Insect Media

Insect Media PDF Author: Jussi Parikka
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 081666739X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 321

Book Description
Since the early nineteenth century, when entomologists first popularized the unique biological and behavioral characteristics of insects, technological innovators and theorists have proposed insects as templates for a wide range of technologies. In Insect Media, Jussi Parikka analyzes how insect forms of social organization-swarms, hives, webs, and distributed intelligence-have been used to structure modern media technologies and the network society, providing a radical new perspective on the interconnection of biology and technology. Through close engagement with the pioneering work of insect ethologists, including Jakob von Uexküll and Karl von Frisch, posthumanist philosophers, media theorists, and contemporary filmmakers and artists, Parikka develops an insect theory of media, one that conceptualizes modern media as more than the products of individual human actors, social interests, or technological determinants. They are, rather, profoundly nonhuman phenomena that both draw on and mimic the alien lifeworlds of insects. Deftly moving from the life sciences to digital technology, from popular culture to avant-garde art and architecture, and from philosophy to cybernetics and game theory, Parikka provides innovative conceptual tools for exploring the phenomena of network society and culture. Challenging anthropocentric approaches to contemporary science and culture, Insect Media reveals the possibilities that insects and other nonhuman animals offer for rethinking media, the conflation of biology and technology, and our understanding of, and interaction with, contemporary digital culture.

A Geology of Media

A Geology of Media PDF Author: Jussi Parikka
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452944571
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 202

Book Description
Media history is millions, even billions, of years old. That is the premise of this pioneering and provocative book, which argues that to adequately understand contemporary media culture we must set out from material realities that precede media themselves—Earth’s history, geological formations, minerals, and energy. And to do so, writes Jussi Parikka, is to confront the profound environmental and social implications of this ubiquitous, but hardly ephemeral, realm of modern-day life. Exploring the resource depletion and material resourcing required for us to use our devices to live networked lives, Parikka grounds his analysis in Siegfried Zielinski’s widely discussed notion of deep time—but takes it back millennia. Not only are rare earth minerals and many other materials needed to make our digital media machines work, he observes, but used and obsolete media technologies return to the earth as residue of digital culture, contributing to growing layers of toxic waste for future archaeologists to ponder. He shows that these materials must be considered alongside the often dangerous and exploitative labor processes that refine them into the devices underlying our seemingly virtual or immaterial practices. A Geology of Media demonstrates that the environment does not just surround our media cultural world—it runs through it, enables it, and hosts it in an era of unprecedented climate change. While looking backward to Earth’s distant past, it also looks forward to a more expansive media theory—and, implicitly, media activism—to come.

Digital Memory and the Archive

Digital Memory and the Archive PDF Author: Wolfgang Ernst
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452933952
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 231

Book Description
In the popular imagination, archives are remote, largely obsolete institutions: either antiquated, inevitably dusty libraries or sinister repositories of personal secrets maintained by police states. Yet the archive is now a ubiquitous feature of digital life. Rather than being deleted, e-mails and other computer files are archived. Media software and cloud storage allow for the instantaneous cataloging and preservation of data, from music, photographs, and videos to personal information gathered by social media sites. In this digital landscape, the archival-oriented media theories of Wolfgang Ernst are particularly relevant. Digital Memory and the Archive, the first English-language collection of the German media theorist’s work, brings together essays that present Ernst’s controversial materialist approach to media theory and history. His insights are central to the emerging field of media archaeology, which uncovers the role of specific technologies and mechanisms, rather than content, in shaping contemporary culture and society. Ernst’s interrelated ideas on the archive, machine time and microtemporality, and the new regimes of memory offer a new perspective on both current digital culture and the infrastructure of media historical knowledge. For Ernst, different forms of media systems—from library catalogs to sound recordings—have influenced the content and understanding of the archive and other institutions of memory. At the same time, digital archiving has become a contested site that is highly resistant to curation, thus complicating the creation and preservation of cultural memory and history.

Digital Contagions

Digital Contagions PDF Author: Jussi Parikka
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9780820488370
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 344

Book Description
Digital Contagions is the first book to offer a comprehensive and critical analysis of the culture and history of the computer virus phenomenon. The book maps the anomalies of network culture from the angles of security concerns, the biopolitics of digital systems, and the aspirations for artificial life in software. The genealogy of network culture is approached from the standpoint of accidents that are endemic to the digital media ecology. Viruses, worms, and other software objects are not, then, seen merely from the perspective of anti-virus research or practical security concerns, but as cultural and historical expressions that traverse a non-linear field from fiction to technical media, from net art to politics of software. Jussi Parikka mobilizes an extensive array of source materials and intertwines them with an inventive new materialist cultural analysis. Digital Contagions draws from the cultural theories of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, Friedrich Kittler, and Paul Virilio, among others, and offers novel insights into historical media analysis.

