January 21st, 2019
4:41 min read 1289 words
The aim behind The Bright Labyrinth is to explore the unseen influences acting upon communication practice. Through a wide-ranging series of lectures, discussions and guest interrogators stretched across the Autumn and Spring terms, we attempt to determine, however fleetingly, what our relationship to these forces might be. Leading each transmission is writer and broadcaster Ken Hollings, who offers numerous highly detailed starting points for inquiry and intervention. The future throws long shadows back onto the past, he argues, and it is by this trick of the light that we are able to determine our current location. Subjects in the Bright Labyrinth transmission series so far have included ghosts, typewriters, guns, spambots, Marshall McLuhan, Godzilla, drones, mechanical dolls, astronomy and ballet.
Examining the relationship between communication practice and media theory, The Bright Labyrinth leads us into archeology, architecture, mythology, the philosophy of communication and interaction, performance, cinema and the politics of culture and technology. Co-presented by Ken Hollings and Julia Mahrer, these podcasts are intended to offer an overview of the series as it currently exists. Any and all opinions expressed are entirely coincidental.
Transmission 01 – Nietzsche’s Typewriter
…devices, ethics, typographic culture, mechanical literacy, communication as weapons system, sensory dislocation, emojis and control
Transmission 02 – The Internet Wants You Dead
…ethics, code, cybernetics, command and control, the RAND Corporation, Esalen, drones, UAVs and predators
Transmission 03 – Who Needs the Future?
…ethics, agency, futuristic modernity, The Medium is the Massage, the technological domain, social engineering and science fiction
Transmission 04 – ‘There Must Be Something Wrong With This Sally.’
…bodies, devices, sound art, the phonograph, physiology of audio space and kinematics of sound
Transmission 05 – EVP Spambot Poetics
…code, bodies, artificial intelligence, EVP, recorded sound, media archaeology, bots, networks and ghosts
Transmission 06 – Darkness Is Good
…post-truth, agency, social media, cyber warfare, identity theft, ‘fake news’, political process, reality TV, intervention and subversion
Ken Hollings has written critically acclaimed features for both BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4. His writings have appeared in numerous journals, collections and anthologies; and his books include Destroy All Monsters, The Bright Labyrinth and The Space Oracle.
network
media
sound
language
ethics
power
reality
bright labyrinth
