So-called Nature: Friedrich Kittler and Ecological Media Materialism

To talk of sustainable media begs the question what do we mean by “sustainable” but also what do we mean by “media”? Do we refer to media as communication, discourses, patterns of meaning created, circulated, and controlled in political economic contexts? Do we think of media as the work of mediation between people? What count as media? Only the list of media we encounter in media studies courses such as cinema, radio, television, and, well “new media”—that eclectic mix that, broadly speaking, addresses digital culture? Or do we see it as a question of the material settings-media not just as a cultural reality of communication but at the same time, a material reality of technologies that, to put it bluntly, are made of something and demand energy. What if media are approached as devices, infrastructures, and material channels of communication? This is not meant to dismiss the meaning-creating reality of communication or to become naively technodeterminist, but to underline that the reproduction of data that underpins human communication happens on levels that are material and inherently connected to issues of ecology and the environment. This begs for media theoretical positions that take this sort of materiality into account.