New CRC Working Paper: “From Instruments to Containers, from Containers to Media: The Extensions of the Body”

Recent discussions in German media studies are renewing the long tradition of conceptualising the ‘extensions of man’ or the ‘extensions of the body’ as devices enabling the emergence of technical instruments and/or of media. Whilst most of the earlier protagonist of this tradition focused exclusively on the extensions of human extremities and the brain, only a minor tradition mentioned ‘containers’ as technical and figurative externalisations of the rump and of whole bodies.

The new publication »From Instruments to Containers, from Containers to Media: The Extensions of the Body« in the Working Paper Series (No. 21, March 2022) by Erhard Schüttpelz focuses on the long drift from instruments to containers to media. Building upon research by British archaeologist Clive Gamble on the ambiguities of technical and figurative containers, the paper aims at developing a new prehistory of today’s media and computer interfaces from a media studies perspective.

Prof. Dr. Erhard Schüttpelz is principal investigator of the subprojects A01 »Digital Network Technologies between Specialization and Generalization« and P02 »Media of Praxeology II: History of audio-visual sequence analysis as a methodology« of the Collaborative Research Center 1187 »Media of Cooperation«.

The paper »From Instruments to Containers, from Containers to Media: The Extensions of the Body« is published as part of the Working Paper Series of the CRC 1187, which promotes inter- and transdisciplinary media research and provides an avenue for rapid publication and dissemination of ongoing research located at or associated with the CRC. The purpose of the series is to circulate in-progress research to the wider research community beyond the CRC. All Working Papers are accessible via the website or can be ordered in print by sending an email to: karina.kirsten[æt]uni-siegen.de