comn 2312

COMN 2312

Information – Society = Technology2

Gutenberg Galaxy• In its opening chapters, Marshall McLuhan’s themes

are applied to the Elizabethan world (in particular to Shakespeare, who is appealed to as a recorder, observer and theorist of Elizabethan culture).

• Elizabethan culture is feeling the impact of the huge transition caused by the conversion of a chirographic society into a print society (from handwriting to print)

• Our culture is perched on a similar ledge processing a transition from a print-based society to an electronic society

Gutenberg Galaxy• Viewing perch: Elizabethan era used as a means to analyze the

transition from one mode of sensory dominance to another• McLuhan and Innis are both situating against a technological

optimism. This technological optimism (of modernism) seems to infer that all technology=progress. That technology is always better, just needs to be invented.

• This situates against another experience in which the social order is becoming concerned about technology- especially as television seems to offer benefits and also complications: The print world is feeling a bit dizzy adjusting the “electronic age” McLuhan, develops the insights of Innis, Havelock to offer a more complex, nuanced and compelling analysis than a rather sunny and unexamined idea of progress: looks at the fading world of print: “the Gutenberg Galaxy.”

• McLuhan especially analyzes the transition from one form of sensory dominance to another as the electronic age takes hold: in order to help the 1960’s world see the losses and gains.

Technological optimism• With the invention of the Guttenberg Press, there is

(through print) a means of spreading more quickly, “a mirror” in which cultural achievements through technology are filtered – these accomplishments become known about more quickly and become more pervasive over an increasingly shorter span of time as the result

• There comes to be a certain pride and confidence in the capacity of human reason

• The problems of humankind seem solvable through reason and through technology – as one of the “fruits of reason”

The Rise of Technological Optimism

• Rational thought: “ratio” process of filtering thought through linear reasoning called logic.

• This idea of reduction (think of cooking a sauce as an analogy) • 6/8 = 3/4• Technology is a similar means of levering• Technology is a means of translating tasks into different sensory ratios• There is in this transfer – the gain (an increase in the ability to do

something) – you get a lever or a handle• There is also a loss (some sensory information is obscured our reordering

in its relationship to informational hierarchies)• In Greek thinking this idea of “reduction” was visible in part because

technology had not yet become pervasive – the body, nature and its pains and burdens still too visible for any one to entertain “technological optimism as it was to overtake western culture during the renaissance

• This is why logic was not the only means of creating “civic space”• Trivium: Study of care of civic space includes logic, rhetoric (arts of body

in action of creating public), grammar (the practice and study of the structures undergirding meaning structures)

The Rise of Technological Optimism• Rational thought: “ratio” process of filtering thought through linear reasoning

called logic. • This idea of reduction • 6/6 = 3/3 = 1/1 (importance of three)• Technology is a similar means of levering• Technology is a means of translating tasks into different sensory ratios• There is in this transfer – the gain (an increase in the ability to do something) –

you get a lever or a handle Print is the means of distributing LOGIC”• There is also a loss (some sensory information is obscured our reordering in its

relationship to informational hierarchies): AS Print becomes ascendant, the sense it obscures – and de-primatize become lost/numb

• In Greek/Latin thinking this idea of “reduction” was visible in part because technology had not yet become pervasive – the body, nature and its pains and burdens still too visible for any one to entertain “technological optimism as it was to overtake western culture during the renaissance (thus through the Renaissance – the arts maintain a primary function in creating civic space- as they are to civic space what the hands and feet are to the body)

• This is why logic was not the only means of creating “civic space”• Trivium: Study of care of civic space includes (3) logic, rhetoric (arts of body in

action of creating public), grammar (the practice and study of the structures undergirding meaning structures) By the end of the renaissance – LOGiC had become ascendant, and increasingly solo – as technology of creating civic

The Guttenberg Press is the beginning of a unique era – in which this idea of lever/reduction becomes obscured by the headiness of LOGIC as a technology for creating Civic


• The idea of civic space: imagining a space more inclusive than just the rulers, this imagining was transferred through varied forms in the Renaissance but it was mainly visible in conjunct with the appearance of “logic” (Shakespeare as the first technology critic of this new age)

• The problems of humankind seem solvable through reason and through technology – as one of the “fruits of reason” – Shakespeare is constantly confronting such “LOGIC” with the dimensions reason seems to forget

The Rise of Technological Optimism• For this reason Shakespeare is enduring, those who have similar views

(for example, Goethe in Germany) endure as the Renaissance deepens into an industrial age in which the machine becomes visible and inscribed into culture(s).

• Drama becomes a means (combined in Germany with music) through which a cultural critic of industrial age is propagated, Poetry also. (visual form not yet reproducible but rhyme allows spread)

• Romanticism is the first major cultural movement critiquing this “age.”• However by the time Romanticism comes along a dualism has been

established through ratio of LOGIC:– Truth (once 3/3) is now 1/1 = fact– “Fact” is all that “matters”– Fact is that which can be evidenced– Fact is that which can be (printed) and detached from (de-passion-ed,

disinfected from problematic Nature or problematic Body)– Matter is not “what matters” but is material form – that which we can “see”– Romantics make their appeals through emotion, through passion, through

art which is not facts, thus they and what they are talking about do not “matter”

– ARTS are (not facts) – ARTS are condiments/luxuries– things that help the human condition – but

are really not essential to it. FACTS = MATTER; FACTS are all that matter


• Technological Optimism is thus configured not just as a hope in technology

• But as a means in which this hope becomes a form of cultural bias/blindness

• In which the gains of technology are regularly made visible and celebrated and embroidered into culture.

• But other “effects” of technology are not seen (are culturally reproduced as “not able to be seen”

• Human suffering• Pernicious effects: slavery, colonialism (later to evolve into

nationalism as racism, genocide)• Environmental degradation

McLuhanMcLuhan is powerful as a cultural critique because he is a student of a fading curriculum: the TRIVIUM/Broad Humanities/Literature requires the study of all forms…requiring a view from other languages – this remains as the training of European Universities and those modeled on them:

IN North America there is an increasing tendency to separate technology into “the sciences.” In the origins of the University, the arts and sciences were a division like right and left foot. The idea of one footed-ness as a strength – not conceivable. Thus study of “the sciences” were once well connected to a broad liberal arts curriculum- this has become increasingly frayed in its attachment to human dimensionality

In North American curriculum, to study “the sciences” – each generation of students increasingly allowed to be detached from irrelevant courses: only the courses that “matter”

North American thinkers – group technology in with the sciences, sciences are increasingly steered away from connections to arts, arts based disciplines are steered towards their “science” justified connections

Thus those who think about technology often did so only from the stand point of innovation and intention

As well humanities, had survived in this defensive environment by affiliating with “fact” only

McLuhanMcLuhan is powerful as a cultural critic because he is a student of a fading curriculum: the TRIVIUM/Broad Humanities/Literature requires the study of all forms…requiring a view from other languages – this remains as the training of European Universities and those modeled on them: Multi-lingual: studying Latin, Greek, French, German – he is also trained – and perhaps unique in his capacity to read “the language of forms” which my day was relegated to “artsy specializations” – now appearing in elective course such as visual culture)

IN North America there is an increasing tendency to separate technology into “the sciences.” In the origins of the University, the arts and sciences were a division like right and left foot. The idea of one footed-ness as a strength – not conceivable. Thus study of “the sciences” were once well connected to a broad liberal arts curriculum- this has become increasingly frayed in its attachment to human dimensionality

In North American curriculum, to study “the sciences” – each generation of students increasingly allowed to be detached from irrelevant courses: only the courses that “matter”

North American thinkers – group technology in with the sciences, sciences are increasingly steered away from connections to arts, arts based disciplines are steered towards their “science” justified connections, the idea of equipping them to think about “the effects” of technology and science – not thought of

Thus those who think about technology often did so only from the stand point of innovation and intention surrounding good invention – not necessarily around “good” culture

As well humanities, had survived in this defensive environment by affiliating with “fact” only

McLuhan

“by dividing its effects into four categories and displaying them simultaneously. McLuhan designed the tetrad as a pedagogical tool, phrasing his laws as questions with which to consider any medium (wikipedia)”

McLuhan

“What does the medium enhance?

What does the medium make obsolete?

What does the medium retrieve that had been obsolesced earlier?

