<nettime> towards Æ /comparison

[brian carroll <human@architexturez.com>]

 (theories of an American Empire..? attention Mark Stahlman...)
 ._______________________________________________________________.
/_______________________________________________________________/
| working on 'the architecture of electricity' (ae) thesis to be
| finished near 2000 Common Era. just finished writing this piece
| comparing Rome and America. the upper-case letters on the website
| will be of a smaller font size than the lowercase letters, and
| these words will be hyperlinked to their definitions, as will
| the numbered footnotes with the bibliographic information. of
| the concepts in this piece, most all have been established in the
| the thesis prior to this text (this is at the end of the thesis).
| thus, a concept like the E-INFRASTRUCTURE has a whole section
| detailing how electricity is produced and consumed, and that in
| turn has another section about what ELECTRICITY is, etcetera.
| feedback is welcome. bc
|____________________________________________________________.
 a r c h i t e x t u r e z : an online community for hacking |
 and cracking the architectural code - www.architexturez.com |
 ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
______________________________________________________________________

 Æ   C O M P A R I S O N
______________________________________________________________________

Imagine looking backward 100 years or even 1000 years into the future... 
What would archaeologists of the future see most clearly as the
ARCHITECTURAL ruins of today? 

They would likely see ARCHITECT David Macaulay's Piranesi-like drawings of
contemporary ruins, such as "A Partially Excavated Fast Food Restaurant",
"Gas Station", and "Drive In" movie theater, as emblematic representations
of today's ELECTRICAL ORDER. (345) What are these buildings without their
ELECTRICAL pumps, movie projectors, and deep fat fryers? 

Further evidence of this ELECTRICAL influence are found within Macaulay's
ironic drawings of an ELECTRICAL POWER OUTLET juxtaposed with Roman ruins
in a "Roman Wall Painting (115 A.C., A.D. 200.)", and the "Study for
patterned fragment of Roman sarcophagus" wherein a drawing of the
sarcophagus under an X-RAY reveals a Universal Product Code (UPC) pattern
beneath its ancient surface. (347) 

In retrospect, the differences between the TRADITIONAL ORDER and the
ELECTRICAL ORDER and its tools, building, systems is obvious. (349n) Yet
at this level of ARCHITECTURAL ORDER there also exists a continuity
between the two. 

For example, a Roman truimphal arch and a present-day traffic light could
be compared and contrasted as ceremonial gates. Although different, both
span roads and entries. They share some traits such as coded messages,
rules, and regulations for civil instruction. And their physical presence
SIGNALs a certain prevailing ARCHITECTURAL ORDER in the BUILT ENVIRONMENT. 

This comparison between these two ARCHITECTURAL ORDERs is prescient, in
that it sets the stage for the completion of our thesis. By juxtaposing
certain elements of Greco-Roman Classical Western ARCHITECTURE with the
present-day ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE we can define an ARCHITECTURE OF
ELECTRICITY existing between them. 

To do so, we posit the ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE as the ARCHITECTURE of
the "New World Order." Representing the ELECTRICAL WORLD through ARTIFACTs
such as ANTENNAs, TRANSMISSION TOWERs, DISTRIBUTION POLEs, streetlights,
and traffic lights, this new global ELECTRICAL ORDER reveals itself.
(351n) 

Thus, ever since Christopher Columbus left the "Old World" of TRADITION to
rediscover the "New World," our understanding of ELECTRICITY, from the
discovery of AMBER to the invention of the Internet COMPUTER NETWORK, has
paradigmatically transformed our ELECTRICAL WORLD, and ourselves. 

With the revolutionary evolution of ELECTRIFICATION in the 20th century,
the ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE of POWER, MEDIA, and TECHNOLOGY matured
enough in AMERICA to be exported back to the "Old World," and around the
globe as a common ELECTRICAL CIVILIZATION. (352n) 

The most notable ARTIFACTs of this conquest are the common wooden
DISTRIBUTION POLE and metal TRANSMISSION TOWER. This influence is also
evidenced as much by electrically amplified rock music and public address
(PA) systems at protests for democracy, as by ELECTRICAL LIGHTs and their
peculiar American brand of ENLIGHTENMENT. (353n) 

AMERICA has in turn become the global equivalent of the (Holy) Roman
Empire of old. 

