The avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century inhabited the media discourses of their time like parasites, constantly irritating and taking from them. Dadaists ripped images out of newspapers and magazines and reassembled them in their collages. Futurists borrowed the brevity of telegraph messages for their free word poetics. Artists such as F.T. Marinetti, Raoul Hausmann, and Luigi Russolo abused existing media technologies and hijacked public communication. This study traces these subversive tactics and examines how the early avant-garde created a media ecology based on and inspired by technologies. The Press and the Parasites Poetic Media Effects Parasitic Media Parasitic Noise Ether Parasites Conclusion: Odradek and the Future of the Parasite Arndt Niebisch is an assistant professor in the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. His research focuses on the intersection of science, technology and literary production. He edited the scientific and technical writings of the Dadaist Raoul Hausmann and has published on authors such as Franz Kafka, Jules Verne, and Edgar Allen Poe. Description The avant-garde movements of the early twentieth century inhabited the media discourses of their time like parasites, constantly irritating and taking from them. Dadaists ripped images out of newspapers and magazines and reassembled them in their collages. Futurists borrowed the brevity of telegraph messages for their free word poetics. Artists such as F.T. Marinetti, Raoul Hausmann, and Luigi Russolo abused existing media technologies and hijacked public communication. This study traces these subversive tactics and examines how the