“One approach to rematerializing is to ask about the constituent mediations that instantiate any image, sound, or text.”
-Bill Brown, “Materiality” in Critical Terms for Media Studies
After reading Bill Brown’s explanation of what it means to rematerialize the media that is sometimes considered an immaterial force (e.g. the internet), I was struck by this photographic narrative of the journey of a bit, by Andrew Blum – I read this piece for the Urban Media Lab: Traffic course this week and it grounded some of Brown’s discussion quite perfectly.
Here is the link:
Thanks, Alex! Andrew actually took our UMA class on a “walking tour” of the Internet in Fall 2010. We’re all really looking forward to his forthcoming book, Tubes, which is about “the Internet as a place.”