Digital rubbish : natural history of electronics / Jennifer Gabrys.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gabrys, Jennifer.

Contributor:

Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Electronic waste.

Electronic apparatus and appliances--History.

Electronic apparatus and appliances.

History.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (ix, 225 pages) : color illustrations, photographs

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Mich. : University of Michigan Press, c2011.

System Details:

text file

Summary:

This is a study of the material life of information and its devices; of electronic waste in its physical and electronic incarnations; a cultural and material mapping of the spaces where electronics in the form of both hardware and in the form of both hardware and information accumulate, break down, or are stowed away. Where other studies have addressed "digital" technology through a focus on its immateriality or virtual qualities, Gabrys traces the material, spatial, cultural, and political infrastructures that enable the emergence and dissolution of these technologies. In the course of her book, she explores five interrelated "spaces" where electronics fall apart: from Silicon Valley to NASDAQ, from containers bound for China to museums and archives that preserve obsolete electronics as cultural artifacts, to the landfill as material repository. Digital Rubbish: A Natural History of Electronics describes the materiality of electronics from a unique perspective, examining the multiple forms of waste that electronics create as evidence of the resources, labor, and imaginaries that are bundled into these machines. Ranging across studies of media and technology, as well as environments, geography, and design, Jennifer Gabrys draws together the far-reaching material and cultural processes that enable the making and breaking of these technologies. Book jacket.

Contents:

1 Silicon Elephants: The Transformative Materiality of Microchips 20

2 Ephemeral Screens: Exchange at the Interface 45

3 Shipping and Receiving: Circuits of Disposal and the "Social Death" of Electronics 74

4 Museum of Failure: The Mutability of Electronic Memory 101

5 Media in the Dump: Salvage Stories and Spaces of Remainder 127.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

ISBN:

9780472035373

9780472029402

Access Restriction:

Open Access Unrestricted online access