Archive for May, 2006
(not) like sweeping powder over glass
May 4th
Some things about typewriters and the corporeality of the mechanical and the sensuality of literacy:
Typing means “taking foolish chances with words”:
Typing represents to me the work of writing, of striking the physical world, and in so doing, changing it. Writing on a laptop (as I did to write this) is like sweeping powder over glass�a breeze, even a breath, can undo all the work. While I no longer believe that what a typewriter produces is somehow more truthful, I do miss the fact that it receives no email, can�t surf the web, and will never crash.
And of course there’s a retro revival:
With a typewriter, Cupertino resident Heather Folsom said, writing is a sensory experience. Her “noiseless” Underwood portable makes a satisfying thwack when she taps the keys. She piles finished pages beside her. The ink has its own special smell.
The visceral experience of writing rescued from the unbearable lightness of the digital – or something like that…
But it all feels different when the typewriter is the “new” technology: mechanization, speed, efficiency, desensitisation, dehumanisation – it bears all the symptoms and promises of modernity. From a wonderful piece in Cabinet Magazine:
The typewriter, by definition, mechanizes writing, the way the rifle mechanizes killing. The cold metal of a rifle or a typewriter insinuates itself between a person and his or her passion.
Being masters of their machines made women cold, too:
At the Rosenberg spy trial, in 1952, the prosecuting attorney sharpened the government’s case against Ethel Rosenberg by asking the jury to visualize the female, Jewish suspect sitting behind her typewriter, “hitting the keys, blow by blow, against her own country in the interest of the Soviets.”
For sale by crafty virtuoso: one typewriter nostalgia love box.
Or choose your letter and hang a key around your neck.
History of the IBM electric typewriter here.
And there’s Friedrich A. Kittler’s Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (which I haven’t read, but probably will) if you like your history of new media technologies infused with Heidegger and psychoanalysis.
Also, think mobile and handheld devices are new?
Think again.
spot the difference
May 3rd
Apple’s new ads run a line familiar from my research into 80s advertising (speed, ease of use, corporate vs. ‘everyday’). But this time, the brands are personified. And they’re kinda funny.
But just in case you were in any doubt, yes, it’s true. Technologies are made in their creators’ images. And they wear the pants (unless they are small ‘creative’ devices, like digital cameras from japan).
the politics of ‘participatory’ culture
May 2nd
Anne asks: At what point does collaboration cease to be reciprocal and simply become appropriation?
I’ve written many times, here and elsewhere, that I question the kind of reciprocity at work when a small group of people profit from the work of many others.
[...]
In the past I would have considered these things amongst the ill effects of capitalism, but now I think it’s a bit more complicated than that. After all, some of this labour is actually being done for free. Out of love even, like with Flickr or any number of mod communities. The DIY ethic, in fact, is based on the power of creative re-use and re-appropriation. But these terms are now being tossed around in software and hardware development like organisations and companies only care about democratic participation, and not profitability.
[...]
At what point are labour and love exploited? When does collaboration become appropriation?
I’ve written an alarmingly long and incoherent response in the comments section of the original post.