Old Things & The Antiquarian's Imaginary.

toko

toko

Well-known member
making your own pinhole camera, using a darkroom etc the whole experience relies on tinkering, on trial and error, its immensely gratifying. theres a sense of power I get from knowing at a basic level how things work- on the other hand, something comparatively powerless and alienating about using "alien plastic boxes" as idlerich put it. I think its the same reason why DIY stuff appeals to people.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
toko said:
i love old technology because it's more mechanical, more intuitive. seeing all the little gears in a clock I can build a basic mechanical model of how it works. old technology is usually more, should I say, physical. Conversely, my smartphone may as well be magic- I need multiple degrees to understand how input A leads to output B. you can't "pop the hood," and get your hands dirty, tinker around.
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thats why (i think) children are so fascinated by typewriters
 
vimothy

vimothy

yurp
IdleRich said:
I'm not sure that the mystery is gone though. New technology has developed rapidly but although the average person's familiarity with using it has kept pace, I don't think that the understanding of how that tech works has kept up with it at all - the average user has no idea how their laptop or phone works. Imagine a 19th century guy whose watch stops, he can take the back off and even if he can't repair it he can see that that cog turns that one which tightens that spring and ultimately pulls that lever. His modern day equivalent who takes apart his laptop is just confronted by meaningless tiny boxes and so on... he knows it's not magic but, as ACC (not AOC as my hands tried to write for a second then) so famously said, for all most people understand of the day to day workings, it may as well be.

I think therefore I agree with the idea that old clock workings and even electronics can somehow be seen, in contrast to these smoothly alien plastic boxes, as organic natural technology that grows on its own in the wild, but my feeling is that that's more cos modern technology may as well be magic rather than cos its mystery has gone. Or perhaps something so unapproachable that we can't even reach the mystery to be mystified by it is in fact another side of that same coin.
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the tech is more magical but I think your experience of it is less so. for eg, the process of writing to someone in a foreign country, getting a catalogue of rare records, changing money, sending it off and waiting for weeks for a package in the post is quite magical compared to the utter mundanity of spotify's recommendation algorithm correctly predicting that I'd be into the same record, even though the latter is technologically more impressive. in general, and this is what I meant by "pop-heidegerrianism", the further you go down the technological rabbit-hole, the less magical existence seems and the more it's just like some boring mechanical resorce that you're semi managing and that's semi managing you. IDK maybe that's just me tho.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
vimothy once told me he has exceptionally delicate features, like a porcelain doll.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
vimothy said:
the tech is more magical but I think your experience of it is less so. for eg, the process of writing to someone in a foreign country, getting a catalogue of rare records, changing money, sending it off and waiting for weeks for a package in the post is quite magical compared to the utter mundanity of spotify's recommendation algorithm correctly predicting that I'd be into the same record, even though the latter is technologically more impressive. in general, and this is what I meant by "pop-heidegerrianism", the further you go down the technological rabbit-hole, the less magical existence seems and the more it's just like some boring mechanical resorce that you're semi managing and that's semi managing you. IDK maybe that's just me tho.
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I don't think that we are disagreeing, I just think there are two senses of the word magical being used here - you're talking about an experience being mystical, mysterious and filled with wonder, and the old tech of a typewriter or some clockwork doll or steam powered organ has that far more than a mobile phone. But there is also magical in the sense of something that is inexplicable by science and which thus happens by magic - and I think that the a mobile phone is more magical in this more prosaic sense cos for the average user, the way it does what it does is not even close to being within their understanding.
 
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