Papers by Sergio Minniti
Comunicazioni Sociali, 2021
Since its beginnings in the 1990s, media archeology has established a fruitful exchange of concep... more Since its beginnings in the 1990s, media archeology has established a fruitful exchange of concepts and methods with media art. The present article focuses on the mutual exchange between these two fields. It aims at reflecting on the commonalities and differences between artists’ and scholars’ work and, consequently, on the emergence of the figure of the artist-researcher, or researcher- artist, who practices media history through creative techniques. To do so, it first reconstructs how media archaeology and media art have cross-fertilized each other, and identifies two distinct phases of convergence between media-archaeological research and art. Then, by drawing on the relevant literature on the subject, the article examines the main strategies and methods adopted by archaeologically-oriented artists, highlighting how such methods have become increasingly relevant to media archaeologists and, more broadly, to media historians.
VIEW Journal of European Television History and Culture, 2019
The article addresses the issue of the digital divide in Ecuador and illustrates how artefacts fr... more The article addresses the issue of the digital divide in Ecuador and illustrates how artefacts from television material heritage might be transformed into digital libraries to provide marginalized communities with access to digital information. It describes an ongoing socio-technical project which aims at providing Ecuadorian rural communities with access to digital information through the re-functioning of analogue TV sets and other complementary technologies that will become obsolete due to Ecuador's switch from an analogue to digital broadcasting signal. On one hand, the project is discussed with reference to the contemporary debate in the fields of Media and Television Studies on the obsolescence and renewal of technology; And on the other, it is discussed on the background of earlier projects focusing on the design of digital libraries to circulate information and improve digital literacy in rural contexts. Finally, the prototype created is discussed from a technical and conceptual point of view.
Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, 2019
The article aims at investigating the persistence and comeback of old media technologies (phenome... more The article aims at investigating the persistence and comeback of old media technologies (phenomena we define, in short, ‘retromedia’) by developing a distinctive theoretical approach named retromedia-in-practice and based on practice theory. Far from being abandoned and forgotten, many old media devices and artefacts (such as vinyl records, cassette tapes, analogue photographic cameras, early videogames and brick mobile phones, to mention just a few notable examples) are nowadays readopted by young generations and niche media subcultures. However, most of the existing literature focusing on these cases has limits and shortfalls, resulting in a partial and misleading understanding of these phenomena: scholars and theorists often put at the centre the cultural fascination for vintage objects and the nostalgia effect; other studies rely on a taken-for-granted distinction between old and new media; the relational and processual nature of media change is rarely addressed; and in general, research lacks a framework capable of adequately integrating symbolic processes with material and technological features. In order to cope with these shortfalls, the article adopts the approach of practice theory, which enables to focus not on the media themselves, but on the practices associated with them. After presenting the distinctive framework of analysis, we exemplify our approach by analysing three different cases coming from music (vinyl records), photography (Polaroid-like instant photography) and videogaming (the ‘consolization’ of old arcade games). These case studies rely on original empirical data coming from authors’ qualitative research. The article concludes by arguing that a shift from considering retromedia as objects or discourses to retromedia-in-practice allows to both address the processual nature of retromedia and propose an interpretation that keeps together media materiality, their meanings and also the embodied activities and behaviours that are attached to them.
Cinéma & Cie: International Film Studies Journal, 2018
Scientometrics, 2018
Open Access (OA) initiatives and knowledge infrastructure represent vital elements for both produ... more Open Access (OA) initiatives and knowledge infrastructure represent vital elements for both producing significant changes in scholarly communication and reducing limitations of access to the circulation of scientific knowledge in developing countries. The spreading of the OA movement in Latin America and Caribbean (LA&C) countries, exemplified by the growth of regional and national initiatives, such as the creation of OA digital journal libraries and the establishment of supportive governmental policies, provides evidence of the significant role OA is playing in improving the participation of LA&C countries in the so-called "global knowledge commons". In this paper, we map OA publications in LA&C countries through a bibliometric analysis of OA publications indexed by the Web of Science Core Collection and SciELO Citation Index during the period 2005-2017. Searches were done in the fields "Country", "Publication Year", "Language", and "Research Area" using WoS analytical tools, in order to map the evolution, distribution , and characteristics of OA publications in the LA&C region. The analysis is conducted on both the sub-regional and national levels. On the sub-regional level, trends in the four LA&C sub-regions (Southern Cone, Central America and Mexico, Andes, and the Caribbean) are identified and compared. On the national level, the analysis identifies as most representative and focuses on nine countries: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru. By doing so, it enriches the existing literature on the subject, where the prominent role played by some of these countries in supporting OA has been already underlined.
