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Jussi Parikka
Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press (December 20, 2010)
Since the early nineteenth century, when
entomologists first popularized the unique biological and behavioral
characteristics of insects, technological innovators and theorists have
proposed insects as templates for a wide range of technologies. In Insect Media,
Jussi Parikka analyzes how insect forms of social organization-swarms,
hives, webs, and distributed intelligence-have been used to structure
modern media technologies and the network society, providing a radical
new perspective on the interconnection of biology and technology.
Through close engagement with the pioneering work of insect ethologists, including Jakob von Uexküll and Karl von Frisch, posthumanist philosophers, media theorists, and contemporary filmmakers and artists, Parikka develops an insect theory of media, one that conceptualizes modern media as more than the products of individual human actors, social interests, or technological determinants. They are, rather, profoundly nonhuman phenomena that both draw on and mimic the alien lifeworlds of insects.
Through close engagement with the pioneering work of insect ethologists, including Jakob von Uexküll and Karl von Frisch, posthumanist philosophers, media theorists, and contemporary filmmakers and artists, Parikka develops an insect theory of media, one that conceptualizes modern media as more than the products of individual human actors, social interests, or technological determinants. They are, rather, profoundly nonhuman phenomena that both draw on and mimic the alien lifeworlds of insects.
Deftly moving from the life
sciences to digital technology, from popular culture to avant-garde art
and architecture, and from philosophy to cybernetics and game theory,
Parikka provides innovative conceptual tools for exploring the phenomena
of network society and culture. Challenging anthropocentric approaches
to contemporary science and culture, Insect Media reveals the
possibilities that insects and other nonhuman animals offer for
rethinking media, the conflation of biology and technology, and our
understanding of, and interaction with, contemporary digital culture.
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