Category Archives: question of materiality

striking lines to punching buttons: surrealist erasures and the mechanical writing method

– from Andre Breton’s The Automatic Message To understand surrealist automatic writing, we might think of typing without backspace or undo. In the process of writing this first sentence, I performed countless of edits. The words are coming with difficulty. … Continue reading

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“All that we are is the result of what we have thought”

… and so: “Targeted memory erasure and enhancement may be possible,” says neuroscientist Andre Fenton in response to that Guatama Siddharta quote. This lecture appears to be part of a series on The Future of Hope. This explains why the … Continue reading

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the virtue of planned erasure

What if you were asked to set an expiration date for every file you saved on your computer? Imagine what would take place on that date. Your file would be automatically erased from your computer and anywhere else that it … Continue reading

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erasing in mind: of wax tablets and blank slates

In the nature versus nurture debate, tabula rasa is a powerful image representing the idea of the mind as a “blank slate” open from birth to impression through learning and perception. Yet, the term is somewhat inaccurately translated and oddly … Continue reading

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importing forgetfullness, staging erasure

Erasability was an important feature of the Renaissance writing tables. These little books were heralded for their functionality, portability, affordability, and by some accounts, their value for reflection upon the human condition. In “Hamlet’s Tables and the Technologies of Writing … Continue reading

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deleting texts: a formal and forensic materiality

To combat the cultural expectation of the fleeting electronic text and the “illusion of immaterial behavior” that the digital environment projects, Matthew Kirschenbaum brings into focus the mechanisms that facilitate inscription and transmission in Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic … Continue reading

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linking to other media + materiality projects

A hyperlink seldom tells us where we will be physically drawing information from. The suffix in the URL string may hint at a country, but the IP address that the URL serves is a more accurate indication of the content’s … Continue reading

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the object of deletion

The way of expressing deletion typically references a media device or a content platform from which the erasure is performed. The idea of a digital object comes into play mainly in a discussion about effective archiving practices and not deletion … Continue reading

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