Annual Theme 22011/12 Localization—the Production of Sites

Agencies are delimited, and they therefore shape their very own spaces. If one regards agencies as acting and thinking fields, actors in these fields or spaces must therefore occupy, first, defined and, second, addressable locations. Locations and addresses are generated by the operations of the agency, which in turn is able to change with the operations of the actors. The operation of ascribing locations to actors is localization. Localization as the ascription of sites and addresses is in numerous ways an indexical operation. Following Michel Serres and (with a complementary terminology) Michel de Certeau, the ascription of position and location has however to be distinguished. The ascription of positions is conducted from a “global” (Serres) perspective, from a bird’s eye or map perspective, which allocates neutral homogenous sites within a space (Gefäßraum) and individual actors (objects, humans, signs). In contrast, the description of location is carried out from a “local” perspective, out of the described space itself; it takes directions as point of orientation. Therefore, a location is a singularity in space defined by the actor that occupies the site and is both reachable and operable; it is described by dint of describing the way to the location. Vice versa, it can therefore be said that actors in the space of “agency” render observable the singularity of locations in space. In actor-network theory such movements are already described with the term figuration (Latour), but without—for instance, with reference to aesthetic and semiotic debates—to clarify under which conditions, under the absence of which actors and with which historic durability concrete figurations occur.

To the extent that media establish locations, they can be described as theatric media. With reference to the aspect of theatricality, mediality captures all those problematic processes of placing, framing, situating instead of the process of representation. To give something a frame, to create a situation constitutes a location. The formation and formulation of locations and spaces in film seems to function in such a way (field sizes, camera movements, acoustic localizations). Singularization in space is also the foundation of tele-visual image transmission. Already Nipkow’s definition of television builds upon the notion of two different locations, which are marked by the presence and visibility of the image object. In this vein, the practices of telephony, of positioning and navigation systems and finally of virtual addressing and mobile media communication can be reconsidered. In this context, the link between global and local perspectives is decisive, in which the local and singular is not seen as a subsumption but as common agency. Here it will also be useful to use historical distance and to take as starting point older, often overlooked media practices, like car radio or maritime radio. The localization and addressing within a comprehensive systems of agencies, which changes itself with every singularity it produces, does hence not appear as an antipole to a “global” perspective of world communication—now in a twofold sense. Based on this approach, it becomes possible to examine the agency of, for instance, the “global market” (see, for instance, Michael Callon) or the climate.

The IKKM annual themes

1. 2008/09: Hominization and Anthropotechnologies – the Making of Humans
2. 2009/10: Referencialization and Ontogenesis – the Making of Things
3. 2010/11: Semiosis—the Transformation of Objects into Signs
4. 2011/12: Localization—the Production of Sites
5. 2012/13: Synchronization—the Production of the Present
6. 2013/14: Historization—the Production of the Past