Below are excerpts from Tim Pfarr's discussion leader document.
New technologies of perception and communication open up new spaces, and these spaces are always mapped, on one level or another, through the imagination.
Our modern technological world is not nature, but augmented nature, super-nature, and the more intensely we probe its mutant edge of mind and matter, the more our disenchanted productions will find themselves wrestling with the rhetoric of the supernatural.
- Erik Davis, TechGnosis (1998: 90, 48)
In his book TechGnosis, author Erik Davis asserts that technology innately tickles the human imagination, leading consumers to explore the realm of the spiritual to better understand the principles and devices at hand. While Davis leads readers through history, exploring the ways in which various media compelled humans to investigate the unknown, the aforementioned quotations perhaps best represent the keys to Davis’ argument.
The first quotation concerns how new technology is manifested, and how humans assimilate such manifestations. New technology of perception and communication — which can perhaps more generally be considered technology of information transfer — creates new dimensions through which content is manifested. Traditional writing manifests itself through ink and paper. Radio content manifests itself through invisible electronic waves. Film manifests itself through an illusion of motion. Davis asserts that consumers are forced to use their imaginations to unravel the intricacies of these new methods of manifestation. TechGnosis rests upon this concept, and it uses it to account for the “myth, magic and mysticism” that has simultaneously arrived with each new medium. As implied in this passage and written more directly elsewhere in TechGnosis, theories of such myth, magic and mysticism can be extrapolated to future media. This excerpt implies that it is of human nature to consult the imagination in attempting to grasp the principles of new technology. The text lacks exploration as to why this is so, as well as suggestions as to how one may be able to overcome this cycle when new media arrives.
The second quotation makes an assertion about the state of society, and the human response to technological advancements. The great technological advancements of the last 50 years have created a world vastly different from that of generations before it. Men and women can forge relationships without physically meeting. Films are screened in three dimensions, making the audience feel as if it is taking part in prerecorded action. One falls into the minority if he or she lacks instant, pocket-access to the information superhighway. What had once been a tangible world has transformed into one of intellectual stimulation and invisible seas of information— a super-nature, as Davis calls it. The great push to understand this world threatens all technology that has become explored and understood. Inevitably, Davis contends, one is forced to resort to supernatural language in an attempt to grasp what is not yet understood, as the supernatural accounts for the unknown. Much like the first excerpt, the second excerpt refrains from investigation as to why such disenchanted productions find “ themselves wrestling with the rhetoric of the supernatural.” Perhaps it is of human nature to do so, as implied in the former quotation?
Human beings are at unease with their own mortality, and it leads them to seek the divine for comfort and assistance. Not only is this manifested through the obvious outlet of religion, but also — as TechGnosis points out — it is manifested through the consultation of the imagination and the supernatural in the struggle to understand new technology. Given the seemingly natural inclination to seek the divine, it logically follows that the supernatural and elements of the imagination become elements in this struggle.
An example of the tendency to consult the supernatural can be seen in this clip from the History Channel’s documentary television show "Inside of History," and its episode studying the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s. Specifically, consider the segment between 2 minutes and 46 seconds, and 5:08, which details the symptoms of witchcraft as seen by those in colonial Massachusetts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqjX-9UNB7s
In the Puritan town of Salem, Massachusetts, the cause of such skin blemishes, as well as the laws of physics that concerned buoyancy, were unknown, or at least unaccepted. Also, this example indeed has limits. Those who sought witches may have been unconsciously seeking to fulfill self-fulfilling prophecies. Furthermore, the Puritan society of Salem was deeply religious, adding an additional predisposition to consult the supernatural. Nonetheless, parallels can be drawn between consultation of the supernatural in Salem, and the consultation of the supernatural in more recent times. Consider Thomas Edison’s attempts to establish a telepathic radio channel “between worlds” (Davis, 78) and Tesla’s speculation that aliens are invisible and among us (90).
However, examining the differences between the Salem witch trials and the supernatural components of new media exposes another element of TechGnosis that Davis perhaps did not thoroughly emphasize, or emphasize with the necessary clarity: What may lead humans to consult the supernatural is precisely the fact that new media frequently manifest themselves through means undetectable to the human user. Radio waves cannot be seen, individual film frames cannot be distinguished and very rarely can an observer recognize the constantly updating pixels on a television screen. These media deal in the otherworldly, much like the supernatural. While the contrast of these high- and low-tech societies draws attention to the way new media garner supernatural interest, one can also make an argument that citizens of the information age have similarities to the Puritans of the late 1600s, as both are grappling with elements not yet fully understood.
Davis states that he sympathizes with attempts to “disenchant technology and deflate the banal fantasies and pernicious hype that fuels today’s digital economy” (Davis, 12). His goal seems to be to mitigate the power struggles present in the digital economy. This begs the question of if this attempt is worthy. Davis spends a significant amount of TechGnosis following the enchantment of technology through history, and with each new medium, the process seems to repeat itself. If Davis is to succeed in disenchanting current technology, what is to keep the next new medium from following in the path of enchantment of its predecessors? Does Davis hope to put an end to enchantment of all future media? Furthermore, will an increased base of widespread scientific knowledge render prevent supernatural consultation obsolete, or will this base instead lead to increasingly rapid growth in technology that leaves citizens in awe?
Link to complete discussion leader document (.pdf)
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