TECNOSCIENZA: Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies, 2018
Relationships among theory, gaming, learning and socio-technical design are explored in the two c... more Relationships among theory, gaming, learning and socio-technical design are explored in the two contributions which compose the section. The theory in question is ANT, re-interpreted through critical making-an umbrella term for various distinctive practices that link traditional scholarship in the humanities and social sciences to forms of material engagement. Sergio Minniti describes an ongoing project called Game of ANT, which draws upon the critical making approach to design an interactive technology and a workshop experience through which scholars and students can conceptually-materially engage with ANT, hence exploring and approaching it from novel points of view. Game of ANT adopts the Latourian vision of technoscience as war and physically embodies this idea by proposing a sort of war game during which participants play the roles of human or non-human actors engaging with the competitive dynamics of socio-technical life. The commentary by Stefano De Paoli proposes new directions to develop the project, by deepening the concept of game and its value for design and learning processes.
The article focuses on the reconfiguration of analogue instant photography (Polaroid-like) in the... more The article focuses on the reconfiguration of analogue instant photography (Polaroid-like) in the digital age. Drawing on STS literature on the mutual shaping of users and technology, and on anthropology and the history of photography, it adopts the concept of " photo-object " to discuss how the digitalization of photography stimulated a change in the cultural significance of materiality in the context of aspirational amateur photography , thus showing how this triggered a redefinition of instant photography as a more authentic form of aspirational practice. The article is based on empirical data collected during a multi-sited ethnography conducted in Italy between 2014 and 2015. By focusing on Polaroid's " objectness " and its dialectical tension with the immateriality of digital photography, the paper highlights an increasingly common process of circulation between analogue and digital photographic environments and argues that this process of circulation can be conceived in terms of a " remediation " process between analogue and digital practices.
The digitalisation of photography has often been interpreted as a process of dematerialization. H... more The digitalisation of photography has often been interpreted as a process of dematerialization. However, empirical studies show that the material dimension is still fundamental to digital photographic practices. By accepting the argument that digitalisation prompted a reconfiguration of photography's materiality, rather than its disappearance, this article examines a phenomenon that has developed on the periphery of, but relating to, digital photography: the reappropriation of analogue technology in the context of " serious " amateurism. By using data collected during a study on the reappropriation of Polaroid technology, this contribution traces some patterns in the reintegration of materiality within amateur practice, showing how photographers have redefined the role of objects as a reaction to the spread of digital photography.
Chapters by Sergio Minniti
CO-CREAZIONE E RESPONSABILITÀ NELL’INNOVAZIONE TECNOSCIENTIFICA DAL BASSO, 2022
The Camera as Actor: Photography and the Embodiment of Technology, 2021
The chapter analyses the increased readoption of analogue photographic technology by aspirational... more The chapter analyses the increased readoption of analogue photographic technology by aspirational amateurs in the contemporary digital environment. It argues that this phenomenon reflects the processes of co-constitution of the analogue and the digital, through which the infrastructures, discourses and practices of analogue photography have become imbricated with those of digital media, highlighting how practitioners have increasingly interpreted the reappropriation of film photography as a means to counteract the “dematerialization” process supposedly triggered by the spread of digital photography, and to reaffirm the value of photography as a physical and multisensory experience. The chapter reconstructs the origins of this phenomenon and, in so doing, proposes to interpret contemporary analogue photographic practices as examples of “technological resistance” that are guided by a logic of opposition to digital photography. By analyzing two contemporary analogue practices, lomography and polaroidism, the chapter also shows how the articulation of “resistant” photographic cultures and practices has been grounded in the redefinition of the way in which the camera’s and photographer’s agencies are conceived and relationally bound, as well as in the greater saliency attributed to photography’s materiality in the digital age.
