{"id":10,"date":"2025-09-19T01:59:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T01:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/?page_id=10"},"modified":"2025-09-19T02:03:59","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T02:03:59","slug":"stone-ink-and-megabytes","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/?page_id=10","title":{"rendered":"Stone, Ink and Megabytes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stone, Ink and Megabytes:<\/h1>\n

Writing Endures and Multiples in the Digital Age<\/h3>\n
\n

"Indeed, the supposedly digital age boasts the greatest abundance of writing material in history. Photography, television, cinema, and video did not simply displace writing: their technologies rested upon its deep logics (inscription, storage, editing, transmission) and their products were full of written materials (labels, captions, credits, subtitles, etc.) Modernity, then, means the spread and diversification of writing, not its obsolescence. Further, every act of inscription is also an act of power." - John Durham Peters, "The Marvelous Clouds"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

F<\/strong>rom carved stone tablets to glowing screens, humans have always sought to inscribe themselves into the world to ensure their presence and ideas endure long afer they gone. In an era where tweets, e-books, and digital archives proliferate by the billions, writing is not disappearing, but has never been more abundant. In "The Marvelous Clouds,<\/em>" John Durham Peters emphasizes that modernity "means the spread and diversification of writing, not its obsolescence,<\/em>" and that "despite prophecies of extinctions, the digital age boasts the greatest abundance of writing material in history.<\/em>" He reframes media theory by showing that writing and other forms of inscription are not being displaced by new technologies, but rather they underpin and structure them.<\/p>\n

I<\/strong>n Chapter 6, "The Face and the Book,<\/em>" Peters argues that all media, from film and audio to digital platforms, "rests upon writing's underlying design principles of inscription, storage, editing and transmission.<\/em>" Writing is like the DNA of media, its core logic always being carried forward into each new technology, whether that is stone, paper, film, or pixels. This chapter demonstrates that inscription media, from books to films or digital footprints, remain central to how humans record, recognize, and preserve identity, authority, and memory across time. Peters states that "oral memory seems to last a few centuries at best<\/em>" and emphasizes that writing, whether carved into stone or printed in books, allows authors to speak to audiences centuries later, creating continuity between the past and the present. What is striking in the digital age is not the loss of this capacity but its exponential expansion with its billions of digital inscriptions that include status updates, blogs, and photos, all of which extend visibility in unprecedented ways.<\/p>\n

P<\/strong>eters speaks to how the material form of inscription has always shaped what survives and how it circulates. Ancient inscriptions in stone or clay endure because of their durability, while paper books allowed wider distribution but remained vulnerable to decay and destruction. Today, digital technologies add another layer of inscription, vastly multiplying the quantity of writing while creating new challenges of preservation and obsolescence. Digital inscriptions, including emails, social media posts, and cloud archives, appear permanent but face risks including server failures and platforms shutdowns. By highlighting the materiality of inscription, Peters shows that the medium itself plays a central role in shaping how memory and authority are recorded and sustained, depending on its durability. He also states that writing does not vanish with each new medium but finds new material forms that extend its reach. Today, digital abundance has opened new possibilities for wider participation, yet inequalities persist. Peters argues that control over inscription, whether through writing, publication, or archival practices, has long been a source of power. In allowing them to define history, law, and cultural norms. Currently, digital platforms and social media continue this dynamic through algorithms, publishing platforms, and archival practices which determine whose voices are amplified and whose are silenced.<\/p>\n

P<\/strong>eters analysis in "The Marvelous Clouds<\/em>" reframes how we understand writing in relation to media and modernity. Far from being displaced, writing endures as the foundation of inscription, shaping how presence, identity, and memory are recorded across time. The digital age has only amplified this truth by multiplying the amount and variety of inscriptions. As Peters argues, media are not simply new gadgets or technologies but enduring infrastructures of memory, with writing, in all its forms, remaining at their core. In the end, every act of inscription is also an act of power, shaping whose voices and identifies are preserved in the cultural archive, whether that information is shared via stone, ink or megabytes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stone, Ink and Megabytes: Writing Endures and Multiples in the Digital Age "Indeed, the supposedly digital age boasts the greatest abundance of writing material in history. Photography, television, cinema, and video did not simply displace writing: their technologies rested upon its deep logics (inscription, storage, editing, transmission) and their products were full of written materials […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13,"href":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10\/revisions\/13"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ways.jasonpalazzo.bergbuilds.domains\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}