KUKU

KU ScholarWorks

  • myKU
  • Email
  • Enroll & Pay
  • KU Directory
    • Login
    View Item 
    •   KU ScholarWorks
    • Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities (IDRH)
    • IDRH Events
    • View Item
    •   KU ScholarWorks
    • Institute for Digital Research in the Humanities (IDRH)
    • IDRH Events
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Reasserting Thing-Power: Roughness as a Response to Antimaterialism

    Video
    View/Open
    Reasserting Thing-Power Roughness as a Response to Antimaterialism - Rachael Sullivan.mp4 (87Mb)
    Issue Date
    2013-09-14
    Author
    Sullivan, Rachael
    Type
    Video
    Published Version
    https://youtu.be/Zoo-X12L2m8
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    Abstract
    Overwhelmingly, contemporary interface design principles aim for an experience of immateriality. As Bill Buxton, pioneering interface designer at Microsoft Research, recently told Ars Technica in an interview, “if you’re aware there’s a computer there, we’ve failed.” The fluid movement of fingers and the immediate responsiveness of a glowing screen envelopes users in effortless interaction with information. Drawing on software studies and neo-materialist theory, this presentation first shows that ease-of-use and user-friendliness as priorities enforce a misunderstanding of digital textuality and encourage composers (“writers” in classrooms, “content producers” on the social web) to look for and expect readymade composing surfaces. Many media and digital humanities scholars have interpreted this black-boxing of functionality as an ideological preference for immateriality and ephemerality in our writing technologies. As Matthew Kirschenbaum writes (2008), “Computers have been intentionally and deliberately engineered to produce the illusion of immateriality” (135). Such an illusion, which Matthew Fuller (2008) blames partly on rhetoric that enforces a caesura between the automaticity of computing contrasted with messier industrial or craft forms of production, “is ultimately trivializing and debilitating” (Fuller 4).

    Turning to political philosopher Jane Bennett’s theory of materiality (2010), which she calls “thing-power,” the second half of my presentation argues that the dis-appearance of writing materials, encouraged by revenue-generating, smoothing innovations like Facebook’s “frictionless sharing” and Amazon’s “one-click buying,” is detrimental to inventive practice in new media. Writing technologies are not neutral and unproblematic bearers of language; a confrontation with thing-power means “acknowledgment, respect, and sometimes fear of the materiality of the thing [and the] ways in which human being and thinghood overlap” (Bennett 349). Stronger than rhetoric of immateriality, an “anti-materiality bias” (Bennett 350) actively devalues ways that computers shape what is possible in writing and how that writing happens between the electrical conductivity and movement of fingertips, sensitive surfaces, and increasingly complex layers of software and software developers. When antimaterialism moves from interface design to the digital humanities classroom or studio, lost is the rewarding encounter with the rough‑edged energy and difficulty of not only language, but also the stuff of composing.
    Description
    Digital Humanities Forum: Return to the Material. University of Kansas. September 14, 2013: http://idrh.ku.edu/dhforum2013

    Rachael Sullivan is at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/1808/30420
    Collections
    • IDRH Events [113]

    Items in KU ScholarWorks are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.


    We want to hear from you! Please share your stories about how Open Access to this item benefits YOU.


    Contact KU ScholarWorks
    785-864-8983
    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    785-864-8983

    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    Image Credits
     

     

    Browse

    All of KU ScholarWorksCommunities & CollectionsThis Collection

    My Account

    LoginRegister

    Statistics

    View Usage Statistics

    Contact KU ScholarWorks
    785-864-8983
    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    785-864-8983

    KU Libraries
    1425 Jayhawk Blvd
    Lawrence, KS 66045
    Image Credits
     

     

    The University of Kansas
      Contact KU ScholarWorks
    Lawrence, KS | Maps
     
    • Academics
    • Admission
    • Alumni
    • Athletics
    • Campuses
    • Giving
    • Jobs

    The University of Kansas prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, age, ancestry, disability, status as a veteran, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status, gender identity, gender expression and genetic information in the University’s programs and activities. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the non-discrimination policies: Director of the Office of Institutional Opportunity and Access, IOA@ku.edu, 1246 W. Campus Road, Room 153A, Lawrence, KS, 66045, (785)864-6414, 711 TTY.

     Contact KU
    Lawrence, KS | Maps