Forensic Media

Siegel Greg Siegel

Description

In Forensic Media, Greg Siegel considers how photographic, electronic, and digital media have been used to record and reconstruct accidents, particularly high-speed crashes and catastrophes. Focusing in turn on the birth of the field of forensic engineering, Charles Babbage's invention of a "self-registering apparatus" for railroad trains, flight-data and cockpit voice recorders ("black boxes"), the science of automobile crash-testing, and various accident-reconstruction techniques and technologies, Siegel shows how "forensic media" work to transmute disruptive chance occurrences into reassuring narratives of causal succession. Through historical and philosophical analyses, he demonstrates that forensic media are as much technologies of cultural imagination as they are instruments of scientific inscription, as imbued with ideological fantasies as they are compelled by institutional rationales. By rethinking the historical links and cultural relays between accidents and forensics, Siegel sheds new light on the corresponding connections between media, technology, and modernity.

Sujets

• Sociologie, société et politique
• Forensic science
• Media studies

Informations

• Publié par: Duke University Press
• Date de parution: 05 novembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780822376231
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 5 Mo

Extrait

FORENSIC MEDIA

Sign, Storage, Transmission A series edited by Jonathan Sterne and Lisa Gitelman

Greg Siegel

FORENSIC MEDIA Reconstructing Accidents in Accelerated Modernity

Duke University Press Durham and London 2014

© 2014 Duke University Press. All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free papero Designed by Courtney Leigh Baker Typeset in Helvetica Neue and Whitman by Graphic Composition, Inc., Bogart, Georgia

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Siegel, Greg Forensic media : reconstructing accidents in accelerated modernity / Greg Siegel. pages cm—(Sign, storage, transmission) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn978-0-8223-5739-1 (cloth : alk. paper) isbn978-0-8223-5753-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Disasters—Press coverage. 2. Transportation accidents— Investigation. 3. Forensic sciences. I. Title. II. Series: Sign, storage, transmission. pn4874.d57s55 2014 363.129065—dc23 2014018936

Cover art: Crash-damaged flight recorder. Cover photograph by and courtesy of Jeffrey Milstein.

To my parents, Nancy and M Barry

The history of human knowledge has so uninterruptedly shown that to

collateral, or incidental, or accidental events we are indebted for the most

numerous and most valuable discoveries, that it has at length become necessary,

in prospective view of improvement, to make not only large, but the largest,

allowances for inventions that shall arise by chance, and quite out of the range of

ordinary expectation. It is no longer philosophical to base upon what has been a

vision of what is to be.Accidentis admitted as a portion of the substructure. We make chance a matter of absolute calculation. —edg a r a ll a n poe,“The Mystery of Marie Rogêt” (1842)

contents

ack now ledgm en ts

in troduction. Accidents and Forensics

one. Engineering Detectives

two. Tracings

three. Black Boxes

four. Tests and Split Seconds

epilogu e.Retrospective Prophecies

notes

bibliogr a ph y

in de x

ix

1

31

65

89

143

195

215

237

251

acknowledgments

The first glimmer of this book came when, during a grad seminar at the Uni- versity of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, I heard a presentation about the cockpit voice recorder by Mark Robinson, a gifted audio artist. While the particulars of his creation now escape me, I remember being fascinated by the way he deftly integrated actual black-box recordings into an intricate sonic assemblage. The same seminar introduced me to Paul Virilio’s work on the accident. These were the seeds. At the University of North Carolina, I benefited from the wisdom and sup- port of some outstanding mentors and friends. Larry Grossberg, who guided me intellectually and professionally during those green years, taught me most of what I know about cultural studies and the philosophy of communication. He also nurtured my ability to draw clear conceptual distinctions and to engage in rigorous critical analysis. What instances of clarity and rigor are to be found in these pages owe much to his influence. Tyler Curtain, Ken Hillis, Kevin Parker, Della Pollock, and Barbara Herrnstein Smith (at Duke University) each helped me to develop and refine the ideas herein, and I am grateful to them. As for myunccomrades, Gwen Blue, Steve Collins, Andrew Douglas, Rivka Eisner, Nathan Epley, Mark Hayward, Mark Olson, Phaedra Pezzullo, Bob Rehak, Jona- than Riehl, and Matt Spangler o≠ered encouragement during the formative years. Special thanks and praises to Josh Malitsky, Jules Odendahl-James, and Ted Striphas—three friends whose sage counsel, keen insights, and close fel- lowship madeForensic Mediathinkable. To say that my colleagues in the film and media studies department at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have been exceptionally generous and supportive is to barely scratch the surface. In ways subtle and profound, Edward Branigan, Peter Bloom, Michael Curtin, Anna Everett, Dick Hebdige, Jennifer Holt, Ross Melnick, Lisa Parks, Constance Penley, Bhaskar Sarkar, Cristina Venegas, Janet Walker, and Chuck Wolfe—world-class scholars and wonderful