Paolo Magaudda and Federico Neresini (eds.) Gli studi sociali sulla scienza e la tecnologia, pp. 109-126, 2020
Il capitolo prende in esame la relazione tra utilizzatori e tecnologie, evidenziando come gli STS... more Il capitolo prende in esame la relazione tra utilizzatori e tecnologie, evidenziando come gli STS abbiano messo in discussione la rigida distinzione tra sfera della produzione e sfera dell’uso per portare in primo piano le dinamiche di co-costruzione che si sviluppano nel corso dell’appropriazione degli oggetti tecnici da parte dei loro utilizzatori. Più in particolare, il capitolo descrive quattro filoni di ricerca attraverso cui gli STS hanno contribuito alla comprensione di queste dinamiche: a) lo studio delle modalità in cui designer e ingegneri configurano gli utilizzatori; b) l’analisi delle forme di innovazione che emergono dall’uso e il ruolo degli utilizzatori come agenti di cambiamento tecnologico; c) lo studio delle forme di resistenza e di non-uso da parte degli utilizzatori; e infine d) le ricerche sul ruolo degli utilizzatori nella manutenzione e riparazione degli oggetti tecnici.
Books by Sergio Minniti
I media digitali sono spesso descritti come il futuro obbligato, il cui successo è dato per scont... more I media digitali sono spesso descritti come il futuro obbligato, il cui successo è dato per scontato. Ma c’è un altro lato della digitalizzazione che viene poco considerato e che una puntuale analisi storica aiuta a mostrare: anche le tecnologie digitali a volte non funzionano o vengono abbandonate dagli utenti, i processi d’innovazione che sembrano inevitabili s’interrompono, alcuni mezzi che saranno nelle case di tutti domani diventano presto obsoleti. In poche parole i media digitali possono fallire. Questo è il tema di Fallimenti digitali, un libro che raccoglie contributi originali dedicati a differenti settori mediali (dalla fotografia alle reti, dalla TV alla radio, dalla stampa alla realtà virtuale, dal cinema ai videogiochi) al fine di esplorare e decostruire la categoria di fallimento nell’universo digitale. Il risultato è un lavoro “archeologico” di riscoperta e scavo nella storia recente di quelli che (spesso in maniera impropria) vengono definiti nuovi media. Un lavoro che favorisce la riemersione di varie storie d’insuccesso poco conosciute, interrotte e sacrificate sull’altare delle retoriche “vincenti” proprie del
tecno-capitalismo digitale, in cui anche il fallimento è propedeutico al successo futuro in piena logica da start up. Adatto a un lettore curioso così come agli studiosi di media e comunicazione, il libro vuole sottolineare come la digitalizzazione non costituisca un percorso scontato e lineare, ma si presenti piuttosto come un processo incerto, molto più traballante e insicuro di quanto siamo comunemente spinti a immaginare.
Conference Presentations by Sergio Minniti
The presentation addresses the issue of digital divide in Ecuador. It describes an ongoing socio-... more The presentation addresses the issue of digital divide in Ecuador. It describes an ongoing socio-technical project which aims at providing rural communities with access to digital knowledge through the re-functioning of analog TV sets and other complementary technologies that are going to become obsolete on June 2018 due to Ecuador’s switch from analog to digital broadcasting signal. The prototype created is discussed from a technical and conceptual point of view.
“Critical making” is an umbrella term for various distinctive practices that link traditional sch... more “Critical making” is an umbrella term for various distinctive practices that link traditional scholarship in the humanities and social sciences to forms of material engagement in order to explore new ways of studying the relationship between technologies and social life by bridging the gap between physical and conceptual exploration (Ratto, 2011). The aim of critical making is “to articulate and develop novel modes of intervention into dominant systems of information exchange and knowledge generation” that “focus on assembling rather than deconstructing within the modern technological society” (Ratto, Wilie and Jalbert, 2014: 85). In order to reach this goal, critical making practices “theoretically and pragmatically connect two modes of engagement with the world that are often held separate - critical thinking, typically understood as conceptually and linguistically based, and physical “making,” goal-based material work” (Ratto, 2011: 253). Such practices can thus be conceived as engagements between design and social research, implying the exploration of societal issues and social theories through the fabrication of material, interactive prototypes.
