media
knowledge with its own sense of relevant representations of geology or even, all
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temporalities and research objects, is at that much, to the specific instruments and
Jussi Parikka
that includes Friedrich Kittler, as well as 407). Geoff Winthrop-Young turns to this
so much about theory nor only German) but that environments are mediathe
Jussi Parikka
classical four elements of water, fire, sky/ media of new synthetic materialities and
air, and earth. Such a cue leads us to their aftereffects (not least, electronic
consider the massive processes of fire waste). Mircea Eliade (1978: 17374) put
and combustion, the skys movement and this in rather poetic terms when articulat-
periodicity, watery habitats for fish and ing the political, economic, and ideological
information cables (Starosielski 2014), and underpinnings of chemistry: By conquer-
liquidsand much moreas both media, ing Nature through the physico-chemical
in themselves, and as mapped by media; sciences, man can become Natures rival
the sciences of nature work with tech- without being the slave of Time. The less
niques that participate in the measurement poetically phrased story would be to nar-
of multiple realities that escape direct rate the history of material sciences as the
human perception. Geology and astron- ground of technical media solutions, from
omy are sciences of media that relate to corporations that combined meticulous
scales of the planetary and the extraplan work in chemistry and technology (such as
etary, both in terms of distance and time: Bell Labs) to the global routes of resource
Telescopes are machines of time travel extraction as part of supply chains. It is
as of space travel; we could call them also a different sort of media archaeology,
paleoscopes, argues Peters (2015: 363), which, as Nicole Starosielski notes in this
continuing on the topic of deep times. issue, is not always so much about depth
Could we pick up geology books, then, as and literal excavation as about the thermal
odd inspirational sources for media theory? and chemical reactionsthe metallurgical
Or astronomy and meteorology books as interactions of materialsas the condi-
part speculative, yet real, maps of airborne, tions of technical culture.
space-bound media realities? Or zoology To follow the line of reasoning sug-
books as media theory (Parikka 2010; gested by Paul Virilio and others, every
Peters 2015: 370)? technology comes with its accident, and
this leads to the question: What are the
Slow Technological Violence forms of accidents that emerge in the
Second: What does this altered media elemental media? The natural, intuitive
after media after nature perspective response relates to the massive toxic
CULTURAL POLITICS 12:3 November 2016
mean in the context of the politics of the pollution that penetrates in and through the
Anthropocene? mobilization of such media; the burning of
Let me elaborate this idea by way fossil fuels still firing up cloud computing,
of some add-ons and specifications to the invention of our petrocultural1 moder-
Peterss account. One the one hand, we nity since the nineteenth century (Jones
are dealing not only with the classical 2016), air pollution and smog, soils and
four pre-Socratic elements but with the liquids of toxic residue. But there is also the
multitude of elements and combinations sense of the historically accidental that is
that are defined in the nineteenth-century- part and parcel of the image of such natural
originated tableau of chemistry, up until media accidents as technological failures
the identification of all rare earth elements embedded in historical time. Benjamin
by 1939. Dmitri Mendeleevs Periodic Bratton (2015) argues that the governance
Table is, in this sense, an even more apt of planetary infrastructures as multi
way to start unfolding the chemistry of scalar interlocked realities is what defines
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definitions of the elemental are situations of narrative and concepts that are able
of computational, visual, and other techni- to speak to this slow, emerging death
cal media; the earth and its elements are count, which is too easily left unaccounted
organized and visualized in media assem- for. It also fits into the context of other
blages while they feed as part of the con- temporalities in which we have to think
struction of planetary level infrastructures, of the accidentboth the long durations
such as cloud computing. We can also call of the Anthropocene and the events that
this medianatures (Parikka 2015: 1214), fail to cater to the immediate perceptual
a term modified from Donna Haraways reality and yet remain as real. Hence
naturecultures. Medianatures picks up on scalespatial, temporal, conceptualis a
the co-defining continuum of media and core issue, one that pertains to questions
nature, where technical media plays an of the accident in geologies of media
essential part in perceiving, analyzing, and culture; media are such multitemporal
mobilizing the earth, the air, and more, planetary environments in which planetary
while technical media itself is based on pollution becomes perceptible and
the usefulness of many chemical and earth sometimes also experienced. This aspect
elements. These include not only energy comes out clearly in how Verena Conley,
but also things like rare earth minerals, in her article in this issue, speaks of care
another key focal point for analyses of while also touching on the sensor realities
geology of media, which have been that escape human sensation and yet can
addressed in many recent art and design somehow be addressed in contexts of a
projects (see Samman and Ondreicka posthuman care.