What does the medium flip into when pushed to extremes?

(wikipedia)”

McLuhan

Automobile

Train

Horse

Continental Migration Pattern

The feudal city-and it agricultural sphere in city/ suburb

McLuhan

Television

Telegraph

RadioContinental Migration

The immediacy of the village

Skewed in form

“Global village”

McLuhan

DVD Player

Innis, McLuhan: What is it like to live near a”benevolent” superpower

Classic Technology Critiques

Innis, McLuhan: What is it like to live near a country whose “forms” are culturally dominating?


Innis, McLuhan: Asking these questions from a non Marxian point of view, in a North America, a culture in cold war which was scared by Marxism, scared by art, but not as scared of advertising, movies and popular culture. In US for a while similar critiques are offered through science fiction, (as a means of standing outside) example1984 (Orwell)



Heidegger


Heidegger

French thinkers:DerridaDeluzeBaulliardLyotard


Heidegger

Situated such that it seems to have difficulty processing both Nazism and Marxism (as major influences in 20th century history


Benjamin

EllulIllich


Benjamin

EllulIllich

Why study these classical technology critics?

Witness: Industrialism/WW/A-bomb/TotalitarianismThey are forced to take technology seriously in its relationship to human suffering

They are forced to experience and re-experience certain repetitions - cultural forms that seem to evolve and re-evolve in relationship to technology

They are forced by circumstances to witness the way in which governments become “technological monsters”


Benjamin

EllulIllich

US is cut off from Socialist forms of analysis in reaction to Marxism


Benjamin

EllulIllich

Rest of world is responding to Marxism as it penetrates as a means to address the tremendous suffering of an industrial era. Marxism is a logic tool.

It creates the means to draw pictures of how power and technology merge together as a juggernaut to oppress those not in power


Benjamin

EllulIllich


It creates the means to draw pictures of how power and technology merge together as a jauggernaut to oppress those not in power

The rise of a culture amenable to economic sacrifice in order to arrive at vital community – which then substitutes in totalitarianism for this community

Experiences this in Soviet Union and affected territories

Works in third world South America and Mexico


EllulIllich


It creates the means to draw pictures of how power and technology merge together as a juggernaut to oppress those not in power

Watching France journey through pre WWII and then after observing the technological optimism that helps battered Europe recover from war, also watching the rise of totalitarian governments and the oppression of technology in “ prosperous” nations and their “junk-yards”

Concerned about media + technology prone to turn into juggernauts with government


Benjamin

EllulIllich


It creates the means to draw pictures of how power and technology merge together as a jauggernaut to oppress those not in power

The rise of a culture of amenable to genocide


BenjaminThe rise of a culture of amenable to genocide

Walter Benjamin (1982-1940)• Career cut short, 1940• Influences Frankfurt School: Adorno, Horkenhiemer, (Weber)

later HabermasThough reading texts, reading the

world around him as text: incisive in studying the way in which culture is embroidered in its technological forms and visa versa

Very influential today: numerous influence – one example the virtual artifact as it can become technologically potent for use in computers or culture.

Walter Benjamin (1982-1940)• Witnesses the rise of many exciting and

transformative technologies• Interested especially in the rise of

technology which reproduces (visually) • Interested in the transition from the

image as still into the image as appearing as “real life” via cinema

• Interested also in the architectures which form many of the first “shopping malls” – the relationship between objects and how they are viewed – especially when they become able to be obtained through purchase and other technology

• Technology as a means of obtaining ownership of ephemeral qualities (as a means of acquiring cultural capital

Walter Benjamin (1882-1940)

• Witnesses the effects of WWI on Germany.

