Sometimes we put ourselves in little boxes and narrowly define our lives and the world around us until things become so fragmented and disjointed from other things that they are hard to recognize or join back together. Technology is many things, not just relating to science or art, but also to advancements in machinery and manufacturing, which I often forget. And so, to think about the relationship of technology and culture properly, we must consider all aspects of technology that affect our culture. Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s book, The Railway Journey, illustrates how the railroad has changed our world physically and altered us perceptually and behaviorally.
The invention of the railroad initially collapsed time. The measurement of time is a human creation, which the increased speed of transportation helped to point out. Countries began setting their official time based on railroad time schedules. Trips that used to take days began to take hours. A cultural redefinition began and new things gained importance and old things fell out of importance; it was a time of loss and gains, as typically occurs with change. Locations lost their sense of identity and began to blur into one another as goods and people were transferred more frequently due to the increased ease of transportation. Like an artwork losing its sense of “aura,” according to Walter Benjamin, places began to lose their “genuineness” (Schivelbusch 41).
Benjamin saw the concept of “aura” as a “unique phenomenon of distance, however close it may be” and saw it is as something prized and worthy of holding on to. (41) He related the idea to artistic reproductions and how some things are better left untouched, as in a remote location, or not reproduced, as in an artwork. When you destruct the aura by bringing things closer to the “masses,” you devalue the original thing. In many instances I agree with Benjamin, particularly where tourism is concerned—some places should be preserved or at least regulated to an extent so that we do not ruin the natural beauty that he describes. As far as artwork goes, however, I am skeptical of his argument. By reproducing artwork or sharing outside it original “aura” or environment, you do not necessarily devalue the original as long as the original is not disturbed. Especially with the advances in technology in recent years and with New Media art, it is exciting that people everywhere can now see and incorporate art in everywhere in their everyday lives. It is important to have these reproductions for these and other purposes. They also serve as learning tools in classrooms and they help artists create and appropriate in their own original pieces.
The railroad changed culture by making it more connected, but it changed the landscape superficially by making it look different. Mentally, the landscape was also changed, but only because all of a sudden we started looking at the world at 75 mph. Our perception was thrown off completely during the time of new technology and a variety of “new realties” came about for passengers. The panoramic views offered by the train windows combined with the motion of the machine oriented the viewer, who was sometimes sitting backwards, to become at one time part of the landscape around him and joined at one with the foreground, while at another time become separate from it. (63) The passenger, who has lost all control of their senses, was “projected” into space and time and through landscape like a “mere parcel” (54). The traveler’s relationship is changed most with the landscape in terms with how he perceives it, though his other sense too are effected, particularly his sense of smell. (55) In a way the traveler on the train has lost a little bit of his reality.
Technology is powerful and has the ability to alter our world in dramatic and devastating ways. Advancements in technology, like the railroad, are called “advancements’ for a reason, but we need to be more discriminating when we blindly accept them as being “all advantage, no disadvantage” deals. The railroad, like many advances in art, faced and still faces, much criticism for changing the world culture. However, radical steps are necessary if we are ever to progress. Schivelbusch states that he is not making a case for nostalgia or a wish for things to be the way they used to be, and that is an important concept to remember in our analysis of art when we talk about change. It is great to talk about the past and how the past has inevitably had an impact on the present technology and art, but it is important to retain objectivity in judgments. Things change, for the better and for the worse, but art is art and it will always be dynamic and wonderful and, as for technology, it will never stop.
Works Cited
Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time & Space in the 19th Century, University of California Press, 1977. Pgs. xiii-xvi, 33-44, and 52-69.
