Today I talk a little about the questions I asked yesterday and a little about the material you need to read for today.
The audio quslity this morning is really bad. I forgot to turn on my earbud so the only pick up was in the handset itself. I did some post-production amplification, and I think you can hear most of it – particularly in the beginning where I answer some of your questions.
Sorry about that.
Recognizing the influence of Bauhaus provides an insight into the zeitgeist of the Twentieth Century. Hughes talks about the importance of creating designs that can be mass produced — the ideal that “good design” is represented by “ease of manufacture” — which in turn created an esthetic that explains how streamlined locomotives, chrome tea infusers, and the art of Kandinsky all fall into the same theme.
The idea that technology should have an esthetic value over and above the functional is an important element in understanding the relationship between technology and culture. Seeing pictures of these steel and steam leviathans really fails to capture the essence of the ideal. Hughes references the Loewy’s influence and the Pennsylvania Railroad’s S-1. Here’s a collection of vintage movies showing a bit of the S-1 in movement. This is mostly about the T-1 but there are some clips showing the S-1 starting at about 4:23. (The opening credit is a bit much you can skip ahead to 00:25 and bypass “Bull and the Lords of Underwear”…)
Note the similarities in vision — the “shark nose” idea — across these various engines. In the current vernacular, I’d call this “steam porn.”
Compare this to the current pop-culture phenomenon of “steam punk.”
I talked a little about chapter three and some about chapter four. Keep in mind that there’s a chronological separation between the chapters as well as a “technological” one. That means he’s got some odd breaks between chapters.
One of the problems with Hughes is that, while it was written in 2002 (published in 2004), it references a pre-2000 world. A couple years ago I did a video that sums up one of the major problems of technology and education.
Find more videos like this on Fireside Learning: Conversations about Education
Mostly a rehash of old ground with some forays into chapters 3 and 4.
A quick intro to Hughes and some of the things to watch for as you get into chapters 1 and 2 of The Human-Built World.
A short ramble this morning about Postman and looking ahead a bit to Hughes.
FWIW, I have a second daily podcast that I publish over on nathanlowell.org and I frequently talk about teaching, learning, education, and the new media culture that I live in.
Wherein our intrepid hero, Technopoly, suffers the slings and arrows of bad analogy and outrageous fortune…
