September 20, 2010

The New Culture of

Time and Space

September 20, 2010

The New Culture of

Time and Space

“In our lives there was no repetition; nothing of the past survived, nothing came back. It was reserved for us to participate to the full in that which history formerly distributed, sparingly and from time to time, to a single country, to a single century.”

- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday (1943)

0100002000030000400005000060000700008000090000

100000

1840 1850 1860 1870 1880

Miles of Track in Europe

“Hobbyhorse” (1816)

“Velocipede”Ernest Michaux

(1861)

$0

$500

$1,000

$1,500

$2,000

$2,500

1893 1897 1903

Cost of a New Bicycle (US prices, adjusted for inflation)

Gottlieb Daimler1885

Karl Benz1885

1892 Peugeot

1902 Mercedes Simplex

Jules Verne,Around the World in 80

Days(1872)

Nellie Bly: Travelled around the world in 72

days in 1889

“Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the absolute, because we have created eternal, omnipresent speed.”

- Filippo Marinetti (1909)

“One must persecute, lash, torture all those who sin against speed. . . . Speed, having as its essence the intuitive synthesis of every force in movement, is naturally pure. Slowness, having as its essence the rational analysis of every exhaustion in repose, is naturally unclean. After the destruction of the antique good and the antique evil, we create a new good, speed, and a new evil, slowness.”

- Filippo Marinetti, The Futurist Manifesto (1916)

Define “Commodification”

A) When societies develop a market economy, producing vastly more commodities.

B) When populations shift from the countryside to the city.

C) When the people who make things are no longer the people who manage production.

D) When people treat their own labor power as something to buy and sell.

E) When labor becomes specialized.

Who wrote the following passage: - “The sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.”

A) Karl MarxB) T. H. Greene C) Vladimir LeninD) John Stuart MillE) Herbert Spencer

The Telegraph

Samuel Morse (1844)

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

80000

1849 1854 1859 1864

Miles of Telegraph Line in Europe

Paul Julius Reuter

(1816-1899)

1892

1890

1921

1911

1924

1894: invention of the radio by Guglielmo Marconi1897: the first radio station1899: first sports broadcast by

radio (the America’s Cup)1902: first transatlantic radio

message1903: radio conversation

between King Edward VII and President Theodore

Roosevelt 1904: the first regularly

scheduled radio news show1909: Marconi given the Noble

Prize in Physics

The Titani

c(1912

)

“The wounded monster’s distress sounded through the latitudes and longitudes of the Atlantic, and from all sides her sisters great and small hastened to her succor. . . . We recognize with a sense near to awe that we have been almost witness of a great ship in her death agonies.”

- The Times (London), April 16, 1912

“Everyone was a witness of this gigantic transformation, everyone was forced to be a witness. There was no escape for our generation, no standing aside as in times past. Thanks to our new organization of simultaneity we were constantly drawn into our time. When bombs laid waste the houses of Shanghai, we knew of it in our rooms in Europe before the wounded were carried out of their homes. What occurred thousands of miles over the sea leaped bodily before our eyes in pictures. There was no protection, no security against being constantly made aware of things and being drawn into them.”

- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday (1943)

Which of the following places do you think of as furthest away from here?

A) Michigan StadiumB) ClevelandC) New York CityD) Rural KansasE) Budapest

“The thinking man experiences an eerie feeling that we always experience when an unheard of and tremendous thing happens, the results of which can neither be foreseen nor calculated. We know only that our entire existence is forced into new paths and disrupted, that new circumstances, new joys, and new sorrows await us, and that the unknown has its uncanny attractions, alluring and at the same time anguishing. So much our forefathers felt when America was discovered, when the first shot announced the invention of gunpowder, when the printing press sent the first proof sheet of the word of God into the world. Like these, the railroads are a providential happening bringing mankind a new revolution that changes the color and form of life. A new chapter begins in world history and our generation can boast that we were there at the beginning. What changes must now happen in our outlook and our perceptions? Even the elementary ideas of time and space totter. The railroad annihilates space and only time remains.”

- Heinrich Heine, 1843

“The railroads are a providential happening bringing mankind a new revolution that changes the color and form of life. A new chapter begins in world history and our generation can boast that we were there at the beginning. What changes must now happen in our outlook and our perceptions? Even the elementary ideas of time and space totter. The railroad annihilates space and only time remains.”

- Heinrich Heine, 1843

Why did I tell the story of the Titanic a few minutes ago? A) It symbolized the importance of innovations in

communication

B) It symbolized the danger of icebergs

C) It symbolized the glories of modern transportation

D) It marked the greatest loss of life at sea prior to WWI

E) It demonstrated that Britain and the US were becoming much closer than they once had been

“On the doorstep he felt in his hip pocket for the latchkey. Not there. In the trousers I left off. Must get it. Potato I have. Creaky wardrobe. No use disturbing her. She turned over sleepily that time. He pulled the hall door to after him very quietly, more, till the footleaf dropped gently over the threshold, a limp lid. Looked shut. All right till I come back anyhow. He crossed to the bright side, avoiding the loose cellarflap of number seventyfive. The sun was nearing the steeple of George’s church. Be a warm day I fancy. Specially in these black clothes feel it more. Black conducts, reflects (refracts is it?), the heat. But I couldn’t go in that light suit. Make a picnic of it. His eyelids sank quietly often as he walked in happy warmth. Boland’s bread van delivering with trays our daily but she prefers yesterday’s loaves turnovers crisp crowns hot. Makes you feel young. Somewhere in the east: early morning: set off at dawn, travel round in front of the sun, steal a day’s march on him. Keep it up for ever never grow a day older technically.”

- James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

Stream of Consciousness

Scott Joplin

Igor Stravinsky,The Rite of

Spring

1913

Early X-Ray Image by Wilhelm Roentgen

(c. 1895)

Gustave Eiffel’s Tower(1899)

Pablo Picasso

Still Life with Vases and a Lemon

1907

Juan Gris

Still Life with a Violin

1915

Georges Braque

The Buffet

1920

Pablo Picasso

Still Life with a Glass and an Apple

1911

August MackeComposition of Form and

Color1914

Vasilii KandinskyNo Title

1929

“For a different rhythm prevailed in the world. None could foretell all that might happen in a single year! One discovery, one invention, followed another, and instantly was directed to the universal good; for the first time the nations sensed in common that which concerned the comonweal. . . . How useless, we said to ourselves, are frontiers when any plane can fly over them with ease, how provincial and artificial are customs-duties, guards and border patrols, how incongruous in the spirit of these times which visibly seeks unity and world brotherhood!”

- Stefan Zweig, The World of Yesterday (1943)

Edvard Munch

The Scream

1893