TEORIE VĚDY 2/2006

„ELEKTRICKÁ IMAGINACE“


Obsah


Vladimír Raffel
Zloděj z New Yorku 5

Eric Davis
Esoterické počátky fonografu 13

Christoph Asendorf
Nervy a elektřina 25

Geoffrey Batchen
Zviditelnění elektřiny 51

Olivier Namias
Krása na drátě 77

Laura Otis
Metaforický obvod 93

Nikola Tesla
Mé vynálezy 121


recenze

Jaroslav Balvín ml.
(Dieter Prokop, Boj o média. Dějiny nového kritického myšlení o médiích) 185

Michal Andrle
(Karel Stibral, Darwin a estetika. Ke kontextu estetických názorů Ch. Darwina) 191




ZLODĚJ Z NEW YORKU
Vladimír Raffel

Abstract
“The Thief from New York” is a story by the Czech avant-garde writer Vladimír Raffel, from his Electric stories, 1927. It features his peculiar figure, “The Electric Magician.”


ANDĚLSKÉ NAHRÁVKY: ESOTERICKÝ PŮVOD FONOGRAFU
Erik Davis

Abstract
In “Recording Angels: The Esoteric Origins of the Phonograph” Erik Davis traces the history of the “electromagnetic imaginary” and its relationship to (electronic) music. Analyzing the works of electricity pioneers (Mesmer, Morse, Bell, Watson, Edison, Faraday, Maxwell, Tesla) he points out the fundamental musicality of the “electric” model of the universe and shows how it is relevant to understanding media today.


NERVY A ELEKTŘINA
Christoph Asendorf

Abstract
In “Nerves and Electricity” Christoph Asendorf analyzes the imaginative dimensions of electricity and its applications towards the end of the nineteenth century. Drawing on many examples from literature, visual arts, philosophy, and psychological and physiological research as well as electric engineering itself, the author describes the reinterpretation of body, which becomes conceptualized a force field, a contingent intersection of effects determined elsewhere, and life in itself is being equated with (electric) energy.


ZVIDITELNĚNÍ ELEKTŘINY
Geoffrey Batchen

Abstract
“Electricity Made Visible” traces the simultaneous and interrelated emergence of several different technologies and their conceptual apparatuses: photography, mechanical weaving, computing, electric telegraphy, and photo-mechanical printing. Each of these multi-media developments is first conceived around 1800 and each is therefore synonymous with modernity and its various attributes. They all share a desire to automate the act of representation and recognize representation itself as involving the transmission of visual information from one place to another, or from one form to another – information that has first been turned into an abstract mode of data. Batchen’s history thus presents a critical reconsideration of the definition of “new media” and challenges the traditional histories of visual culture.


KRÁSA NA DRÁTĚ
Olivier Namias

Abstract
The essay analyzes the way technology is symbolically appropriated; specifically, how electric lines were received in arts and popular discourse. Author proposes three-stage model of such reception: first, the technology is “exhumed” (new, foreign, and appealing object is discovered); second phase is called “exaltation” – the technology is being used and its artistic potential is expressed and disseminated; finally, the technology is “banalized” – it disappears or ceases to be an object of conflicting interpretations.


METAFORICKÝ OBVOD:
ORGANICKÁ A TECHNOLOGICKÁ KOMUNIKACE V 19. STOLETÍ
Laura Otis

Abstract
In “The Metaphoric Circuit: Organic and Technological Communication in the Nineteenth Century” Laura Otis inquires into the epistemological role of metaphor by analyzing various comparisons and analogies between physiological and technological communication systems in the nineteenth century. Analyses of the works of Galvani and Volta, DuBois-Reymond and Helmholtz, Morse and Cooke show that metaphors suggest new visions, images and models: to physiologists, the telegraph and associated studies in electro-magnetism suggested the mechanisms by which the body transmitted information, whereas to engineers designing telegraph networks, organic structures suggested ways to arrange centralized systems


MÉ VYNÁLEZY
Nikola Tesla

Abstract
My Inventions is Nikola Tesla’s autobiography, which appeared originally as a series of six articles in the Electrical Experimenter magazine in 1919.


LID VERSUS MÉDIA
Jaroslav Balvín ml.

Dieter Prokop, Boj o média. Z německého originálu Der Kampf um die Medien (2001) přeložily Barbora Köpplová a Monika Loderová. Praha: Karolinum 2005


PŘÍRODOVĚDEC V HLEDÁČKU LADOVĚDCE
Michal Andrle

Karel Stibral, Darwin a estetika. Ke kontextu estetických názorů Charlese Darwina. Červený Kostelec: Pavel Mervart 2006.