2015). Aesthetics and visual arts are at Many of the debates about the
the core of this planetary situationas ethical responses to this situation of
interlocked fundamental processes of the Anthropocene have resulted in
visualization, as enabling actionability, and highlighting the importance of scale.
as material conditions of perception.2 How do the cultural and media theories
But the accidents of the elemental react to subperceptualtoo slow or too
media do not necessarily come as fastrealities, massive infrastructures
flashy spectacles. As Rob Nixon (2011) that are not experientiable in immediate
has argued, meticulously and with flair, embodied perception? As Joanna Zylinska
particular attention needs to be paid to the (2014: 20) puts it, we need to be able
reality of slow violence that takes a to address the environmental less as a
temporal and visual form different from thing and more as a dynamic movement
the form taken by immediate explosive across scales: Minimal ethics for the
accidents. Nixon addresses key accidents Anthropocene is not just an updated form
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and aftereffects of past years across of environmental ethics: it does not pivot
a range of geographical contexts, on any coherent notion of an environment
including the Bhopal industrial disaster, (or, as mentioned earlier, nature) as an
the Chernobyl nuclear accident, the use identifiable entity but rather concerns
of depleted uranium in the wars in the itself with dynamic relations between
Middle East with long-term effects on entities across various scales such as
humans and crops, and cases addressing stem cells, flowers, dogs, humans, rivers,
environmental justice in Nigeria. Nixons electricity pylons, computer networks,
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particular interest is to develop forms and planets, to name but a few (see
Jussi Parikka
in the purely tough-as-concrete sort lifetime. Magnetic media will last fifteen years
of materiality, but can also be applied in a warm room of 25 degrees Celsius but,
to chemical reactions that bind and even in cold storage at 0 degrees Celsius,
unbind media. Starosielskis take on will become unplayable after six hundred
thermocultures takes measurement of years. Incorrect temperature . . . is an agent of
temperatures as a thing itselfor, more deterioration.
accurately, as something of a mediating
factor in how standardization works. She This is surely no revelation for anyone
addresses standardization of materials in the museum or archival sector, but
from paper to silicon, as conditioned by it becomes a way to reconsider the
their temperatures, a point that becomes passages between media studies and
developed into important insights that temporal practices. Indeed, many of the
relate to different technoscientific ideas expressed here are not meant to
practices. There are no raw materials, no claim speaking on behalf of specialist
raw earth that is part of the cultural politics fields such as material sciences but to
of media but various levels, geographics, open up discussions between disciplines.
and processes of mediation in which Starosielskis and Matterns articles, as
the thermacultural becomes one way to well as the one by Sy Taffel, layer on top
address this ecology of practices. of various fields of knowledge and, by way
First, the functioning of media is of that work, offer a dialogue with media
conditioned by processes that we are able studies and cultural politics. Whats more,
to open up as mediations (see also Grusin Starosielskis article starts a discussion
2015 on radical mediation as a material- that is important when it comes to the
ontological reality of relations): in short, vocabulary of media materialism: the text
it is mediation all the way to the bottom reminds us to be critically aware of the
of how materials become produced as specifically masculine connotations of
part of media assemblages. Second, it geology while also suggesting alternatives;
is also the basic parameters we discuss how about the gendered histories of
as mediathe spaces and times of thermacultural practices that have been
mediathat are made in such chemical left out of technological histories of
and thermocultural conditions. Archives heating and cooling, the ones that exclude
should not be conflated with storage, pottery, cooking, and so on. What, then,
but any discussion of cultural memory are the conceptual limitations of adopting
is always tied to the maintenance of terms like geology and how can those be
conditions in which memory is passed on complemented and critiqued by way of a
as media. To quote Starosielski: set of alternative terms for the chemical
CULTURAL POLITICS
normal room temperature will last a human reactions, and dynamics of materiality,
Jussi Parikka
geographies of one of the most important studio . . . [whose] members venture out on
minerals for digital culture: coltan. Their expeditions to the ends of the earth to bear
earlier works, such as H/AlCuTaAu and the witness to alternative worlds, alien landscapes,
later D/AlCuNdAu, have engaged industrial ecologies, and precarious wilderness.
