The Post as Medium (2019)
“The Post As Medium” is a long-form essay commissioned for Rhizome’s The Art Happens Here: Net Art Anthology, a book edited by Michael Connor and Aria Dean. In this piece I continued my research into the post as a crucial form for understanding the evolution of modern network culture, from the Community Memory computer bulletin board of the early 1970s to artists who work with feeds in the 2000s, like Rafia Santana and Constant Dullaart.
“The many meanings of post evoke a range of publishing modalities at different scales: the daily post, the post office, a postcard, a blog post, ‘keep me posted’—even Post-It Notes. The word also recalls a crucial dynamic between information and its location in public space: the pre-newspaper messenger, or town crier, ‘published’ the news by calling it out in public, interrupting social space with the announcement. Then the notice would be nailed to a wooden door post at the center of town for reading later on—hence, the notice was ‘posted.’ Etymologically, post derives from the Latin ponere (to put, to place), like a guard standing at its post, in position. Material is posted ‘into position’ within its platform (the wall, the door post, public space), like evidence, pointing back in time to a performative event (its posting), and fowrard to its intended recipient. This relationship between placement and reception is important for understanding the basic behavior of the post as a delayed communication. The post is a time-based medium, marked by its arrival in a particular context, serving both as record and reminder. The post is delayed and relayed, a connection between author and recipient(s) in time and space. In its relay, the post can’t help but bear traces of the platform that delivers it. The postcard carries marks of its journey upon arrival; a wheat-pasted poster is inseparable from the wall, the street, and the network of urban planning and traffic that enables it to be seen in public.”