Anthropologies of Entanglements: Media and Modes of Existence

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Media and human modes of existence are always already intertwined and interdependent. The notion of the anthropocene has further stimulated a new examination of ideas about human agency and responsibility. Various approaches all emphasize relational concepts and the situatedness and embodiment of humanand also non-humanexistences and experiences. Their common interest has shifted from any so-called human nature to the multitude of cultural, topographical, technical, historical, social, discursive, and media formats with which human existences are entangled. This volume brings together a range of thinkers from international backgrounds and puts these important reflections and ideas in the spotlight. More specifically, the volume explores the concept of "anthropomedial entanglements." It fosters an understanding of human bodies, experiences, and media as being immanently entangled and mutually constituting, prior to any possible distinction between them. The different contributions thus open up a dialogue between empirical case studies and media-historical research on the one hand and the conceptual work of media and cultural philosophies and aesthetics on the other hand.

Reviews

Anthropologies of Entanglement develops a new and inspiring approach to understanding our contemporary condition of the Mediocene, in which the human and natural spheres are indissolubly intertwined with and permeated by media. Its key word, Anthropomediality, convincingly suggests to conceive the human existence as mediatic; the relation comes before the related. The 16 contributions by international authors from a broad variety of fields brilliantly discuss the entanglements that precede all forms of reification and anthropogenesis. * Christoph Menke, Professor, Goethe-Universitt Frankfurt am Main, Germany *
This splendid collection includes essays tackling examples from the multiple histories of our co-evolution with technologies (from the prostheses of World War I to todays surveillance devices of the train station) and others offering ways to conceptualize the status of human-media interrelations, and their inseparability, that entanglement carried in Voss term, anthropomediality. The writing is consistently lucid and engaging, as well as helpful in unfolding dense theories into usable form and in applying them to a diversity of films (from Rocky to Claire Denis). The book will be particularly valuable for students wanting to think more deeply about the consequences of a traffic that courses among media and existence. * Antonia Lant, Professor of Cinema Studies, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, USA *

Author Bio

Christiane Voss is Professor of Philosophy of Audiovisual Media at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, Germany. Important publications include Die Relevanz der Irrelevanz (2021), together with Lorenz Engell, Der Leihkrper (2013), and Narrative Emotions (2003). Lorenz Engell is Professor of Media Philosophy at Bauhaus-Universitt Weimar, Germany, where he was the founding dean of the Faculty of Media from 1996-2000 and co-director of the International Research Center for Cultural Techniques and Media Philosophy (IKKM) from 2008-2020. Tim Othold is a research associate and coordinator at the DFG post-graduate program for "Media Anthropology" at the Bauhaus-University Weimar, Germany. He has published on media philosophical approaches to digital culture, the internet of things, games, and the concept of remnants and remainders.