The contributors to Assembly Codes examine how media and logistics set the conditions for the circulation of information and culture. They document how logistics—the techniques of organizing and coordinating the movement of materials, bodies, and information—has substantially impacted the production, distribution, and consumption of media. At the same time, physical media, such as paperwork, along with media technologies ranging from phone systems to software are central to the operations of logistics. The contributors interrogate topics ranging from the logistics of film production and the construction of internet infrastructure to the environmental impact of the creation, distribution, and sale of vinyl records. They also reveal how logistical technologies have generated new aesthetic and performative practices. In charting the specific points of contact, dependence, and friction between media and logistics, Assembly Codes demonstrates that media and logistics are co-constitutive and that one cannot be understood apart from the other.

Contributors
Ebony Coletu, Kay Dickinson, Stefano Harney, Matthew Hockenberry, Tung-Hui Hu, Shannon Mattern, Fred Moten, Michael Palm, Ned Rossiter, Nicole Starosielski, Liam Cole Young, Susan Zieger
 

Matthew Hockenberry is Assistant Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Fordham University.

Nicole Starosielski is Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University.

Susan Zieger is Professor of English at the University of California, Riverside.

John Durham Peters is Maria Rosa Menocal Professor of English and of Film and Media Studies at Yale University.

Foreword: Some Assembly Required / John Durham Peters  vii
Acknowledgments  xi
Introduction: The Logistics of Media / Matthew Hockenberry, Nicole Starosielski, and Susan Zieger  1
Part I. The Logistical Imagination: Image, Sound, Subject
1. Habits of Assembly / Stefano Harney and Fred Moten  23
→ Storage Solutions [32]
2. "Shipped": Paper, Print, and the Atlantic Slave Trade / Susan Zieger  34
→ Logistical Magic [52]
3. Pan-African Logistics / Ebony Coletu  54
→ The March of Data [73]
4. The Pulse of Global Passage: Listening to Logistics / Shannon Mattern  75
Part II. Logistical Instruments: Efficiency, Automation, Interoperability
→ Beneath the Great White Way [93]
5. Colonization's Logistical Media: The Ship and the Document / Liam Cole Young  94
→ Already Assembled [111]
6. "Every Man within Earshot": Auditory Efficiency in the Time of the Telephone / Matthew Hockenberry  113
→ Logistical Software [130]
7. Logistical Media Theory, the Politics of Time, and the Geopolitics of Automation / Ned Rossiter  132
Part III. Supply Chain Media: Digitization, Globalization, Exploitation
→ "It's Loud and It's Tasteless and I've Heard It Before" [153]
8. Carry That Weight: The Costs of Delivery and the Ecology of Vinyl Records' Revival / Michael Palm  154
→ Sound from a Music Container [169]
9. Supply Chain Cinema, Supply Chain Education: Training Creative Wizardry for Offshored Exploration / Kay Dickinson  171
→ Forklift Cinema [188]
10. The Politics of Cable Supply from the British Empire to Huawei Marine / Nicole Starosielski  190
→ Who Watches the Watchers? [206]
11. Laugh Out Loud / Tung-Hui Hu  207
Selected Bibliography  225
Contributors  235
Index  239