Medianatures
The Materiality of Information Technology and Electronic Waste
edited by Jussi Parikka
Introduction: The Materiality of Media and Waste
Medianatures picks up from Donna Haraway’s idea of naturecultures – the topological continuum between nature and culture, the material entwining and enfolding of various agencies, meanings and interactions. Medianatures gives the concept of naturecultures a specific emphasis, and that emphasis is at the core of this living book. It is a useful concept and framework for investigating some of the ways in which our electronic and high-tech media culture is entwined with a variety of material agencies. The notion of ‘materiality’ is taken here in a literal sense to refer, for instance, to ‘plasma reactions and ion implantation’ (Yoshida, 1994: 105) – as in processes of semiconductor fabrication, or to an alternative list of media studies objects and components which are studied from an e-waste management perspective: ‘metal, motor/compressor, cooling, plastic, insulation, glass, LCD, rubber, wiring/electrical, concrete, transformer, magnetron, textile, circuit board, fluorescent lamp, incandescent lamp, heating element, thermostat, brominated flamed retardant (BFR)-containing plastic, batteries, CFC/HCFC/HFC/HC, external electric cables, refractory ceramic fibers, radioactive substances and electrolyte capacitors (over L/D 25 mm)’, and which themselves are constituted from a range of materials – plastics, wood, plywood, copper, aluminum, silver, gold, palladium, lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, selenium, hexavalent chromium and flame retardants (Pinto, 2008). (more)
Materials
- Kevin Brigden and David Santillo
- Toxic Chemicals in Computers Exposed: Determining the Presence of Hazardous Substances in Five Laptop Computers
- Jason Holden and Christopher Kelty
- The Environmental Impact of the Manufacturing of Semiconductors
- Fumikazu Yoshida
- High-Tech Pollution
- Bernd Kopacek
- ReLCD: Recycling and ReUse of LCD Panels
Energetics
- UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology
- ICT and CO2 Emissions
- Olli Silven and Kari Jyrkkä
- Observations on Power-Efficiency Trends in Mobile Communication Devices
- Partha Pratim Ray
- The Green Grid Saga -- A Green Initiative to Data Centers: A Review
- Jonathan G. Koomey
- Growth in Data Center Electricity Use 2005 to 2010
- Willis Lang and Jignesh M. Patel
- Towards Eco-friendly Database Management Systems
Waste
- Jim Puckett and Ted Smith (eds)
- Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia
- Jonathan Linton, Julian Scott Yeomans, and Reena Yoogalingam
- The Facilitation of Industrial Ecology, Product Take-Back, and Sustainability through the Forecasting of Television Waste Flows
- Julian Scott Yeomans and Yavuz Günalay
- Unsustainable Paradoxes Inherent in the International Legislation of Electronic Waste Disposal
- Violet N. Pinto
- E-waste Hazard: The Impending Challenge
- S. Priyadharshini et al.
- A Survey on Electronic Waste Management in Coimbatore
Ecosophy
- Matthias Feilhauer and Soenke Zehle (eds)
- Ethics of Waste in the Information Society - Special issue of International Review of Information Ethics
- Garnet Hertz
- Dead Media Research Lab
Appendix 1
- Jennifer Gabrys
- Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics