Article:

Hat das Medium Gewicht?

Does the Medium Matter? In an age more and more frequently labeled as «post-medium», the concept of medium specificity has been subject to strong critique. This essay explores the history of the idea of a medium from Lessing to contemporary figures such as Stanley Cavell and Rosalind Krauss and traces the way in which film and photography have figured in these debates. The continuing association of a medium with materiality and sensuality provides it with powerful links to the real, to the body and to the idea of a limit as grounding the aesthetic. In the face of the spread of the digital and the threat of convergence as well as the seemingly infinite proliferation of images, the concept of the medium, anchored in that of the limit, the finite, the resistance of matter, works to allay anxiety and as a promise of the continuing relevance of the aesthetic.