Friedrich Kittler

Quotes

• “Nur was schaltbar ist, ist überhaupt. [Only that which is switchable, exists.]”
• “[Discourse network is ] The network of technologies and institutions that allow a given culture to select, store, and process relevant data.”
• “the madman Daniel Schreber] sought to imply that everything he did and said within the asylum was written down or recorded immediately and that there was nothing anyone could do to avoid it being written down, sometimes by good angels and occasionally by bad angels.”
• “Printed laments over the death of Man or the subject always arrive too late.”
• “Media determine our situation.”
• “Technologies that not only subvert writing, but engulf it and carry it off along with so-called Man, render their own description im­possible. Increasingly, data flows once confined to books and later to records and films are disappearing into black holes and boxes that, as ar­tificial intelligences, are bidding us farewell on their way to nameless high commands. In this situation we are left only with reminiscences, that is to say, with stories.”

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