Horn, or the counterside of media

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Bibliographic Information

Horn, or the counterside of media

Henning Schmidgen ; translated by Nils F. Schott

（Sign, storage, transmission / a series edited by Jonathan Sterne and Lisa Gitelman）

Duke University Press, 2022

  • : pbk

Other Title

Horn, oder Die Gegenseite der Medien

Counterside of media

Available at  / 2 libraries

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Note

Includes bibliographical references and index

Summary: Our daily dealings with media are characterized by a remarkable turn to the tactile. In practically all places, at practically all times, we touch and handle media devices. Conversely, these devices touch and scan us-and increasingly so: from pressure sensors in car seats and motion detectors in front of automatic doors to body scanners, smart phones, and fitness trackers. To this development, Horn, or The Counterside of Media responds by considering a substance and surface that is an exemplary "medium." Horn stands for a natural substance but also an artificial object. It constitutes a boundary between interior and exterior, while functioning as decoration and ornament, shield and tool. ...

Contents of Works

  • The Captured Unicorn
  • Impressions of Modernity
  • Rhinoceros Cybernetics
  • A Surface Medium par Excellence
  • Horn and Time

Description and Table of Contents

Description

We regularly touch and handle media devices. At the same time, media devices such as body scanners, car seat pressure sensors, and smart phones scan and touch us. In Horn, Henning Schmidgen reflects on the bidirectional nature of touch and the ways in which surfaces constitute sites of mediation between interior and exterior. Schmidgen uses the concept of "horn"-whether manifested as a rhinoceros horn or a musical instrument-to stand for both natural substances and artificial objects as spaces of tactility. He enters into creative dialogue with artists, scientists, and philosophers, ranging from Salvador Dali, William Kentridge, and Rebecca Horn to Sigmund Freud, Walter Benjamin, and Marshall McLuhan, who plumb the complex interplay between tactility and technological and biological surfaces. Whether analyzing how Dali conceived of images as tactile entities during his "rhinoceros phase" or examining the problem of tactility in Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49, Schmidgen reconfigures understandings of the dynamic phenomena of touch in media.

Table of Contents

Preface vii Introduction 1 1. The Captured Unicorn 13 2. Impressions of Modernity 49 3. Rhinoceros Cybernetics 88 4. A Surface Medium Par Excellence 148 5. Horn and Time 192 Conclusion 240 Notes 251 Bibliography 273 Index 293

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