The first philosophy of technology, constructing humans as technological and technology as an underpinning of all culture Ernst Kapp was a foundational scholar in the fields of media theory and philosophy of technology. His 1877 Elements of a Philosophy of Technology is a visionary study of the human body and its relationship with the world that surrounds it. At the book's core is the concept of "organ projection"d: the notion that humans use technology in an effort to project their organs to the outside, to be understood as "the soul apparently stepping out of the body in the form of a sending-out of mental qualities"into the world of artifacts.Kapp applies this theory of organ projection to various areas of the material world-the axe externalizes the arm, the lens the eye, the telegraphic system the neural network. From the first tools to acoustic instruments, from architecture to the steam engine and the mechanic routes of the railway, Kapp's analysis shifts from "simple"tools to more complex network technologies to examine the projection of relations. What emerges from Kapp's prophetic work is nothing less than the emergence of early elements of a cybernetic paradigm.

The life and work of the outstanding Catalan-Majorcan philosopher, logician, and mystic Ramon Llull continues to fascinate thinkers, artists, and scholars worldwide In this book, international experts from Europe and the United States address Lullism as a remarkable and distinctive method of thinking and experimenting. The origins and impact of Ramon Llull's oeuvre as a modern thinker are presented, and their interdisciplinary and intercultural implications, which continue to this day, are explored. Ars combinatoria, generative and permutative generation of texts, the epistemic and poetic power of algorithmic systems, plus the principle of unconditional dialogue between cultural groups and their individual members, are the most important coordinates of this combinatorial-dialogical media and communication theory, which appeared very early in the history of science, technology, and art. It was developed in the work of Ramon Llull during the transition from the thirteenth to the fourteenth century when Arab-Islamic, Jewish, and Christian cultures intersected. The legacy of Lullism lives on in poetry and in the visual and electronic-based arts, as well as in research on the history of informatics, formal logic, and media archaeology. The primary idea of Llull's teachings-to enable rational and therefore trustworthy dialogue between cultures and religions through a universally valid system of symbols-is today still topical and of great relevance, especially in the tensions prevailing in globalized spaces of possibility. Contributors: Miquel Bassols, Florian Cramer, Salvador Dali, Fernando Dominguez Reboiras, Diane Doucet-Rosenstein, Jordi Gaya, Jonathan Gray, Daniel Irrgang, David Link, Sebastian Moro Tornese, Josep E. Rubio, Henning Schmidgen, Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Gianni Vattimo, Janet Zweig.

A diverse, enriching volume of media analysis from a pioneering thinker in the field Expanding on Siegfried Zielinski's groundbreaking inquiry into "deep time" of the media, the essays in Variations on Media Thinking further the eminent media theorist's unique method of expanded hermeneutics, which means for him interpreting technical artifacts as essential parts of our cultural lives. Covering such topics as the televisualized "Holocaust," the ubiquity of media today, the Internet, the genealogy of sound art, and history's first hacker movement, these essays further diversify Zielinski's insight into the hidden layers of media development, which he first articulated in his pioneering work Deep Time of the Media. Including many previously untranslated and scarce essays, these "written time machines" open new lines of investigation for cultural scholars. From the automata of the Arabic-Islamic Renaissance (800-1200) to the largest and loudest techno-event ever, known as The Symphony of Sirens-which transformed Baku in 1922 into an immense music box of modern noise-Variations on Media Thinking covers Zielinski's inquiries since 1975. Richly illustrated and full of provocation, brilliant insight, and fascinating research, this volume is perfect for students of media archaeology, philosophy, and technology, as well as any adventurous, rigorous thinkers engaged with culture and media.

