Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A quest to find something new by excavating the deep time of media's development - not by simply looking at new media's historic forerunners, but by connecting models, machines, technologies, and accidents that have until now remained separated. Deep Time of the Media takes us on an archaeological quest into the hidden layers of media development - dynamic moments of intense activity in media design and construction that have been largely ignored in the historical-media archaeological record. Siegfried Zielinski argues that the history of the media does not proceed predictably from primitive tools to complex machinery; in Deep Time of the Media, he illuminates turning points of media history - fractures in the predictable - that help us see the new in the old. Drawing on original source materials, Zielinski explores the technology of devices for hearing and seeing through two thousand years of cultural and technological history. He discovers the contributions of dreamers and modelers of media worlds, from the ancient Greek philosopher Empedocles and natural philosophers of the Renaissance and Baroque periods to Russian avant-gardists of the early twentieth century. separated, Zielinski writes. He describes models and machines - including a theatre of mirrors in sixteenth-century Naples, an automaton for musical composition created by the seventeenth-century Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, the eighteenth-century electrical tele-writing machine of Joseph Mazzolari, among others - that make this connection. Uncovering these moments in the media-archaeological record, Zielinski says, brings us into a new relationship with present-day moments; these discoveries in the deep time media history shed light on today's media landscape and may help us map our expedition to the media future.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Foreword (p. vii)
• Acknowledgments (p. xiii)
• 1 Introduction: The Idea of a Deep Time of the Media (p. 1)
• 2 Fortuitous Finds Instead of Searching in Vain: Methodological Borrowings and Affinities for an Anarchaeology of Seeing and Hearing by Technical Means (p. 13)
• 3 Attraction and Repulsion: Empedocles (p. 39)
• 4 Magic and Experiment: Giovan Battista Della Porta (p. 57)
• 5 Light and Shadow--Consonance and Dissonance: Athanasius Kircher (p. 101)
• 6 Electrification, Tele-Writing, Seeing Close Up: Johann Wilhelm Ritter, Joseph Chudy, and Jan Evangelista Purkyně (p. 159)
• 7 The Discovery of a Pit, a Camera Obscura of Iniquity: Cesare Lombroso (p. 205)
• 8 The Economy of Time: Aleksej Kapitanovich Gastev (p. 227)
• 9 Conclusions: Including a Proposal for the Cartography of Media Anarchaeology (p. 255)
• Notes (p. 281)
• Bibliography (p. 322)
• Credits (p. 363)
• Index (p. 365)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

This unique book focuses on how media extend human senses. Zielinski (Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, Germany) founded a genre of historical inquiry he terms "media anthropology," and here he takes the reader on a journey of invention and innovation in expanding how people hear, see, perceive, write, exchange ideas via technology, and communicate. He finds invention and innovation are timeless and sprinkled throughout the globe. The book's nine chapters weave a tapestry of art criticism, social commentary, historical detail, character sketches, and insights about human ingenuity. The author takes apparent delight in introducing often historically obscure painters, sculptors, musicians, engineers, scientists, poets, authors, and researchers who tried to develop media or attempted to assess their utility and impact. Zielinski's scholarly scope is reminiscent of that of Harold Adams Innis and Marshall McLuhan. Carefully annotated and illustrated, and including a helpful bibliography, this translation from the German is dense and thus not suitable for inexperienced readers; it will be useful to advanced students of media studies, media arts, and history of sciences. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students through faculty. R. A. Logan emeritus, University of Missouri--Columbia