[rohrpost] Matteo Pasquinelli talk in Berlin - on biomorphic media theory - 27/4/2011

[Parikka, Jussi]

Dear Rohrpost list(ers),

Welcome to the first session of the Humboldt University Medienwissenschaft
summer semester’s colloquium next Wednesday 27th of April at 6 pm (at
Medientheater [EG, links] at Sophienstraße 22a, Berlin).

The Italian theorist Matteo Pasquinelli will be giving a talk on the topic of
"Four regimes of entropy: for a biomorphic media theory"

The talk will be chaired by Jussi Parikka, with Paul Feigelfeld opening and
introducing the colloquium schedule.

The talk will be in English.

________________________________________

Matteo Pasquinelli
"Four regimes of entropy: for a biomorphic media theory"

Abstract:

This seminar conversation approaches the definition of media ecology from two
opposite perspectives. On one hand, it tests the homogeneity of the
'biomimetic continuum', which supposes the mediascape as an extension of the
biological realm. On the other, it sounds the 'biodigital continuum', which
takes the digital code as a universal grammar for the genetic code. To what
extent can biological models be employed to describe the mediascape as a new
sort of ecosystem? This question has relevance for political debate too, as
biomimetic figures inspired by digital networks begin to be applied to new
political concepts: see, for instance, the figure of the swarm applied to the
postmodern notion of the multitude (Hardt and Negri, 2004, and also Parikka,
2008; Thacker, 2004). Conversely, a second question addresses the biological
from the point of view of the digital. If ‘code’ is the universal semiotic
form that is common to human language, computers and DNA, to what extent can
cybernetic and digital models be applied to the biological? The history of
bioinformatics started shortly after the discovery of DNA in the 1950s,
accommodating quite a strict reductionism between ‘digital code’ and ‘genetic
code.’ What are the consequences of a computer-based understanding of
cellular reproduction for the sphere of ecology and biodiversity?
Schematically, the question is how to apply the forms of the bios to the
techne? And conversely, how to apply the forms of the techne to the bios?


More on the theme in the just published media ecology-special issue of
Fibreculture journal:
http://seventeen.fibreculturejournal.org/

Bio

Matteo Pasquinelli (PhD, Queen Mary University of London) is a writer,
curator and academic researcher. He wrote the book Animal Spirits: A Bestiary
of the Commons (2008), co-edited C’Lick Me: A Netporn Studies Reader (2007)
and edited Media Activism (2002). He writes frequently on French philosophy,
Italian operaismo and media culture. Website: http://matteopasquinelli.com/


Jussi Parikka is a media theorist working at the Humboldt University Media
Studies as a Humboldt Stiftung visiting Scholar. He is the author of Digital
Contagions (2007), Insect Media (2010) and co-editor of The Spam Book (2009)
and Media Archaeology (2011). Http://jussiparikka.net


______________________________________________________
Dr Jussi Parikka
Director of CoDE: The Cultures of the Digital Economy-institute
Reader in Media Theory & History
Co-Director of Anglia Research Centre in Digital Culture (ArcDigital)
Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge (UK)

T: 0845 196 2851 (direct in UK)
F: +44 (0)1223 417707

http://jussiparikka.net
http://www.anglia.ac.uk/code
http://www.anglia.ac.uk/arcdigital

*Book news*: Insect Media: An Archaeology of Animals and Technology is
published by University of Minnesota Press:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/P/parikka_insect.html

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