Index

Contents
Figures............................................................................. 11
Introduction........................................................................15
Purpose ............................................................................17
Methodology ........................................................................ 17
Significance ........................................................................19
Overview........................................................................... 20

1. Audiovisual Arts in the Post-Digital Age ...................................... 25
Audiovisual Arts and Audiovisuology ................................................ 25
Origins of the Term Post-Digital .................................................... 28
Post-Digital Aesthetics and Condition............................................... 34
Post-Media, Post-Internet and New Aesthetic ....................................... 37
 Post-media ..................................................................... 38
 Post-internet.................................................................... 43
 New aesthetic................................................................... 45
Analogue Atoms + Digital Bits = Post-digital Hybridisation .......................... 46
Digital Art.......................................................................... 49
Mapping the Post-Digital Aesthetics in Audiovisual Arts ............................. 53
 On digital media................................................................. 54
 Within digital media ............................................................. 54
 In-between digital and non-digital media ........................................ 55
 Off digital media ................................................................ 55
Summary .......................................................................... 56

2. Post-Digital Aesthetics in Contemporary Audiovisual Arts.................... 59
On Digital Media.................................................................... 60
 The aesthetics of failures ....................................................... 60
 The critical role of glitch ........................................................ 63
 Summary ....................................................................... 65 
Within Digital Media ................................................................ 66
 The aesthetics of saturation..................................................... 66
 Queering digital media .......................................................... 67
 Summary ....................................................................... 70
In-Between Digital and Non-Digital Media ........................................... 70
 The aesthetics of hybridisation ................................................... 71
 Beyond the screen .............................................................. 72
 Summary ....................................................................... 75
Off Digital Media ................................................................... 75
 The aesthetics of repurposing ................................................... 76
 Neo-analogue turn as resistance .................................................77
 Materiality and the tangibility of film............................................. 78
 Repurposing and resurrecting media ............................................ 82
 Analogue-digital media assemblages ............................................ 83
 Summary ....................................................................... 85
Comparing the Post-Digital Aesthetics .............................................. 86

3. Critical Making and Post-Digital Hybridisation in Audiovisual Arts............ 89
A Brief Introduction to Critical Making .............................................. 90
 Critical making as a process-oriented practice.................................... 91
Repoliticising Makers and Technology-Oriented Artists ............................... 91
Making through a hands-on approach............................................ 94
Critical Making and Post-Digital Art ................................................. 95
Critically-made art .............................................................. 96
Post-digital hybridisation ........................................................ 97
Entanglement ...................................................................... 98
Summary ......................................................................... 100

4. Understanding the Post-Digital Condition Through Practice-Based
Research ..................................................................... 103
Datox ............................................................................. 103
The computational society ......................................................104
Electricity and non-human agency ...............................................105
Album and archive of electronics’ noise..........................................106
Live performance .............................................................. 108
Data overload recovery ..........................................................109
On a Scroll Through the Cloud ......................................................109
The cloud materiality and its obfuscation ........................................ 110
The normalisation of surveillance capitalism..................................... 112
Navigating the foggy environment of the cloud................................... 114
Things I Do When I’m Bored ........................................................ 118
The corporate web and digital folklore........................................... 118
Vlogging because I’m so bored................................................... 119
I’m so bored so I decided to make a vlog ........................................120
Boredom vlogging patterns ...................................................... 121
Let there be more boredom .................................................... 123
Debris ............................................................................ 123
An introduction to electronic waste..............................................124
Computation and computational media ..........................................125
Digital media (im)materiality.....................................................127
The constellation of digital media materiality ....................................127
Can you defeat planned obsolescence? ......................................... 128
The detritus of digital media technologies .......................................129
Deep Touch ........................................................................ 131
Sensing and smartness devices ................................................ 132
Nonsense apparatus ........................................................... 133
Rematerialising the invisible forces of big tech ................................. 134
All to Sand Returns................................................................ 136
Speculations on future landscapes and contemporary anxieties ..................137
Repurposing analogue media and analogue-digital media hybrids ............... 138
Environment and matter.........................................................140
Summary .......................................................................... 141

Conclusion: Rethinking Post-Digital Audiovisual Arts ............................145

Acknowledgements ............................................................... 151

Appendix: List of the Series of Artworks ........................................ 153
Datox ............................................................................. 153
On a Scroll Through the Cloud ..................................................... 153
Things I Do When I’m Bored ........................................................154
Debris .............................................................................154
Deep Touch ........................................................................154
All to Sand Returns.................................................................155
Bibliography ......................................................................157
Notes .............................................................................169