Syndetics cover image
Image from Syndetics

We the dead : preserving data at the end of the world / Brian Michael Murphy.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2022]Description: 316 pages : illustrations ; 25 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781469668284
  • 1469668289
Subject(s):
Contents:
I will survive? -- Gas chambers for bookworms -- We the dead -- Bombproof cavemen -- The weight of a cloud -- The satellite graveyard -- Save file as...DNA -- After life.
Summary: "Locked away in refrigerated vaults, sanitized by gas chambers, and secured within bombproof caverns deep under mountains are America's most prized materials: the ever-expanding collection of records that now accompany each of us from birth to death. This data complex backs up and protects our most vital information against decay and destruction, and yet it binds us to corporate and government institutions whose power is also preserved in its bunkers, infrastructures, and sterilized spaces. This book traces the emergence of the data complex in the early twentieth century and guides readers through its expansion in a series of moments when Americans thought they were living just before the end of the world"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 027.073 M978 Available 33111011209653
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Locked away in refrigerated vaults, sanitized by gas chambers, and secured within bombproof caverns deep under mountains are America's most prized materials: the ever-expanding collection of records that now accompany each of us from birth to death. This data complex backs up and protects our most vital information against decay and destruction, and yet it binds us to corporate and government institutions whose power is also preserved in its bunkers, infrastructures, and sterilized spaces.



We the Dead traces the emergence of the data complex in the early twentieth century and guides readers through its expansion in a series of moments when Americans thought they were living just before the end of the world. Depression-era eugenicists feared racial contamination and the downfall of the white American family, while contemporary technologists seek ever denser and more durable materials for storing data, from microetched metal discs to cryptocurrency keys encoded in synthetic DNA. Artfully written and packed with provocative ideas, this haunting book illuminates the dark places of the data complex and the ways it increasingly blurs the lines between human and machine, biological body and data body, life and digital afterlife.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"Locked away in refrigerated vaults, sanitized by gas chambers, and secured within bombproof caverns deep under mountains are America's most prized materials: the ever-expanding collection of records that now accompany each of us from birth to death. This data complex backs up and protects our most vital information against decay and destruction, and yet it binds us to corporate and government institutions whose power is also preserved in its bunkers, infrastructures, and sterilized spaces. This book traces the emergence of the data complex in the early twentieth century and guides readers through its expansion in a series of moments when Americans thought they were living just before the end of the world"-- Provided by publisher.

I will survive? -- Gas chambers for bookworms -- We the dead -- Bombproof cavemen -- The weight of a cloud -- The satellite graveyard -- Save file as...DNA -- After life.

Powered by Koha