The Arts of Contingency

Abstract

If we consider the present situation of the arts of transmission in the broad sense of the phrase as Francis Bacon used it—namely, as the whole of the procedures that circulate, record, and organize knowledge—wehave to admit to quite a discouraging condition for theoretical reflection.While there exist many techniques in the sense of technologies, machineries, and instruments, the ancient sense of art, as used by Bacon, has been lost. In this sense, art—the art of carpentry, for instance, or the art of navigation or persuasion—is something governed by rules that can be taught. These rules indicate what to do, how to do it, and for what purpose. On a conceptual level, there does not presently seem to be much to teach, in spite of incessant reflection on media and of the multiplication of theories about media. Technological development andmedia practice proceed quickly but also proceed independently of theoretical reflection. Theory seems rather to be concerned with integrating mostly uninterpreted new developments: chat rooms rather than virtual reality (which was much theorized but quickly faded from general interest), the internet explosion instead of interactive television (which failed because of a lack of interest rather than because of technological difficulties), very intelligent video games rather than (often quite stupid) artificial intelligence. We lack autonomous theoretical categories that can deal with these developments. Instead of surprising and informing the development of technology, theory seems to be continuously surprised by the evolution of technology. Media theory seems to be suffering from a kind of interpretive inadequacy. Inmedia analysis, for instance, theory tends topresuppose adubious