[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> The War Between the Two Technologies

[bc <human@electronetwork.org>]

>[Frederick Wilhelmsen and Jane Best, "The War in Man: Media and Machines,"
>1970, University of Georgia Press]

one odd thing in the juxtaposition of the mechanical
and the electronic/electrical is that they are not, as
far as i know, mutually exlusive. but then again, a text
written in 1970 would have a far different view of the
present than we have in 2002, thirty-two years hence.

one thing that Lewis Mumford wrote about in this regard,
which someday a load of notes on his works may find their
way online, is that the bureaucratic 'megamachine' was a
mechanical machine, yet run by an electronic brain of sorts,
under its own grand narrative and imperative, the amber god.

a simple question, for today, in regard to this text is what
are we to make of the 'electromechanical' in technology, in
science, and our culture. the mechanical going away, or being
overtaken seems unlikely as mechanics or matter going away,
in a constant state, literally sensed by the body. still, a guess.

but what intrigues is this: what is mechanical that is not electrical,
that is not dealt with electrically/electronically/electromagnetically
somewhere in its process of existence. in its sheer materiality it is
charged, in the vo-id. yet, also in its production, in its evolution,
in its design, in its understanding, in our perceptions of it, what-
ever 'it' is. person, place, thing. and beyond.

there seems to be an empirical boundary, based on the division
of action, of the body, which separates mechanics from electrics,
which is false in many ways of direct experience with such things.
yet, still, the mechanical is seen (by the mental constructs of the
past which live on in the present mind) to be separated, such that
the electro-mechanical constitituion of the inanimate object (computer)
is seen/believe/perceived as somehow of a different order or nature
of things than the human as an electromechanical being. both are being
in the same sense as a 'nervous system', in different ways, but much
more similar in foundations than different. yet the difference is what
is perceived. 'as if' instead of 'it is' the same, the electromagnetic order.

much mystery, but to separate the mechanical and electrical today
would be counterproductive, or so it seems. but it is also the default.
it is, in the sublime, to be explored. in the literal, not just an equation.

bc

<the electromagnetic internetwork>
  matter, energy, and in-formation
  http://www.electronetwork.org/

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