Insect Cell Culture Engineering

Insect Cell Culture Engineering PDF Author: Mattheus F. A. Goosen
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000105660
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

Book Description
Consolidating and expanding current, fundamental notions of virology and animal cell cultivation, this practical reference examines the development of insect cell culture techniques for the production of recombinant proteins and insect pathogenic viruses.;Resolving on-the-job problems such as sparging cell damage and reduced infectivity cells, Insect Cell Culture Engineering: includes special introductory material as well as background information on insect pathogenic viruses, the molecular biology of baculoviruses and bioreactor design; offers advice on how to save time when deciding which insect cell line, bioreactor and medium to exploit; discusses the preparation of mathematical modelling in animal cell culture; addresses the concerns associated with insect cell immobilization and the use of serum-free culture media; provides insights into the protective effects of polymer additives and insect cell gene expression in pharmaceutical research; and analyzes process scale-up and reactor design.;Bridging the gap between laboratory research and pilot plant scale insect culture/baculovirus technology, Insect Cell Culture Engineering is designed as a reference for biochemical and bioprocess engineers, bioprocess technologists, biochemists, molecular and cell biologists, microbiologists, and upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in these disciplines.

The Anthrobscene

The Anthrobscene PDF Author: Jussi Parikka
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452944008
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 61

Book Description
Smartphones, laptops, tablets, and e-readers all at one time held the promise of a more environmentally healthy world not dependent on paper and deforestation. The result of our ubiquitous digital lives is, as we see in The Anthrobscene, actually quite the opposite: not ecological health but an environmental wasteland, where media never die. Jussi Parikka critiques corporate and human desires as a geophysical force, analyzing the material side of the earth as essential for the existence of media and introducing the notion of an alternative deep time in which media live on in the layer of toxic waste we will leave behind as our geological legacy. Forerunners: Ideas First is a thought-in-process series of breakthrough digital publications. Written between fresh ideas and finished books, Forerunners draws on scholarly work initiated in notable blogs, social media, conference plenaries, journal articles, and the synergy of academic exchange. This is gray literature publishing: where intense thinking, change, and speculation take place in scholarship.

Insects

Insects PDF Author: David B. Rivers
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421421704
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 489

Book Description
An introduction to the intriguing world of insects, from bullet ants to butterflies. Designed as an introduction to the intriguing world of insect biology, this book examines familiar entomological topics in nontraditional ways. Author David B. Rivers gives important concepts relatable context through a pop culture lens, and he covers subjects that are not typical for entomology textbooks, including the impact of insects on the human condition, the sex lives of insects, why insects are phat but not fat, forensic entomology, and the threats that some insects pose to humanity. Each chapter presents clear and concise key concepts, chapter reviews, review questions following Bloom’s taxonomy of learning, web links to videos and other resources, and breakout boxes (called Fly Spots) that capture student interest with unique and entertaining facts related to entomology. Focusing on both traditional and cutting-edge aspects of insect biology and packed with extensive learning resources, Insects covers a wide range of topics suitable for life science majors, as well as non-science students, including: • the positive and negative influences of insects on everyday human life • insect abundance • insect classification (here presented in the context of social media) • insect feeding, communication, defense, and sex • how insects are responding to climate change • forensic entomology • how insects can be used as weapons of war • how insects relate to national security • why insects have wings • how to read pesticide labels

The Insect and the Image

The Insect and the Image PDF Author: Janice Neri
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 0816667640
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 265

Book Description
How the picturing of insects inspired new ideas about art, science, nature, and commerce

Eat Grub

Eat Grub PDF Author: Shami Radia
Publisher: White Lion Publishing
ISBN: 1781012067
Category : Cooking
Languages : en
Pages : 323

Book Description
Entomophagy - eating insects - is hardly a new phenomenon. We've eaten bugs for centuries, and many countries around the world continue to enjoy them in modern cuisine. But insect eating is currently experiencing a rise in popularity. Restaurants are dishing up insects, the UN is publishing reports on the merits of insect-heavy diets and the Nordic Food Lab is exploring how delicious insects can be. The media is now talking about the ethics, the eco benefits and the economic sense behind incorporating entomophagy into our lives. This book by the founders of Grub - a company which sells and promotes edible insects - features 55 accessible recipes using a variety of bugs, from grasshoppers to mealworms. It takes its inspiration from cuisines around the word to present a range of small plates, meals, desserts and even cocktails using whole and ground insects. It explores where edible insects come from, how they're farmed and how to grill, pruree, grind and bake them.

Insect Pheromone Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Insect Pheromone Biochemistry and Molecular Biology PDF Author: Gary Blomquist
Publisher: Academic Press
ISBN: 0128196297
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 751

Book Description
Insect Pheromone Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Second Edition, provides an updated and comprehensive review of the biochemistry and molecular biology of insect pheromone biosynthesis and reception. The book ties together historical information with recent discoveries, provides the reader with the current state of the field, and suggests where future research is headed. Written by international experts, many of whom pioneered studies on insect pheromone production and reception, this release updates the 2003 first edition with an emphasis on recent advances in the field. This book will be an important resource for entomologists and molecular biologists studying all areas of insect communication. Offers a historical and contemporary perspective, with a focus on advances over the last 15 years Discusses the molecular and regulatory mechanisms underlying pheromone production/detection, as well as the evolution of these processes across the insects Led by editors with broad expertise in the metabolic pathways of pheromone production and the biochemical and genetic processes of pheromone detection