Mechanisms : new media and the forensic imagination / Matthew G. Kirschenbaum.

9780262302746 electronic
0262302748 electronic
1282100637
9781282100633
9780262113113 (hbk. ; alk. paper)
0262113112 (hbk. ; alk. paper)
0292113112 (cloth)

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, ©2008.

English

1 online resource (xvii, 296 pages) : illustrations

P96.T42 K567 2008

302.23

"In Mechanisms, Matthew Kirschenbaum examines new media and electronic writing against the textual and technological primitives that govern writing, inscription, and textual transmission in all media: erasure, variability, repeatability, and survivability. Mechanisms is the first book in its field to devote significant attention to storage--the hard drive in particular--arguing that understanding the affordances of storage devices is essential to understanding new media. Drawing a distinction between 'forensic materiality' and 'formal materiality,' Kirschenbaum uses applied computer forensics techniques in his study of new media works. Just as the humanities discipline of textual studies examines books as physical objects and traces different variants of texts, computer forensics encourage us to perceive new media in terms of specific versions, platforms, systems, and devices. Kirschenbaum demonstrates these techniques in media-specific readings of three landmark works of new media and electronic literature, all from the formative era of personal computing: the interactive fiction game Mystery House, Michael Joyce's Afternoon: A Story, and William Gibson's electronic poem 'Agrippa'"--Provider website.

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