Logistical media theory, the politics of time, and the geopolitics of automation

Like all theory, media theory is troubled by its provincialism, even if it struggles to take note of this common condition. As many readers may recall, Martin Heide!er famously refused a professorial chair in Berlin, instead preferring to stay in the provinces." While the negative attributes of repressive culture, neurotic personas, and social intolerance are readily piled on the experience of provincial life, there nonetheless remains something positive to be said about provincialism: it can provide conditions for the crafting of unique concepts that, when combined with deep historical knowledge, generate a legacy that spans generations. But what happens when ontological conditions change from the security of the earth to the technical contours of media systems? How might such a transition from governance of the self and community to technical architectures of biopo liti cal control also register an epochal shift of geopo liti cal proportions as automation increasingly takes command? Such questions speak to con temporary technological conditions, prompting an exploration of concepts immanent to or coextensive with media situations of patterns and prediction, complexity and control, contingency and failure. Logistical Media Theory, the Politics of Time, and the Geopolitics of Automation NED ROSSITER 7 Logistical Media Theory 133 Wherever social life manifests in the world, the specter of provincialism appears as a potential organ izing condition and institutional horizon with epistemological implications for disciplinary formation, including media theory. Provincial thought all too often functions as an impasse to engaging con temporary media- infrastructural forces and modes of practice that shape the lives of many.