Digital rubbish : a natural history of electronics / Jennifer Gabrys.
2011
TD799.85 .G33 2011 (Mapit)
Available at General Collection
Items
Details
Title
Digital rubbish : a natural history of electronics / Jennifer Gabrys.
Author
Gabrys, Jennifer.
ISBN
9780472117611 (cloth ; alk. paper)
0472117610 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780472035373
0472035371
9780472029402 ebook
0472117610 (cloth ; alk. paper)
9780472035373
0472035371
9780472029402 ebook
Publication Details
Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, ©2011.
Language
English
Description
ix, 225 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
Call Number
TD799.85 .G33 2011
Dewey Decimal Classification
363.72/88
Summary
"This book is a study of the material life of information and its devices; of electronic waste in its physical and electronic incarnations; a cultural and material mapping of the spaces where electronics in the form of both hardware and information accumulate, break down, or are stowed away. Electronic waste occurs not just in the form of discarded computers but also as a scatter of information devices, software, and systems that are rendered obsolete and fail. Where other studies have addressed "digital" technology through a focus on its immateriality or virtual qualities, the author traces the material, spatial, cultural, and political infrastructures that enable the emergence and dissolution of these technologies. In the course of her book, she explores five interrelated "spaces" where electronics fall apart: from Silicon Valley to Nasdaq, from containers bound for China to museums and archives that preserve obsolete electronics as cultural artifacts, to the landfill as material repository. All together, these sites stack up into a sedimentary record that forms the "natural history" of this study. This describes the materiality of electronics from a unique perspective, examining the multiple forms of waste that electronics create as evidence of the resources, labor, and imaginaries that are bundled into these machines. By drawing on the material analysis developed by Walter Benjamin, this natural history method allows for an inquiry into electronics that focuses neither on technological progression nor on great inventors but rather considers the ways in which electronic technologies fail and decay. Ranging across studies of media and technology, as well as environments, geography, and design, the author pulls together the far-reaching material and cultural processes that enable the making and breaking of these technologies."--Jacket.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-219) and index.
Record Appears in
On-Campus Resources > Books
All Resources
All Resources
Table of Contents
Introduction: A natural history of electronics
Silicon elephants : the transformative materiality of microchips
Ephemeral screens : exchange at the interface
Shipping and receiving : circuits of disposal and the "social death" of electronics
Museum of failure : the mutability of electronic memory
Media in the dump : salvage stories and spaces of remainder
Conclusion: Digital rubbish theory.
Silicon elephants : the transformative materiality of microchips
Ephemeral screens : exchange at the interface
Shipping and receiving : circuits of disposal and the "social death" of electronics
Museum of failure : the mutability of electronic memory
Media in the dump : salvage stories and spaces of remainder
Conclusion: Digital rubbish theory.