Full Description
Connects Cold War material and conceptual technologies to 21st century arts, society and cultureFrom futures research, pattern recognition algorithms, nuclear waste disposal and surveillance technologies, to smart weapons systems, contemporary fiction and art, this book shows that we live in a world imagined and engineered during the Cold War. Key FeaturesMakes connections between Cold War material and conceptual technologies, as they relate to the arts, society and cultureDraws on theorists such as Paul Virilio, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, Friedrich Kittler, Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, Michel Serres, Bernard Stiegler, Peter Sloterdijk and Carl SchmittThe contributors include leading humanities and critical military studies scholars, and practising artists, writers, curators and broadcastersContributorsJohn Beck is Professor of Modern Literature and Director of the Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture at the University of Westminster, London.Ryan Bishop is Professor of Global Arts and Politics, Director of Research and Co-Director of the Winchester Centre for Global Futures in Art Design & Media at the Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. Ele Carpenter is a curator and writer, and senior lecturer in MFA Curating and convenor of the Nuclear Culture Research Group at Goldsmiths, University of London. Fabienne Collignon is Lecturer in Contemporary Literature at the University of Sheffield. Mark Cote is Lecturer in Digital Culture and Society at King's College London.Daniel Grausam is Lecturer in the Department of English at Durham University. Ken Hollings is a writer and broadcaster, visiting tutor at the Royal College of Art and Associate Lecturer at Central Saint Martins School of Art and Design. Adrian Mackenzie is Professor of Technological Cultures at Lancaster University. Jussi Parikka is a media theorist and writer, and Professor of Technological Culture and Aesthetics at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. John W. P. Phillips is Associate Professor in the Department of English at the National University of Singapore. Adam Piette is Professor of English at the University of Sheffield. James Purdon is Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Literature at the University of St Andrews.Aura Satz is an artist and Moving Image Tutor at the Royal College of Art.Neal White is an artist and Professor of Media Art at the Faculty of Media and Communication, Bournemouth University.
Contents
List of FiguresSeries Editors' PrefaceAcknowledgementsNotes on Contributors
Introduction: The Long Cold WarJohn Beck and Ryan Bishop
Part I: Pattern Recognition
1. The Future: RAND, Brand and Dangerous to KnowJohn Beck
2. Simulate, Optimise, Partition: Algorithmic Diagrams of Pattern Recognition from 1953 OnwardsAdrian Mackenzie
3. Impulsive Synchronisation: A Conversation on Military Technologies and Audiovisual ArtsAura Satz and Jussi Parikka
Part II: The Persistence of the Nuclear
4. The Meaning of Monte BelloJames Purdon
5. Deep Geological Disposal and Radioactive Time: Beckett, Bowen, Nirex and OnkaloAdam Piette
6. Shifting the Nuclear Imaginary: Art and the Flight from Nuclear ModernityEle Carpenter
7. Alchemical Transformations? Fictions of the Nuclear State after 1989Daniel Grausam
Part III: Ubiquitous Surveillance
8. 'The Very Form of Perverse Artificial Societies': The Unstable Emergence of the Network Family from its Cold War Nuclear BunkerKen Hollings
9. The Signal-Haunted Cold War: Persistence of the SIGINT OntologyJussi Parikka
10. 'Bulk Surveillance', or The Elegant Technicities of MetadataMark Coté
Part IV: Pervasive Mediations
11. Notes from the Underground: Microwaves, Backbones, Party Lines and the Post Office TowerJohn W. P. Phillips
12. Insect Technics: War Vision MachinesFabienne Collignon
13. Overt ResearchNeal White and John Beck
14. Smart Dust and Remote Sensing: The Political Subject in Autonomous SystemsRyan Bishop
Index
