Florian Sprenger: Continuity and Disconnection, Flows and Bursts - On the Interruption of Communication

In this talk Florian Sprenger (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) will explore the prehistory of the discourses of connectivity that we are confronted with today. The lecture will show how early electric telegraphy was conceived as a medium of immediacy and thus fostered a phantasm of connectivity. By taking into account that media theories themselves are fascinated by immediacy, it becomes obvious that concepts of community are concepts of connectivity that neglect disconnection.

[This event is made possible with the support of the Danish Council for Independent Research, and part of the project on Disconnectivity in the Digital Age.]