Drawing upon the critical making approach, we have developed a project called “Game of ANT”, which focuses on the fabrication of a series of Arduino-based interactive devices reproducing the behaviour of actor-networks within the socio-technical world. “Game of ANT” adopts the Latourian vision of technoscience as war (Latour, 1987) and physically embodies this idea by proposing a sort of war game during which participants play the roles of human or non-human actors engaging with the dynamics of socio-technical life. Using pre-assembled and coded components, participants construct and play with simple, electronic actors/actants that are able to associate and dissociate with each other, thus forming multiple actor-networks that compete for gaining power within an imagined socio-technical world. To win the game, an actor-network needs to crystallize and become a “black box”. The working of the game thus reproduces the basic principles of actor-network theory (ANT) and “translates” the sociology of translation into a gaming experience through which scholars and students can conceptually-materially engage with ANT, hence exploring and approaching it from novel points of view.
Bibliography
Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
Ratto, M. (2011) “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life”, The Information Society, 27: 252–260.
Ratto, M., Wilie, S.A. and Jalbert, K. (2014) “Introduction to the Special Forum on Critical Making as Research Program”, The Information Society, 30: 85–95.
The paper focuses on the art practice of camera making. By overviewing the work of a contemporary... more The paper focuses on the art practice of camera making. By overviewing the work of a contemporary artist who built his own cameras in order to innovate photography, the aim of the paper is to explore ways in which this kind of ‘media art’ – an art that involves the homemaking of media technologies and their design as socio-technical devices – may provide insights into the processes through which media technologies emerge in the context of art production. Could the work of media artists be framed as an activity of de-construction and re-construction of the historical development paths of media technologies? What are the trajectories of subjects and objects involved in the process of media art production, and how do they relate to the wider processes of social construction of media? To answer such questions, I will draw upon ideas developed in the fields of media archaeology, science and technology studies (STS), and the sociology of art.
I will explore ways in which media art can be considered as a practice of media archaeology: to what extent does the work of media artists take the form of an ‘excavation of repressed and forgotten media discourses’ and practices (Hertz and Parikka 2012: 425)? This idea will be tested through the investigation of how artists concretely re-open the black box of photographic technology. This inquiry also rises questions about how aesthetic forms unfold and come into being through a symmetrical process of co-production of subjects and objects – a ‘morphogenetic’ approach which deeply resonates with STS and its focus on materiality (Domìnguez Rubio 2012; Domìnguez Rubio and Silva 2013). By studying camera making as a media ‘archaeological’ art the paper makes a case for a research program that crosscuts the sociology of art, media studies and STS.
Uploads
Papers by Sergio Minniti
Chapters by Sergio Minniti
Books by Sergio Minniti
tecno-capitalismo digitale, in cui anche il fallimento è propedeutico al successo futuro in piena logica da start up. Adatto a un lettore curioso così come agli studiosi di media e comunicazione, il libro vuole sottolineare come la digitalizzazione non costituisca un percorso scontato e lineare, ma si presenti piuttosto come un processo incerto, molto più traballante e insicuro di quanto siamo comunemente spinti a immaginare.
Conference Presentations by Sergio Minniti
Drawing upon the critical making approach, we have developed a project called “Game of ANT”, which focuses on the fabrication of a series of Arduino-based interactive devices reproducing the behaviour of actor-networks within the socio-technical world. “Game of ANT” adopts the Latourian vision of technoscience as war (Latour, 1987) and physically embodies this idea by proposing a sort of war game during which participants play the roles of human or non-human actors engaging with the dynamics of socio-technical life. Using pre-assembled and coded components, participants construct and play with simple, electronic actors/actants that are able to associate and dissociate with each other, thus forming multiple actor-networks that compete for gaining power within an imagined socio-technical world. To win the game, an actor-network needs to crystallize and become a “black box”. The working of the game thus reproduces the basic principles of actor-network theory (ANT) and “translates” the sociology of translation into a gaming experience through which scholars and students can conceptually-materially engage with ANT, hence exploring and approaching it from novel points of view.