This connection can be literalized when looking up at a wooden "cross-arm" 
ELECTRICAL DISTRIBUTION POLE with a common "cobra-head" fixture: the
wooden cross and snake of Christianity still present in the semiotic
image, however sublimated. 

AMERICA as Empire is not a radically new idea, as the Webster's Dictionary
defines it:  "Empire: a sovereign state whose possessions have been
extended by military or economic conquest, colonization, or federation, to
include countries or territories originally independent of it." (355) 

We propose that AMERICA is the sovereign STATE supporting the current
economic, social, and political dimensions of ELECTRICAL CIVILIZATION.
This influence can be seen in the ARCHITECTURAL form of the ELECTRICAL
ORDER. 

For example, where there is TELEVISION there is ELECTRICAL CIVILIZATION,
as it is realized in a new ELECTRICAL SPACE-TIME, AESTHETIC, and CULTURE. 
There are TELEVISION channels, newscasts, anchors, editors, makeup
artists... ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVEs, ANTENNAs, TV RECEIVERS... POWERLINEs,
DISTRIBUTION POLEs, TRANSMISSION TOWERs, POWERPLANTs, and GENERATORs. 

This view of the ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE as ARCHITECTURE is very much
the same as perceiving AMERICA as the Empire behind ELECTRICAL
CIVILIZATION:  the Pax Romana becoming the Pax Americana. (357n) It is
within an ARCHITECTURE OF ELECTRICITY that these Two Cultures logically
meet. (359n) 

This is not to say there are not discontents in this Huxleyian Brave New
World- there is plenty of cognitive dissonance between the unresolved
ARCHITECTURAL ORDERs within individual ARCHITECTs, ARCHITECTURAL
institutions, and the population at large. 

In fact, recognizing the consonance of this ARCHITECTURE OF ELECTRICITY is
not an issue of agreement but an issue of truth- ultimately leading from
perceptive CONSCIOUSNESS to the larger REALITY of HOMO ELECTRUS and our
ELECTRICAL machines. 

To "see" the ARCHITECTURE OF ELECTRICITY, then, requires our understanding
how the ARCHITECTURE of TRADITION has undergone a transference, mapping
itself onto the ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE, the symbolic "Other." (363n) As
we have developed in this thesis, this originates from within the
ELECTRICAL ORDER organically transmuting itself into an ARCHITECTURAL
ORDER, extending TRADITION. (365n) 

We will examine this ARCHITECTURAL paradox by juxtaposing the PARTI,
buildings, and state of Classical Western ARCHITECTURE with that of
present-day AMERICA. 

Answering Le Corbusier's proposition, by equating the ELECTRICAL
INFRASTRUCTURE with ARCHITECTURE, and setting these against the past, we
have both an evolutionary and revolutionary ARCHITECTURE OF ELECTRICITY. 

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great Moments in Architecture, David Macaulay, c.1978, Houghton Mifflin
Company, Boston. (345) Plates XXX, XXXI, XXXII, (347) Plate VII, Fig. 14,
Fig. 15,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(349n) That there may well be a post-electrical order is debatable, based
upon a newly arising nanotechnological understanding of electricity, the
phenomenon may be redefined instead of our present day sub-atomic
microscopic explanation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(351n) We propose that the New World Order proposed by American President
George Bush is the representation of American empire as world civilization,
as it is materialized in the electrical infrastructure of power, media, and
technology.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(352n) This is not to say that Europe and Asia, South America or Africa
have not had a vernacular brand of electrification, only that the American
version so far prevails above all others, as is seen in the phenomonon of
the Internet.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(353n) We propose this new era of electrical enlightenment comes from
America, as the electric light bulb is a symbolic sign of electrical
civilization.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New Lexicon Webster's Dictionary of the English Language, Lexicon
Publications, Inc. NY, c.1989 Edition (355) p.309
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(357n) the 'kiss of Rome' becoming the 'kiss of America'.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(359n) One reading of C.P. Snow's book The Two Cultures is that it is a
juxtaposition between the traditional culture and the new (electrical)
culture, a 'gap' which we attempt to bridge within this thesis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(363n) With reference to Freud's psychoanalytics, Deleuze and Guattari's
schizo-analytics, and Jung's alchemical interpretations and Foucault's
archaeological mapping.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(365n) Jung's 'mystical marriage of art and science' in alchemical analyses
can be compared to Le Corbusier's unification of the science of engineering
with the art of architecture.
------------------------------------------------------------------------





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