10- A Geology of Media

                                                      Source: Cover of "Geology of Media," Jussi Parikka (2015)

In chapter two of “A Geology of Media,” Jussi Parikka (2015) make us a call to overpass the attractiveness of the digital technologies and to look at the geological impact brought by the production of these goods. Parikka concerns are not only restrained to the production of tangible digital technologies damaging the earth, but also the geological harms behind the supposed immaterial services such as cloud data storage (30).

Parikka offers an investigation of the materiality of media by contrasting the view of the earth as a resource against the view of the earth as an alive entity.  For instance, cooper is a crucial component of media production for centuries, and the high demand of this element has increased its search beyond the sustainable limits. On the other hand, biopolitical studies have shown that petroleum is “a living subterranean life-form” (34). Parikka argues that, in the wake of production impact on geology, we should not ignore earth’ screams (34).

For Parikka, the history of media merges with the earth history. The media technologies are the reconfiguration of metal and chemicals extracted from the earth. To describe this process, Parikka follows the Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of stratification. By stratification, one understand the process of “…organizing the molecular nonorganic life into “molar aggregates” (36).

The author explored the notion of deep time from Siegfried Zielinski to understand time in geology. This investigation leads him to divide the deep time concept into two directions: 1) geology as what enables digital media existence; 2) and as “concretely linked to the nonhuman earth times of decay and renewal but also to the current Anthropocene of the obscenities of the ecocrisis—or to put it in one word, the Anthrobscene”.(44).

For talking about the materiality of media technology, Parikka focus on the waste problem originated by obsolete digital technology and issues related to energy and power (45). He attempts to understand the connections between “deep times” and geology in the Antropocene. Referring to Erich Horl and Deleuze, Parikka sets Antropocene as a notion that “maps the scope of a transdisciplinary problem” (45). He additions that the Antropocene is an environmental concept, but totally linked to the technological. Environmental supports technological questions to discuss notions as subjectivity and agency, putting geology as something not only limited to ecological issues but as part of social and technological relationship (46). For instance, geological problems resulting from e-waste are forcing governments to think the future of digital technologies and the political rules around this theme.

Parikka argues that “materialism” is more than media devices. However, his interest is to know what sustains media as a media historically (56). For him, the history of digital culture is “obscene, ” and we don’t have motives to celebrate it (58).

Cited work:

Parikka, J. (2015). “An Alternative Deep Time of the Media.” A Geology of Media. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.