Technical change and evolving product complexity lead to a separation of practical and theoretical processes in design and to an increased use of drawings, in particular, scale drawings.1 In contrast to handicraft evolution, the use of drawings in "design-by-drawing,"2 in particular, scaled and dimensioned drawings, separates experiences from production. Design and manufacturing follow different paths. This separation in the case of manual drawing needs to be examined. I am well aware that informal drawings differ from scale or construction drawings. If (...) they contain unambiguous symbols, manual drawings can be regarded as a form of notation. Design-by-drawing can mean planning a notation, for... (shrink)

This paper seeks to introduce cultural techniques to an Anglophone readership. Specifically geared towards an Anglophone readership, the paper relates the re-emergence of cultural techniques to the changing intellectual constellation of postwar Germany. More specifically, it traces how the concept evolved from – and reacted against – so-called German media theory, a decidedly anti-hermeneutic and anti-humanist current of thought frequently associated with the work of Friedrich Kittler. Post-hermeneutic rather than anti-hermeneutic in its outlook, the reconceptualization of cultural techniques aims at (...) presenting them as chains of operations that link humans, things, media and even animals. To investigate cultural techniques is to shift the analytic gaze from ontological distinctions to the ontic operations that gave rise to the former in the first place. As Siegert points out, this shift recalls certain concurrent developments within the North American posthumanities; the paper therefore also includes a discussion of the similarities and differences between German and North American posthumanism. (shrink)

For a long time, ‘culture’ appears only to be an effect of the power of discourses and media in Friedrich Kittler’s works. But in his Berlin lecture series on the cultural history of cultural studies, he discusses the historical formations in which a discrete science of culture could emerge. His perspective not only highlights the historical foundations but also the blind spots of cultural studies.

Beatrice Höller carefully analyzes the distinct and multivalent word-image relations rendered on three inkstone cases created in late fifteenth century Kyoto. The exquisitely designed cases are not only well known; with each one designated as an “important cultural property,” there has been research by lacquer specialists in terms of stylistic, material, technical or poetic and historical aspects. The author focuses on the multiple socio-cultural layers of meaning by employing a number of notions, concepts and paradigms, including “cultural memory”. The inkstone (...) cases were all created during or after the rule of Ashikaga Yoshimasa, the eighth shogun of the Ashikaga House, who is known for his penchant for cultural pursuits rather than military prowess or political cunning. His rule and legacy is also characterized by one of the most devastating civil wars in Japan, the so-called Ōnin War, which destroyed the capital of Kyoto completely. It marked the beginning of a vast and destructive civil war that ended only after roughly one-hundred years towards the close of the sixteenth century. This era of martial strife caused unprecedented social upheaval and saw the construction of new cultural centers outside Kyoto, as well as novel forms of performing, visual and martial arts. It is the latter aspect of the fifteenth century, along with retired Shogun Yoshimasa’s taste and cultural pursuits, and an approach that involves processes of identity formation through poetic allusions and their material re-interpretations with which this book is concerned. The author describes, analyzes, contextualizes, and historicizes the inkstone cases in each of her chapters from a new angle, digging ever deeper into layers of meaning, interpretation and contextualization whilst addressing and exploring different concepts. At the same time, she delves into material and visual properties, the poetics of the intricately rendered classical poems and their multiple levels of interpretations, along with the local and spiritual dimensions of the iconographies rendered or implied, which constitutes an immensely important aspect during this period of military and political conflicts. (shrink)

Focusing on a subject the author has extensively engaged with over the years, the article develops the notion of service as a cultural technique, and the media-theoretical figure of the servant as its servomechanism. The analysis follows three distinct scenarios that highlight, via different channels of perception, the interplay between corporeal practices and media objects in the production of specific cultural effects. In each of the examples chosen, service implies highly regulated networks of recursive operational chains that regulate in their (...) turn the production and distribution of power and knowledge. Thus, Krajewski argues, despite, or rather, precisely because of their apparent marginality and invisibility, the ‘small gestures’ of service join the ranks of already established, elementary symbolic techniques such as reading or writing. (shrink)

The Knowledge of Debt: Law, Media Technique, and Everyday Experience in Liberal Capitalism. Performing an object such as ‘the economy’ hinges on practices of formatting knowledge. The article proposes to look at such instituting moments in connection with social conflicts over the legitimate rules of exchange. This is exemplified by way of recounting the story of the codification of Swiss bankruptcy law in 1889. In order to homogenize the legal procedures of debt collection and bankruptcy, two subject categories were instituted: (...) ‘merchants’ and ‘non‐merchants’. These different categories were thought to account for the diverging temporalities and spaces of credit exchange in everyday economic life. The introduction of the commercial register, a media‐technical apparatus, enabled a formal distinction between ‘merchants’ and ‘non‐merchants’. However, this boundary was contested and proved to be porose. (shrink)