with the material realities and residues These distant landscapesthe iconic and the
of electronic culture. For this special ignored, the excavated, the irradiated, and the
section, Cohen and Van Balen offer a pristineare embedded in global systems that
glimpse of their artistic work as well as connect them in surprising and complicated
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some insight into their recent trip by way ways to our everyday lives. In such a landscape
Jussi Parikka
Figure 1 Bayan Obo, China, December 21, 2010: inside the highly restricted Bayan Obo rare earth mine. The
treasure mountain deposit is the worlds largest and, as of 2005, is responsible for 45 percent of global rare earth
metal production. Photographer Toby Smith gained access in 2010 by waiting until a Chinese national holiday and hiding
in the back of a pick-up truck, working below the radar of the authorities. Making use of GPS coordinates calculated
from satellite photos, he ran the final 10 kilometers across the desert to the mine edge with a discreet point-and-shoot
camera. Photo Credit: Toby Smith/Unknown Fields
of interwoven narratives, the studio uses film travels are documents of the stages along
and animation to chronicle this network of the line of material refinement becoming
hidden stories and reimagine the complex and part of technological culture and its toxic
contradictory realities of the present as a site of double. With Unknown Fields work, along
strange and extraordinary futures. with Revital Cohen and Tuur Van Balens,
CULTURAL POLITICS 12:3 November 2016
a Ming vase. The photographs from these of environmental humanities that insists on
in motion.
Jussi Parikka
Moore, Jason W. 2015. Capitalism in the Web of Life: Siegert, Bernhard. 2015. Media after Media. In
Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. London: Media after Kittler, edited by Eleni Ikoniadou
Verso. and Scott Wilson, 7991. London: Rowman and
Nixon, Rob. 2011. Slow Violence and the Littlefield.
Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Wark, McKenzie. 2015. Molecular Red: Theory for the
Harvard University Press. Anthropocene. London: Verso.
Parikka, Jussi. 2010. Insect Media. An Archaelogy of Winthrop-Young, Geoff. 2012. Hunting a Whale of a
Animals and Technology. Minneapolis: University State: Kittler and His Terrorists. Cultural Politics
of Minnesota Press. 8 (3): 399412.
Parikka, Jussi. 2014. The Anthrobscene. Minneapolis: Young, Liam. 2015. New City: Machines of Post
University of Minnesota Press. Human Production. CCCB (Centre de Cultura
Parikka, Jussi. 2015. A Geology of Media. Minneapolis: Contempornia de Barcelona), December 16,
University of Minnesota Press. www.cccb.org/en/multimedia/videos/liam
Peters, John Durham. 2009. Strange Sympathies: -young-talks-about-new-city-machines-of-post
Horizons of German and American Media -human-production/222592#.
Theory. Electronic Book Review: Critical Young, Liam Cole. Forthcoming. List Cultures:
Ecologies. June 4. www.electronicbookreview Knowledge and Poetics from Mesopotamia to
.com/thread/criticalecologies/myopic. Buzzfeed. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University
Peters, John Durham. 2015. The Marvelous Clouds: Press.
Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media. Yusoff, Kathryn. 2013. Geologic Life: Prehistory,
Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Climate, Futures in the Anthropocene.
Petrocultures. 2016. Petrocultures Research Cluster, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space
University of Alberta, petrocultures.com. 31: 77995.
Accessed July 11. Zielinski, Siegfried. 2006. Deep Time of the Media.
Pynchon, Thomas. 1973. Gravitys Rainbow. New York: Translated by Gloria Custance. Cambridge, MA:
Viking. MIT Press.
Salminen, Antti, and Tere Vadn. 2015. Energy and Zylinska, Joanna. 2014. Minimal Ethics for the
Experience: An Essay in Nafthology. Chicago: Anthropocene. London: Open Humanities Press.
MCM Publishing.
Samman, Nadim, and Boris Ondreicka, eds. 2015. Rare
Earth. Berlin: Sternberg Press.
CULTURAL POLITICS 12:3 November 2016
Jussi Parikka is professor at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. His
books cover a wide range of topics relevant to a critical understanding of network culture,
aesthetics, and media archaeology of the digital. Digital Contagions (2007; 2nd ed., 2016),
Insect Media (2010), and A Geology of Media (2015) make up a media-ecology trilogy that
addresses the environmental contexts of technical media culture. Other books include What
Is Media Archaeology? (2012). He has also edited several books, including, most recently,
Writing and Unwriting (Media) Art History (2015, with Joasia Krysa) on the Finnish media art
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pioneer Erkki Kurenniemi. His website and blog can be found at jussiparikka.net.