The media are now redundant. In an overview of developments spanning the past seventy years, Siegfried Zielinski's [ . . . After the Media] discusses how the means of technology-based communication assumed a systemic character and how theory, art, and criticism were operative in this process. Media-explicit thinking is contrasted with media-implicit thought. Points of contact with an arts perspective include a reinterpretation of the artist Nam June Paik and an introduction to the work of Jake and Dinos Chapman. The essay ends with two appeals. In an outline of a precise philology of exact things, Zielinski suggests possibilities of how things could proceed after the media. With a vade mecum against psychopathia medialis in the form of a manifesto, the book advocates for a distinction to be made between online existence and offline being.

The first philosophy of technology, constructing humans as technological and technology as an underpinning of all culture Ernst Kapp was a foundational scholar in the fields of media theory and philosophy of technology. His 1877 Elements of a Philosophy of Technology is a visionary study of the human body and its relationship with the world that surrounds it. At the book's core is the concept of "organ projection": the notion that humans use technology in an effort to project their organs to the outside, to be understood as "the soul apparently stepping out of the body in the form of a sending-out of mental qualities" into the world of artifacts. Kapp applies this theory of organ projection to various areas of the material world-the axe externalizes the arm, the lens the eye, the telegraphic system the neural network. From the first tools to acoustic instruments, from architecture to the steam engine and the mechanic routes of the railway, Kapp's analysis shifts from "simple" tools to more complex network technologies to examine the projection of relations. What emerges from Kapp's prophetic work is nothing less than the emergence of early elements of a cybernetic paradigm.

A diverse, enriching volume of media analysis from a pioneering thinker in the field Expanding on Siegfried Zielinski's groundbreaking inquiry into "deep time" of the media, the essays in Variations on Media Thinking further the eminent media theorist's unique method of expanded hermeneutics, which means for him interpreting technical artifacts as essential parts of our cultural lives. Covering such topics as the televisualized "Holocaust," the ubiquity of media today, the Internet, the genealogy of sound art, and history's first hacker movement, these essays further diversify Zielinski's insight into the hidden layers of media development, which he first articulated in his pioneering work Deep Time of the Media. Including many previously untranslated and scarce essays, these "written time machines" open new lines of investigation for cultural scholars. From the automata of the Arabic-Islamic Renaissance (800-1200) to the largest and loudest techno-event ever, known as The Symphony of Sirens-which transformed Baku in 1922 into an immense music box of modern noise-Variations on Media Thinking covers Zielinski's inquiries since 1975. Richly illustrated and full of provocation, brilliant insight, and fascinating research, this volume is perfect for students of media archaeology, philosophy, and technology, as well as any adventurous, rigorous thinkers engaged with culture and media.

In On Doubt, Vilem Flusser refines Martin Heidegger's famous declaration that "language is the dwelling of Being." For Flusser, "the word is the dwelling of being," because in fact, in the beginning, there was the word. On Doubt is a treatise on the human intellect, its relation to language, and the reality-forming discourses that subsequently emerge. For Flusser, the faith that the modern age places in Cartesian doubt plays a role similar to the one that faith in God played in previous eras-a faith that needs to be challenged. Descartes doubts the world through his proposition cogito ergo sum, but leaves doubt itself untouched as indubitable and imperious. His cogito ergo sum may have proved to the Western intellect that thoughts exist, but it did not prove the existence of that which thinks: one can eliminate thinking and yet continue being. Therefore, should we not doubt doubt itself? Should we not try to go beyond this last step of Cartesian doubt and look for a new faith? The twentieth century has seen many attempts to defeat Cartesian doubt, however, this doubt of doubt has instead generated a complete loss of faith, which the West experiences as existential nihilism. Hence, the emergent emptying of values that results from such extreme doubt. Everything loses its meaning. Can this climate be overcome? Will the West survive the modern age?

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. "Media are spaces of action for constructed attempts to connect what is separated," Zielinski writes. He describes models and machines that make this connection: including a theater of mirrors in sixteenth-century Naples, an automaton for musical composition created by the seventeenth-century Jesuit Athanasius Kircher, and the eighteenth-century electrical tele-writing machine of Joseph Mazzolari, among others. 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.