The Dynamics of Zero: On Digital Memories of Mars and the Human Fœtus in the Globital Memory Field

Abstract

The dynamics of digitization and globalization are synergetically and dialectically changing the ways in which human beings individually and collectively capture, document, share and preserve memories of the past. This paper develops further the concept of the 'globital memory field' with a discursive overview of the development of 'digital memory' and the significance of zero in the meaning and practice of digital memory. The paper then explains the key elements of this epistemology, with an emphasis on the significance of zero or nothing in relation to two contrasting examples of the medical imaging of the human fœtus to the capturing and sending back to Earth by NASA’s Curiosity robot images from the surface of Mars.

Keywords: digital memory, globital memory field, epistemology of memory, new media technologies, medical imaging, Mars