• The suffering• The blame cycles ensuing• The mitigation of suffering

through shopping/cinema/music

• The reproduction of blame through these same forms

Walter Benjamin (1882-1940)• Witnesses the effects of WWI on

Germany.• The suffering• The blame cycles ensuing• The reproduction of blame

through these same forms• The rise of juggernaut of ritual

forms that are cathartic in combinations with architectures of consumption

• Fascism as that juggernaut which government + media + technology + architecture + consumption + culture all merge (propaganda)

• Identifiable by its manipulations of blame and its uses of origin

Walter Benjamin• The Work of Art in an Age of

ReproductionIf the industrial era is about

productionThis era is about “ reproduction”

Walter Benjamin• The Work of Art in an Age of

ReproductionIf the industrial era is about

productionThis era is about “ reproduction”Reproduction once meant the ability

of a species to reproduce itself.It now comes to mean the ability to

copy (to substitute copy for the original)

Walter Benjamin• The Work of Art in an Age of ReproductionIf the industrial era is about productionThis era is about “ reproduction”Reproduction once meant the ability of a species to

reproduce itself. This reproduction was a copy that was also an original – new – somehow in possession of its own unique identity while also inheriting the structures of that “copied”

Reproduction now comes to mean the ability to copy (to substitute copy for the original original). Substitution (and the ability to copy) is more important that origin. This is the mark of our age.

Walter Benjamin• The Work of Art in an Age of Reproduction

Scribal culture: the reproduction of sacred text.

Copying this form meant creating a container for something beyond

This something vitalized the writing which was just its skin

Though this skin we interact with the vitality that is more than skin

Thus as we look at the past we see layers and layers of objects and architectures (skins) for a vitality that was more than skin

Walter Benjamin• The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical

ReproductionVisual art develops through the rise of mimetic form into this idea of copying nature

Copying this nature meant creating a container for something that was nature its full dimensionality and its beyond form-ness

This idea of copying which began like scribal culture as a means of creating sort of a skin – access to nature and its mystery

Became skilled in technique for reproducing it

Walter Benjamin• The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Years ago scribal culture was revolutionized by the advent of the printing press

Today we witness the revolutionizing of visual scribal culture:

1.Ability to print an image 2.Photograph (ability to copy the real)3.Movies (provision of architecture that merges speed and copy) to produce moving form.Like copying which undergirds scribal culture as a means of creating sort of a skin – access to nature and its mystery – we have an optical illusion of access to the mystery of human form

We have become technologically skilled in reproducing human dimensionality as two dimensional image, and in creating three dimensionality as optical illusion

Walter Benjamin

• The Work of Art in an Age of Reproduction

Years ago scribal culture was revolutionized by the advent of the printing press

Today we witness the revolutionizing of visual scribal culture:

1.Ability to print an image 2.Photograph (ability to copy the real)3.Movies (provision of architecture that merges speed and copy) to produce moving form.Like copying which undergirds scribal culture as a means of creating sort of a skin – access to nature and its mystery – we have an optical illusion of access to the mystery of human form

We have become technologically skilled in reproducing human dimensionality as two dimensional imageWe have become very confused by our technological prowess about the relationship of origin, original and imageEspecially as these images come to us increasingly through the culture of the ready made – where production and reproduction are increasingly removed from our view by architectures that encourage us not to worry about origin

Walter Benjamin


Walter Benjamin


McLuhan observes that it is when the alphabet become empty of meaning – that it becomes more efficient and useful as a technology merging touch and sound -

Walter Benjamin


McLuhan observes that it is when the alphabet become empty of meaning – that it becomes more efficient and useful as a technology merging touch and sound -

Benjamin notices that when the image becomes empty of its origins in nature or human form it becomes increasingly efficient as a means of creating meaning transfers

Walter Benjamin


These meaning transfers are optically seductive to our visual sense in its programming to connect us with origin


Walter Benjamin


These meaning transfers are optically seductive to our visual sense in its programming to connect us with origin. There was a time when origin mattered to us physically for nourishment.


Walter Benjamin



As we become separated from origin in its visual mode – architecture can be used to separate or numb other senses that might help us discern origin

We become numb to origin

Walter Benjamin



We become numb to origin

We become interested in originality

We accept certain replacements of our 3 dimensionality

Walter Benjamin



White,ChristianAryian

Transformsthe “strange”

Jacques Ellul

• French: • Comes “of age” intellectually during WWII• During the 1950s and 60s contributes to the

rise of sociology as a field• Real interest however is technology• Influences North American/US thinking on

technology : Neil Postman

Jacques Ellul

• Video: Betrayal by Technology, Part 1 and 2

comn 2312

Documents

print society

print world

elizabethan world

technological optimismwith

printbased society

fading world of print

information society

sensory information