Introduction

Increasingly the world in which we live is characterized as being immaterial in nature. The internet, cyberspace, the fluidity of markets, and the digitization of most realms of human activity from architecture, to manufacturing, to imaging and tele-commuting all suggest that our activities are becoming less and less material and increasingly immaterial. In fact, as much as there are many kinds of materiality, there are also many forms of immateriality (Miller 2005b). This study attempts to engage with this increasing appreciation of the immaterial and to understand how we have dealt with this question not only in the present but also notably in the past at different times and in different contexts. It is the contention here following Hill (2006) that the immaterial is by no means a unique quality of late capitalism or modernity but a thoroughly ‘un-modern’ aspect of human activity that has a long, if poorly understood, history.