Mediamatic: Tofts, McKeich: Memory Trade. A Prehistory of Cyberculture
“In his book Memory Trade Tofts tries to show that in cyberdiscourse – the discussion of computer technology’s influence on communication and culture – there is nothing new under the sun. According to him, the technologisation of the word was not brought into being just by the arrival of the computer (as is sometimes short-sightedly claimed in cyberdiscourse); the word was always already technologised. The subjects Tofts handles in Memory Trade make this clear: alphabet, writing and language as technology; the origins of cyberthought in mnemonics; Finnegans Wake as the original media theory book. These form Tofts’ (pre)history of cyberdiscourse.”