Bibliography
Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
Ratto, M. (2011) “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life”, The Information Society, 27: 252–260.
Ratto, M., Wilie, S.A. and Jalbert, K. (2014) “Introduction to the Special Forum on Critical Making as Research Program”, The Information Society, 30: 85–95.
I will explore ways in which media art can be considered as a practice of media archaeology: to what extent does the work of media artists take the form of an ‘excavation of repressed and forgotten media discourses’ and practices (Hertz and Parikka 2012: 425)? This idea will be tested through the investigation of how artists concretely re-open the black box of photographic technology. This inquiry also rises questions about how aesthetic forms unfold and come into being through a symmetrical process of co-production of subjects and objects – a ‘morphogenetic’ approach which deeply resonates with STS and its focus on materiality (Domìnguez Rubio 2012; Domìnguez Rubio and Silva 2013). By studying camera making as a media ‘archaeological’ art the paper makes a case for a research program that crosscuts the sociology of art, media studies and STS.
tecno-capitalismo digitale, in cui anche il fallimento è propedeutico al successo futuro in piena logica da start up. Adatto a un lettore curioso così come agli studiosi di media e comunicazione, il libro vuole sottolineare come la digitalizzazione non costituisca un percorso scontato e lineare, ma si presenti piuttosto come un processo incerto, molto più traballante e insicuro di quanto siamo comunemente spinti a immaginare.
Drawing upon the critical making approach, we have developed a project called “Game of ANT”, which focuses on the fabrication of a series of Arduino-based interactive devices reproducing the behaviour of actor-networks within the socio-technical world. “Game of ANT” adopts the Latourian vision of technoscience as war (Latour, 1987) and physically embodies this idea by proposing a sort of war game during which participants play the roles of human or non-human actors engaging with the dynamics of socio-technical life. Using pre-assembled and coded components, participants construct and play with simple, electronic actors/actants that are able to associate and dissociate with each other, thus forming multiple actor-networks that compete for gaining power within an imagined socio-technical world. To win the game, an actor-network needs to crystallize and become a “black box”. The working of the game thus reproduces the basic principles of actor-network theory (ANT) and “translates” the sociology of translation into a gaming experience through which scholars and students can conceptually-materially engage with ANT, hence exploring and approaching it from novel points of view.
Bibliography
Latour, B. (1987) Science in Action, Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
Ratto, M. (2011) “Critical Making: Conceptual and Material Studies in Technology and Social Life”, The Information Society, 27: 252–260.
Ratto, M., Wilie, S.A. and Jalbert, K. (2014) “Introduction to the Special Forum on Critical Making as Research Program”, The Information Society, 30: 85–95.
I will explore ways in which media art can be considered as a practice of media archaeology: to what extent does the work of media artists take the form of an ‘excavation of repressed and forgotten media discourses’ and practices (Hertz and Parikka 2012: 425)? This idea will be tested through the investigation of how artists concretely re-open the black box of photographic technology. This inquiry also rises questions about how aesthetic forms unfold and come into being through a symmetrical process of co-production of subjects and objects – a ‘morphogenetic’ approach which deeply resonates with STS and its focus on materiality (Domìnguez Rubio 2012; Domìnguez Rubio and Silva 2013). By studying camera making as a media ‘archaeological’ art the paper makes a case for a research program that crosscuts the sociology of art, media studies and STS.
With in mind the progressive convergence between STS and media studies, we invite empirical and theoretical presentations that explore in different ways the relationship between media technology and the physical and material environment, intended in a broad and extensive way. The topics relevant for this track include (but are not limited to):
• Studying media as/in environments
• The materiality of digital media
• Environmental (un)sustainability of media technologies
• The " infrastructural turn " in media studies
• Ecological media theories and metaphors
• De-materialization and re-materialization of digital media
• Media sustainability politics and activisms
• Users' practices and energy consumption
• Media technologies and natural resources
• E-waste and the recycling of media technologies
Info on the conference and on submission procedures: http://www.stsitalia.org/conferences/ocs/index.php/STSIC/STE