Re: <nettime> ae fragments/mumford

[brian carroll <human@architexturez.com>]

Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 16:06:54 -0400 (EDT)
From: Alan Sondheim <sondheim@panix.com>
To: brian carroll <human@architexturez.com>
Subject: Re: <nettime> ae fragments/mumford


I really like this - it's exciting. I tend to differentiate between
electrical and electronic; years ago, like many other people, I worked on
vacuum tube circuity and I've always been aware that there were/are three
configurations of the electric -

The early-mechanical - look at any text from say 1880-1905 - the images of
rheostats, circuit breakers, transformers, motors - only the lightbulb
contained the vacuum that opens up into the second configuration. Space in
this first configuration is that of mechanism, euclidean, 'practical.'

The vacuum - say 1910-1950 - use of vacuum tube technology, television,
radar, etc. - electrons moving through empty internalized space - I think
of this as organism, 'atomic.'

The electronic - 1950-on out - transistors through ICs, LSICs, VLSICs,
etc. - here's where computation begins and the space is topology, not
geometric - it's a question of point-to-point connectivity, layers. 

All of these are qualitatively different; the 'electric' of 1900 was not
the 'electric' of 1930, nor that of 1999. On the other hand the power grid
moves through all of these states, but the _control_ begins with the first
configuration, moves through the last. With the telephone, control is even
hand-control (human operators, etc. making connects for even local calls) 
at first... the rest come later - (And I can imagine a fourth configura-
tion - nanotech in combination with organic membranes, give it another
decade or so.) 

Alan

http://www.anu.edu.au/english/internet_txt - partial mirror at
http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/internet_txt.html co-moderator
Cyberculture, Cybermind, Fiction of Philosophy (fop-l) 


#  distributed via nettime-l: no commercial use without permission of author
#  <nettime> is a moderated mailinglist for net criticism,
#  collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets
#  more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body
#  un/subscribe: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and
# "un/subscribe nettime-l you@address" in the msg body
#  archive: http://www.nettime.org/ contact: <nettime@bbs.thing.net>