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BestsellerE-book
Author Gabrys, Jennifer.

Title Digital rubbish : a natural history of electronics / Jennifer Gabrys.

Publication Info. Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2011]

Item Status

Description 1 online resource
data file
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 201-219) and index.
Contents ""Contents ""; ""Introduction: A Natural History of Electronics ""; ""1. Silicon Elephants: The Transformative Materiality of Microchips ""; ""2. Ephemeral Screens: Exchange at the Interface ""; ""3. Shipping and Receiving: Circuits of Disposal and the ""Social Death"" of Electronics ""; ""4. Museum of Failure: The Mutability of Electronic Memory ""; ""5. Media in the Dump: Salvage Stories and Spaces of Remainder ""; ""Conclusion: Digital Rubbish Theory ""; ""Notes ""; ""Bibliography ""; ""Index ""
Note This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 Unported License
Summary "This is a study of the material life of information and its devices; of electronic waste in its physical and electronic incarnations; a cultural and material mapping of the spaces where electronics in the form of both hardware and information accumulate, break down, or are stowed away. Electronic waste occurs not just in the form of discarded computers but also as a scatter of information devices, software, and systems that are rendered obsolete and fail. Where other studies have addressed "digital" technology through a focus on its immateriality or virtual qualities, Gabrys traces the material, spatial, cultural, and political infrastructures that enable the emergence and dissolution of these technologies. In the course of her book, she explores five interrelated "spaces" where electronics fall apart: from Silicon Valley to Nasdaq, from containers bound for China to museums and archives that preserve obsolete electronics as cultural artifacts, to the landfill as material repository. All together, these sites stack up into a sedimentary record that forms the "natural history" of this study. Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics describes the materiality of electronics from a unique perspective, examining the multiple forms of waste that electronics create as evidence of the resources, labor, and imaginaries that are bundled into these machines. By drawing on the material analysis developed by Walter Benjamin, this natural history method allows for an inquiry into electronics that focuses neither on technological progression nor on great inventors but rather considers the ways in which electronic technologies fail and decay. Ranging across studies of media and technology, as well as environments, geography, and design, Jennifer Gabrys pulls together the far-reaching material and cultural processes that enable the making and breaking of these technologies"--Publisher's description.
Local Note JSTOR Books at JSTOR Open Access
Language English.
Subject Electronic waste.
Electronic waste.
Electronic apparatus and appliances -- History.
Electronic apparatus and appliances.
History.
SCIENCE -- Environmental Science.
Indexed Term Electrical and nuclear engineering
Genre/Form Electronic books.
History.
Other Form: Print version: Digital rubbish Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2011] 9780472117611 (cloth : alk. paper) (DLC) 2010033747
ISBN 9780472029402 ebook
0472029401
9780472117611 cloth : alkaline paper
9780472035373
9780472900299 (electronic book)
0472035371
0472900293 (electronic book)
9781299557970 (electronic book)
129955797X (electronic book)
0472117610
Standard No. 10.3998/dcbooks.9380304.0001.001
YBP10708483