Early Works
Digital Metaphysics
Martin’s labyrinth of thought began almost 40 years ago with a digital audio sampling device’s funny default naming scheme for sample files in a recording studio he was working in. This sampler’s programming algorithm asking what name to save the hybrid
Vom Missbrauchswert
Warum einen Vortragstext hervorkramen, der aus dem Jahr 1999 stammt? Vielleicht, weil er in struktureller Form etwas vorwegnimmt, was sich erst im Laufe der Zeit als soziales Phänomen eingestellt hat. Genau dieser Zusammenhang aber macht die Geschichte interessant: Denn wenn die Aufmerksamkeitsökonomie ihrerseits in eine Welt hineinf…
From the abuse value
As already laid out in this series exploring Martin’s œuvre, he began his writing career questioning what a computer was, laying out the groundwork of those early thoughts in his first published article titled Digitale Metaphysik. He followed this with
In the Working Memory
Hopkins Stanley Introduction In the early 1980s, Martin Burckhardt, a young, aspiring writer, completed his Master’s thesis on Walter Mehring and Dadaism. After writing his first radio play in which he’d gathered a group of Dadaists in an old folk home and called for the death of modernity, he soon found himself working in the recording studio with Johann…
Emergence of the Psychotope
Introduction This series of Martin’s early works comes from my initial question of how his thinking developed, which led us to do rough translations of his major works into Englisch as he patiently began shepherding me through his thought labyrinth. In the process of our conversations, we noticed our little project held the possibi…
Portrait of the Artist as an Electrified Monk
Introduction: Portrait of the Author, Electrified: On the Transition from Mechanical to Electromagnetic Writing, is the 7th in our series of Martin’s early writings translations. He presented it on the evening of November 11, 1995, at the Berlin House of Literature during the
Porträt des Autors, elektrisiert
Hopkins Stanley Einleitung Porträt des Autors, elektrifiziert: Über den Übergang vom mechanischen zum elektromagnetischen Schreiben ist die siebte Übersetzung in unserer Reihe von Martins frühen Schriften. Er stellte sie am Abend des 11. November 1995 im Berliner Literaturhaus im
The Guillotine
Introduction: This lecture is the 7th in our translational series of Martin’s early works, which he gave to the Guardini Foundation in April 1996. In terms of placement in our timeline to date, we began with Digitale Metaphysik (April 1988), followed by
The Monster and its Telematic Guillotine
Introduction: The translation of Martin's early work reveals lines of thought that have become leitmotifs of his thinking over time. Each one a snapshot of noticing/pondering the cultural threads of how something was being said or done, but its actuality in praxis
Die Schrecken der Bürgergesellschaft
Zur Einführung Manchmal haben Texte ein sonderbares Schicksal. So wie der folgende, bei dem einer Einladung eine Ausladung folgte – ganz offenkundig, weil sein Inhalt dem Herausgeber-Team, das mit meinem Namen sein Buch hatte zieren wollen, so unerträglich war, dass, obschon das Thema des Buches die Bürgergesellschaft sein sollte, man all…
Protect me from what I want
Protect Me From What I Want is the 8th offering in our translational series of Martin’s early works and was written in November 2000. Placing it within our series to date, it was written in the period after the publication of his second major work, Vom Geist der Maschine: Eine Geschichte kultureller Umbrüche