Computers, cut-ups and combinatory volvelles : an archaeology of text-generating mechanisms

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Computers, Cut-ups and Combinatory Volvelles:

An Archaeology of Text-Generating Mechanisms

MASSACHUEfTS INSTrfUTE

By

..

Whitney Anne Trettien

A

27 2CI9

B.A. English, Philosophy

L

BRARIES

Hood College, 2007

SUBMITTED TO THE PROGRAM IN COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES IN PARTIAL

FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES

AT THE

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

JUNE 2009

©2009 Whitney Anne Trettien. All rights reserved.

The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and

electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or

hereafter created.

Signature of Author:

SI/

, .

,

r,

am in Comparative Media Studies

May 6, 2009

Certified by:_

William Charles Uricchio

Professor of Comparative Media Studies

Co-Director, Comparativq Media Studies

'

/hesis Supervisor

Accepted by:

_C

-

Henry

Jenkins III

Peter do<tz'Professor of Humanities

Professor of Comparative Media Studies and Literature

Co-Director, Comparative Media Studies

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Computers, Cut-ups and Combinatory Volvelles:

An Archaeology of Text-Generating Mechanisms

by

Whitney Anne Trettien

Submitted to the Program in Comparative Media Studies

on May 6, 2009, in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in

Comparative Media Studies

ABSTRACT

Through an archaeology of text-generating mechanisms, the present work excavates the deep

history of reading and writing as material, combinatory practices. On the one hand, by positing

the physical manipulation of language as a form of reading and writing, this archaeology answers

Roger Chartier's call for book historians to "take on the task of retracing forgotten gestures and

habits" that do not fit "the genealogy of our own contemporary manner of reading," a call echoed

in much recent work on the "use" of early modem books. It thus challenges our assumptions

about how readers and writers of the past made meaning from printed texts and, more broadly,

the expressive potentials of the printed book itself. Yet this archaeology of ars combinatoria, the

art of combination, also presents a imaginative challenge to historians of the book. For if we

accept physically cutting paper or spinning a volvelle as a readerly and writerly act, then we

must also erase the boundaries we have drawn between "the book" as a material form and "the

digital" as an epistemology, reconsidering the various literacies each facilitates or forecloses.

In keeping with the spirit of media archaeology, which seeks to defamiliarize the past, the

present work on text-generating mechanisms exists as a web-based text-generating mechanism.

On the one hand, this medium allows me to present a comparative history without compromising

specificity or reducing the complexity of one moment to a mere reflection of another; yet it still

strives for thematic cohesion by using our digital present quite literally as a map for exploring

programmatic epistemologies in our past. It lives on the web at:

http://www.whitneyannetrettien.com/thesis/

Since MIT Libraries requires a paper copy of a thesis, all HTML pages and code used to produce

this thesis are copied in the space below.

Thesis Supervisor: William Charles Uricchio

Title: Professor of Comparative Media Studies

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my deep gratitude toward my committee members William Uricchio,

Kurt Fendt and Ed Barrett for their support and guidance throughout the process of writing (and

reading) this work. I would also like to thank Nick Montfort and Chris Funkhouser for their

invaluable input on early drafts of my project.

I am also grateful to Madeleine Clare Elish, Lana Swartz and Jason Rockwood for reading and

commenting on a draft of my introduction, and to study-buddies Xiaochang Li and Lauren

Silberman for keeping me at the library when I'd rather be out riding my bike. Thanks also to the

CMS community at large for not only supporting my crazy ideas, but encouraging them.

Finally, "thanks" is too feeble a word for my gratitude to Phillip Torres, without whom none of

this would have been possible.

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index.html

by Whitney Anne Trettien This is the main page.

