Location: HKW Central Foyer

This event and book launch discuss media archaeology in relation to technical media arts and digital culture. It revolves around two recently released media theory books: Wolfgang Ernst’s Digital Memory and the Archive and Jussi Parikka’s What is Media Archaeology?. As part of recent discussions in media theory, the authors present their work contributing to a rethinking of archives, memory and notions of temporality in computational culture.



Wolfgang Ernst: Digital Memory and the Archive, edited with an introduction by Jussi Parikka (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012)


Digital Memory and the Archive, the first English-language collection by Wolfgang Ernst, brings together essays that present Ernst’s controversial materialist approach to media theory and history. His insights are central to the emerging field of media archaeology, which uncovers the role of specific technologies and mechanisms, rather than content, in shaping contemporary culture and society.



Jussi Parikka: What is Media Archaeology? (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012)


What is Media Archaeology? examines the theoretical challenges of studying digital culture and memory and opens up the sedimentary layers of contemporary media culture. The author contextualizes media archaeology in relation to other key media studies debates including software studies, German media theory, imaginary media research, new materialism and digital humanities.