Real Time Analysis, Time Axis Manipulation

Friedrich Kittler (1943–2011) studied German, philosophy, and romance studies at the University of Freiburg. He completed his PhD in 1976 and his habilitation, “Discourse Networks,” in 1984. He was professor of German at the Ruhr University in Bochum (1987–93) and subsequently appointed the chair in media aesthetics and history at the Humboldt University in Berlin (1993–2008). The key representative of German media theory, Kittler was at the forefront of the German reception of French poststructuralism and is now considered one of the most important media theorists. His studies range from the early Greek vowel alphabet to computer hardware. Several of his books have been widely translated, including Discourse Networks 1800/1900 (1985); Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (1986); and Optical Media (1999).

Geoffrey Winthrop-Young teaches in the German and Scandinavian programs at the University of British Columbia. Among his most recent publications are Kittler and the Media (2011), a Theory, Culture, and Society special issue on cultural techniques (2013; coedited with Jussi Parikka and Ilinca Iurascu), and the translation of Bernhard Siegert’s Cultural Techniques: Grids, Filters, Doors, and Other Articulations of the Real (2015).