How Media Archaeology Relates to Circuit Bending

            Media archaeology is a branch of media theory focused on old and dead media devices. It has been known for its work in digging up and exploring forgotten or obsolete media technologies in order to comprehend the new technological culture in different ways. Circuit bending, or the exploring and manipulating of consumer electronics outside of their standard lifespan, is a key portion in contemporary art practice. The exploration of the circuits in discarded, older technology found in circuit bending ultimately shares the same philosophical approach of media archaeology.

            The process of circuit bending heavily relies on repurposing obsolete electronics, often found at a second-hand store or garage sale. The manipulator of consumer electronics often traverses through the hidden content inside a technological system for the joy of digging into an underlayer, often breaking existing circuits without a clear endpoint in mind. The result of circuit bending is a creative short-circuiting of electronics primarily for the purpose of generating novel sound or visual output. Reed Ghazala’s Incantor series, highly customized children’s toys that emit sounds of stutters, loops, and screams, is useful as a tool to highlight the use of obsolete technology.

            One theory behind circuit bending is that the resultant art acts as a way of exploring the inner workings of devices that have been discarded for the next, better item of technology. The very methodology of circuit bending itself recalls the practice of reuse and serve as a beautiful counterpoint to new, glossy digital technologies. At its simplest, circuit bending takes the old and creates something new, unique, and unexpected. This embraces media archaeology further as a form of art, one that not only addresses the past but further articulates questions concerning living but dead media.

            The ideology behind media archaeology and circuit bending overlaps often. Media archaeology has previously been successful has a methodology of lost ideas, unusual machines, and re-emerging discourses. It is focused more on the real technological conditions of expressions than on the content of the media. Circuit bending also explores what alterations can be done to technological exponents in order to produce something novel. Furthermore, both media archaeology and circuit bending use concrete devices that allow for the understanding of the nature of temporality in contemporary electronic culture through the manipulation of irrelevant pieces of technology.

            It is important to note that there is a great challenge in work that takes as its focus a very concrete opening of technology. The inner workings of consumer technologies are increasingly more hidden, and both circuit bending and media archaeology must face this problem. Instead of going back in time in history, both require going inside a device to explore and create.

            Consumer technologies have moved into a phase in which much of it has been replaced and is thus been rendered obsolete. Media archaeology is an umbrella under which circuit bending falls, and circuit bending acts as an analytical and creative way to explore obsolete technological pieces as they are reused through artistic means.

           

            Hertz, Garnet1, and Jussi2 Parikka. “Zombie Media: Circuit Bending Media Archaeology into an Art Method.” Leonardo 45, no. 5 (October 2012): 425–430.

  

Bryan Stringfield