Uncontainable: Cardboard, Media, Interface

In the digital era, emphasis on materials associated with computers—silicon, for example—obscures other important materials that have come to frame our experiences of digital practices, technologies, and cultures, ultimately creating a narrower understanding of the material cultures of the digital era. Cardboard, as signifier of e-commerce, logistics, and the mediation of consumer desire, is a material that can broaden definitions of media materialities. Drawing on media studies, cultural studies, and craft studies to analyze the role of cardboard in the digital era, I argue that cardboard is a media interface with adaptable potentials that bridge URL and IRL.