WEEK 14

Jussi Parikka- Introduction: The Materiality of Media and Waste

Medianatures- the topological continuum between nature and culture, the material entwining and enfolding of various agencies, meanings, and interactions. 

What are we doing to our universe with the creation of all of our new media devices? What are they made of, what resources are we having to use? The bigger question is how are we discarding of these devices? Everyone has a junk drawer, I want you to go to that junk drawer and see how many devices you have that you are not using and will never use again. Now ask yourself how you will discard of them, in a humane way.  I don't know the answer, do you? Where does all the internet trash go? Form our computers, cell phones, tablets? How does that get discarded? 

"The materiality of media is to be taken literally. Our media devices are the products of various processes of mining, processing, and standardizing minerals and other rare earth materials into finished mass-consumer products. After their use-value is exhausted, the become things of a different sort… it's about where you dump your shit you do not want on your doorstep."

In a media driven world that we are in, we need to think about what it is doing to our environment, society, culture, and us as individuals. We should be standing out among the masses not going with the flow.