<!doctype html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

<title>COMPUTERS, CUT-UPS AND COMBINATORY VOLVELLES, by whitney anne trettien</title>

media="screen" /> </head> <body onLoad="loadContentTopleftvert(1);"> <div id="titlebox"> <p class="titlebox"> <span style="color:#9FEE00;font-size:1.65em"><b>computers,<br/></span> <span style="color:#9FEEOO;font-size:2.3em;">cut-ups,<br/></span> <span style="color:#9FEEOO;font-size:1.3em;">&combinatory<br/></span> <span style="color:#9FEE00;font-size:1.8em;">volvelles:<br/></span> <span style="font-size:1.7em">an archae-</span><BR/>

<span style="font-size:2.2em;">ology of</span><BR/> <span style="font-size:3.7em;">text-</span><BR/> <span style="font-size:1.7em;">generating</span><BR/> <span style="font-size:1.7em;">mechanisms</span><BR/>

<span style="color:#888888;font-size:.9em;">whitney trettien <span style="color:#E6399B"></span> <a href="#thesis">you</a><br/></span>

<span style="color:#E6399B;font-size:1.15em;">---<br/></span> <span style="font-size:1.2em"><a href="introl.html?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=480&width=450" class="thickbox" title="I·N·T·R·D·U·C&middo t;T·I·O·N">about this work</span></a></b><br/></span> </p>

</div>

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Computers, cut-ups and combinatory volvelles : an archaeology of text-generating mechanisms

Computers, Cut-ups and Combinatory Volvelles:

An Archaeology of Text-Generating Mechanisms

By

..

Whitney Anne Trettien

A

27 2CI9

B.A. English, Philosophy

L

BRARIES

Hood College, 2007

SUBMITTED TO THE PROGRAM IN COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES IN PARTIAL

FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN COMPARATIVE MEDIA STUDIES

AT THE

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

ARCHIVES

JUNE 2009

©2009 Whitney Anne Trettien. All rights reserved.

The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and

electronic copies of this thesis document in whole or in part in any medium now known or

hereafter created.

Signature of Author:

SI/

, .

,

am in Comparative Media Studies

May 6, 2009

Certified by:_

William Charles Uricchio

Professor of Comparative Media Studies

Co-Director, Comparativq Media Studies

/hesis Supervisor

Accepted by:

C

-

Henry

Jenkins III

Peter do<tz'Professor of Humanities

Professor of Comparative Media Studies and Literature

Co-Director, Comparative Media Studies

Computers, Cut-ups and Combinatory Volvelles:

An Archaeology of Text-Generating Mechanisms

by

Whitney Anne Trettien

Submitted to the Program in Comparative Media Studies

on May 6, 2009, in Partial Fulfillment of the

Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in

Comparative Media Studies

ABSTRACT

Through an archaeology of text-generating mechanisms, the present work excavates the deep

history of reading and writing as material, combinatory practices. On the one hand, by positing

the physical manipulation of language as a form of reading and writing, this archaeology answers

Roger Chartier's call for book historians to "take on the task of retracing forgotten gestures and

habits" that do not fit "the genealogy of our own contemporary manner of reading," a call echoed

in much recent work on the "use" of early modem books. It thus challenges our assumptions

about how readers and writers of the past made meaning from printed texts and, more broadly,

the expressive potentials of the printed book itself. Yet this archaeology of ars combinatoria, the

art of combination, also presents a imaginative challenge to historians of the book. For if we

accept physically cutting paper or spinning a volvelle as a readerly and writerly act, then we

must also erase the boundaries we have drawn between "the book" as a material form and "the

digital" as an epistemology, reconsidering the various literacies each facilitates or forecloses.

In keeping with the spirit of media archaeology, which seeks to defamiliarize the past, the

present work on text-generating mechanisms exists as a web-based text-generating mechanism.

On the one hand, this medium allows me to present a comparative history without compromising

specificity or reducing the complexity of one moment to a mere reflection of another; yet it still

strives for thematic cohesion by using our digital present quite literally as a map for exploring

programmatic epistemologies in our past. It lives on the web at:

http://www.whitneyannetrettien.com/thesis/

Since MIT Libraries requires a paper copy of a thesis, all HTML pages and code used to produce

this thesis are copied in the space below.

Thesis Supervisor: William Charles Uricchio

Title: Professor of Comparative Media Studies

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my deep gratitude toward my committee members William Uricchio,

Kurt Fendt and Ed Barrett for their support and guidance throughout the process of writing (and

reading) this work. I would also like to thank Nick Montfort and Chris Funkhouser for their

invaluable input on early drafts of my project.

I am also grateful to Madeleine Clare Elish, Lana Swartz and Jason Rockwood for reading and

_C