1. The Failed Failed Media Project. I’d originally conceived this as a series of studies that would hang together as a history of 20th century media technology that wasn’t driven by a narrative of progress. IE, as a book. Alas, the project itself seems to have stalled for now. An essay on computer obsolescence appeared in Charles Acland, ed., Residual Media and an essay on an attempt to deliver mail by cruise missile will be finished sometime after I get the current book and collection off my desk.
2. Media and the Good Life. Actually, this project doesn’t have a real name. In a wide range of projects and publications I’ve been considering the question of how one thinks normatively and progressively about the form of media in large-scale societies. An early statement of this line of thought can be found in the conclusion to The Audible Past and more recent versions can be found in my contributions to the edited volumes Communication As… and The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies.
Other emerging interests:
the postal system
new work in long-term historiography (work that covers 100 or more years)
the cultural politics of time and the status of leisure in cultural critique
alienation
an essay on the “high definition” in HDTV
I’ve also been reading a lot in game studies, though I don’t have immediate plans to start writing in the area
intellectual property (though it’s perhaps more a political interest than an intellectual one)