Panel Discussion
Mass media relies on the technological reproduction and circulation of images at a vast scale. How have recent changes in the infrastructures of production and distribution transformed the appearance and meaning of images? How have new technologies of circulation impacted the environments they traverse and the lives of those whose work maintains them? And how do new technologies of dissemination transform what it means to see an image? Media scholars Shane Denson, Nicole Starosielski, and Mal Ahern will discuss a variety of methodological approaches to the history and theory of media technology. Shane Denson (Film & Media Studies, Stanford University) researches a variety of media and historical periods, including phenomenological and media-philosophical approaches to film, digital media, comics, games, and serialized popular forms. His most recent books are Post-Cinematic Bodies (2023) and Discorrelated Images (2020), and he coordinates the Digital Aesthetics Research Workshop at the Stanford Humanities Center. Nicole Starosielski (Film & Media Studies, University of California Berkeley) conducts research on global communications infrastructures ranging from data centers to undersea cables, and media’s environmental and elemental dimensions. Her books include The Undersea Network (2015) and Media Hot and Cold (2021). She is currently the principal investigator of the research project, Sustainable Subsea Networks. Mal Ahern (Cinema & Media Studies, University of Washington) is a media historian focused on the labor and technology of image reproduction in the Twentieth Century. |