A talk about the book and its polyauthored process.

A rollicking romp of signaling without signification, hueing and crying across Civil War dirigibles, deathbed toe tags, and bobby call-boxes, from the Circus Maximus to the highway, all of it ending in an invisible prison of our own design. This polyauthored book will ask you for your papers, for your name, rank, and serial number; it will scan your retina as you read. The Prison House of the Circuit presents a history of digital media using circuits and circuitry to understand how power operates in the contemporary era. Through the conceptual vocabulary of the circuit, it offers a provocative model for thinking about governance and media. The authors ultimately demonstrate how contemporary media came to be mechanisms that create frictionless circulation to maximize control, efficacy, and power.

“Alive to historical detail and punctuated by field-shifting provocations, this stunning book enlists media genealogy to excavate the science of signals trafficking through systems of command and control. The authors triage the pulse of electronic circuitry spanning the planet, hardwiring populations and perception into real time biotechnical conduits of power.” —Ned Rossiter, author of Software, Infrastructure, Labor: A Media Theory of Logistical Nightmares

https://www.upress.umn.edu/Plone/book-division/books/the-prison-house-of-the-circuit

Jeremy Packer is professor in the Institute for Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology at the University of Toronto.

Paula Nuñez de Villavicencio is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto.

Kate Maddalena is assistant professor in the Institute for Communication, Culture, Information, and Technology at the University of Toronto.