Remember by Steven Matijcio

Remember by Steven Matijcio

Remember In his 2009 book What is an Apparatus? Italian political philosopher Giorgio Agamben characterized his titular inquiry as “literally anything that has in some way the capacity to capture, orient, determine, intercept, model, control or secure the gestures, behaviors, opinions, or discourses of living beings.” (1) He goes on to explain that beyond institutions (such as schools, factories and prisons), apparatuses can also include, “the pen, writing, literature, philosophy...computers, cellular telephones, and...language itself.” (2) In this symbiotic realm of object and subject, Agamben implies a fundamental, if enigmatic relationship between people and the materials that shape us, as we shape them. Author Vik- tor Mayer-Schoenberger mines the mnemonic niches of this provocative notion further, tracing a history through what he calls “external memories” crucial to the development of human knowledge, and how humans know. From prehistoric cave paintings and ancient scrolls, all the way to the diary of his stepfather, Mayer-Schoenberger finds a thread less in specific content, and more in how...
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