Abstract

Is it possible to incite a turn towards Media Philosophy, a field that accounts for the autonomy of media, for machine agency and for the new modalities of thought and subjectivity that these enable, rather than dwelling on representations, audiences and extensions of the self?

In the wake of the field-defining work done by Friedrich Kittler, this important collection of essays takes a philosophical approach to the end of the media era in the traditional sense and outlines the implications of a turn that sees media become concepts of the middle, of connection, and of multitude—across diverse disciplines and theoretical perspectives. An expert panel of contributors, working at the cutting edge of media theory, analyze the German thinker's legacy and the possibilities his thought can unfold for media theory. This book examines the present and future condition of mediation, within the wider context of media studies in a digital age.
Media After Kittler is a volume Kittler himself could have compiled: an intriguing mix of in-depth discussions and departures that probe the ways in which media can be conceived after, according to and sometimes against Kittler. It uses Kittler the way Kittler used the work of Lacan, Foucault and many others: as a toolbox for ingenious tinkering and innovative coupling.

Geoffrey Winthrop-Young, Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies, University of British Columbia
Eleni Ikoniadou is Senior Lecturer in Media and Communication at Kingston University and executive member of the London Graduate School. Her writing has appeared in journals such as Body & Society, Senses and Society, Culture Machine, and Leonardo and she is the author of The Rhythmic Event (Technologies of Lived Abstraction series, 2014).

Scott Wilsonis Professor of Media and Psychoanalysis at Kingston University. His most recent books include The Order of Joy; Beyond the Cultural Politics of Enjoyment (2008) and Stop Making Sense: Music from the Perspective of the Real (2015).