Media Culture in Transformation
Proximity - Distance
- What were modern communications media?
- Which infrastructures did they rely on?
- How did technological infrastructures inform the modern experience of
time and space?
- how were modern communications media introduced differently (US vs
Europe)
Industrialization and Networks
- european perspective
- modernity
Early modern Modern period
1500 - 1800 1800 - 1970s
beginning of Renaissance enlightenment, industrial revolution
reformation, mercantilism, capitalism, urbanization,
colonialism, experimental science industrialization
not modernism!! - was an art
movement
Networks before the early modern period?
- silk road - trade
- economic relations
- political relations
- spread of culture and religion
- roman roads
- military
- transportation
- postal routes
- messages and goods
- transatlantic slave trade
- triangle
- import, export of goods, not only slaves
,Industrialization: shift of energy sources, energy wind and water becomes
iron, coal and steam power
- increase in productivity and popularization
First wave Second wave
1800 - 1860s 1850s - 1900
canals gas and electricity
postal networks urban transit
railroads wireless telephone
telegraphs
Transport infrastructure: trains
- England, 1800
- steam locomotive
- steam powered trains to transport coal (1810)
- 1835 - First passenger train
- transform how people experience life around them
- Transforming culture:
- certain way of perceiving the environment
- before trains, only rich people travelled far
- not only see, but also feel, hear and smell
- full sensory experience -- intense
- Modern consciousness of space:
- landscape: naturally grown environment
- railways cut through the landscape
- even lives from one point to another
- transport people at a higher speed
- feels like trains shot through space
- stands in contrast to a more natural landscape
- more geometrical, straight flat lines between points
- aims at mastery of expansive space
- expansive, yet shrinking at the same time
, - Mastery: the transcontinental railroad was instrumental to the settlement
of western America and the oppression and genocide of indigenous
people
- Steamboy - japanese animation
- Panoramic view:
- travel in a horse-drawn carriage
- continuous sequence of impressions and a synthetic
experience of the environment
- by contrast, speed of train travel disrupts that continuity and
synesthesia
- immediate environment cannot be grasped
- overstimulation of vision, disconnected from other senses
- Results: reorganization of sensory experience
- looking into distance to get the bigger picture
- panoramic view also becomes relevant in the growing
tourist industry
- Modern consciousness of time:
- this is a comparative time-table that shows the times in various
cities in the US compared to Washington DC
- evidence of an earlier, premodern approach to time persisting into
the modern era
- What is the pre-modern approach to time?
- Why was this kind of time-table necessary?
- different local times pose a problem
- new infrastructure requires coordination and punctuation
- Solution: synchronization of time across countries and later time
zones.
- growing societies now also share the same clock time
- modern time is linear, divisible, synchronized and coordinated
fast
- new importance of strict punctuality
- trains will not wait for one passenger
Proximity - Distance
- What were modern communications media?
- Which infrastructures did they rely on?
- How did technological infrastructures inform the modern experience of
time and space?
- how were modern communications media introduced differently (US vs
Europe)
Industrialization and Networks
- european perspective
- modernity
Early modern Modern period
1500 - 1800 1800 - 1970s
beginning of Renaissance enlightenment, industrial revolution
reformation, mercantilism, capitalism, urbanization,
colonialism, experimental science industrialization
not modernism!! - was an art
movement
Networks before the early modern period?
- silk road - trade
- economic relations
- political relations
- spread of culture and religion
- roman roads
- military
- transportation
- postal routes
- messages and goods
- transatlantic slave trade
- triangle
- import, export of goods, not only slaves
,Industrialization: shift of energy sources, energy wind and water becomes
iron, coal and steam power
- increase in productivity and popularization
First wave Second wave
1800 - 1860s 1850s - 1900
canals gas and electricity
postal networks urban transit
railroads wireless telephone
telegraphs
Transport infrastructure: trains
- England, 1800
- steam locomotive
- steam powered trains to transport coal (1810)
- 1835 - First passenger train
- transform how people experience life around them
- Transforming culture:
- certain way of perceiving the environment
- before trains, only rich people travelled far
- not only see, but also feel, hear and smell
- full sensory experience -- intense
- Modern consciousness of space:
- landscape: naturally grown environment
- railways cut through the landscape
- even lives from one point to another
- transport people at a higher speed
- feels like trains shot through space
- stands in contrast to a more natural landscape
- more geometrical, straight flat lines between points
- aims at mastery of expansive space
- expansive, yet shrinking at the same time
, - Mastery: the transcontinental railroad was instrumental to the settlement
of western America and the oppression and genocide of indigenous
people
- Steamboy - japanese animation
- Panoramic view:
- travel in a horse-drawn carriage
- continuous sequence of impressions and a synthetic
experience of the environment
- by contrast, speed of train travel disrupts that continuity and
synesthesia
- immediate environment cannot be grasped
- overstimulation of vision, disconnected from other senses
- Results: reorganization of sensory experience
- looking into distance to get the bigger picture
- panoramic view also becomes relevant in the growing
tourist industry
- Modern consciousness of time:
- this is a comparative time-table that shows the times in various
cities in the US compared to Washington DC
- evidence of an earlier, premodern approach to time persisting into
the modern era
- What is the pre-modern approach to time?
- Why was this kind of time-table necessary?
- different local times pose a problem
- new infrastructure requires coordination and punctuation
- Solution: synchronization of time across countries and later time
zones.
- growing societies now also share the same clock time
- modern time is linear, divisible, synchronized and coordinated
fast
- new importance of strict punctuality
- trains will not wait for one passenger
