Early Modernity And Technology - WordPress.com · engagement with the codes, conventions and political assumptions of the ideologically dominant class' (Blake and Frascina 1993, p.127).

Early Modernity And Technology The Precursors: 19th Century Moderns, Spectacle and Technology

Spring 2. 2011. Lecturer: Dr. Jon Cockburn

Jules Chéret (1836-1932) Folies-Bergère: la Loïe Fuller 1897. 119.6 x 82.4cm. National Gallery of Australia.

Photograph of Loïe Fuller (1862-1928) Performing "La danse blanche" c.1897. Paris

Lumière Bros. Film c. 1897-1898, Danse Serpentine – Loïe Fuller, hand coloured silent film.

Plan of Lecture

Today’s lecture will survey the 19th Century noting significant technological changes that

background cultural production in that century:

1. Introduction – modernity

2. Culture and context

3. Signposting technological change in the 19th Century

i. Printing and Lithography (image and text)

ii. The advent and impact of railways

iii. The spectacle of modernity – arcades

iv. Capturing the present – photography

v. Three forerunners – photography, morse code, the calculating machine

vi. Social critique and revolution – Karl Marx

vii. Altered regimes of seeing/knowing – the stereoscope

viii. The spectacle of modernity – World’s Fairs

ix. The spectacle of modernity – Department Stores

x. The gramophone

4. Concluding remarks

DEFINITIONS OF MODERNITY & MODERNISM.Ref: Frascina, F, Blake N, Fer B, Garb G & Harrison C 1993, Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century, Yale UP and The Open University, London.

• Avant-garde:"avant-garde |!avänt !gärd; "avä n | |"!#!v#n "g#rd| |av$˜%(&)"g#%d|noun (usu. the avant-garde) new and unusual or experimental ideas, esp. in the arts, or the people introducing them : works by artists of the Russian avant-garde.adjectivefavoring or introducing such new ideas : a controversial avant-garde composer.DERIVATIVESavant-gardism |-"diz'm| |"!#!v#n "g#r!d(z'm| nounavant-gardist |-dist| |"!#!v#n "g#rd'st| nounORIGIN late Middle English (denoting the vanguard of an army): from French, literally ‘vanguard.’ Current senses date from the early 20th cent." (Oxford American e-Dictionary. Mac OS X version 2006)

• An avant-gardist: is 'someone who works on representations of contemporary society by means of a critical engagement with the codes, conventions and political assumptions of the ideologically dominant class' (Blake and Frascina 1993, p.127).

• Modernity: as referring 'to the changing forms of modern, metropolitan social life'. (p.11).

• Modernity: what was conceived of as modern in general.

• Modernism (capital ‘M’) and modernism (lower case ‘m’): what was conceived of as modern in artistic practice.

'By 'modernism' we refer to those new social practices in both 'high art' and 'mass culture' which engage with the experiences of modern life, with modernity, by means of a self-conscious use of experiment and innovation. Their engagements are sometimes critical, sometimes celebratory, sometimes ironic. The term 'modernism' should not be confused with Modernism: which represents one particular, much contested account of modernist art practice, which stresses ‘art for art’s sake’, artistic autonomy, aesthetic disinterestedness and the formal and technical characteristics of works of modern art. (p.127).

[...]

'The requirement that the Modernist makes of art is that instead of illustrating moral themes it should be pursed as a form of sceptical and self-questioning activity in itself, without the aid of narrative.' (p.156).

THE CONTEXT OF CULTURAL PRODUCTION

• WHAT WERE THE CONDITIONS/CONTEXT BY AND UNDER WHICH CULTURAL PRODUCTION WAS FIRST REALIZED AND RECEIVED IN THE 19th CENTURY?

• HOW HAVE THESE CULTURAL IMAGES/PERFORMANCES & TEXTS BEEN INTERPRETED SINCE PRODUCTION?

• HOW HAS AND IS THE CULTURAL OUTPUT OF THE 19th CENTURY USED?

• WHAT AND FOR WHOM ARE ARE THESE EXAMPLES OF 19th CENTURY CULTURAL PRODUCTION SIGNIFICANT TODAY?

In 1961 – two United Kingdom precursors setting out new approaches to cultural studies:

1. Professor E. H. Carr (1892-1982) in What is History? The George Macaulay Trevelyan Lecture delivered in the University of Cambridge January–March 1961, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England, rpt. 1983.

AND

2. Raymond Williams (1921-1988) in “The Analysis of Culture” 1961, rpt. Harrison C and Wood P (eds)1992, Art in Theory 1900-1990, Blackwell, Oxford, pp.712-717.

Raymond Williams (1921-1988) “The Analysis of Culture” outlines

"three general categories in the definition of culture", the ideal,

documentary and social:

[1 Culture as] “… the 'ideal', in which culture is a state or process of

human perfection, in terms of certain absolute or universal values...”

[2 Culture as] “… the 'documentary', in which culture is the body of

intellectual and imaginative work, in which, in a detailed way, human

thought and experience are variously recorded...”

[3 Culture as] “Finally, third, there is the 'social' definition of culture, in

which culture is a description of a particular way of life, which expresses

certain meanings and values not only in art and learning but also in

institutions and ordinary behaviour...”(pp.712-713)

Raymond Williams (1921-1988)

THREE MYTHS THE NEW ART HISTORY SEEKS TO DISMANTLE AND/OR EXPOSE:

1. "the notion that the work of art is a direct expression of the artist's personality" i.e. intuitive and unmediated

by any cultural or contextual contingencies (p.8)

2. "the belief that art contains eternal truths free of class and time" (p.8)

3. "the conviction that art is somehow 'above' society or out of its reach" (p.8)

THE SHIFTS in approach:

i) The shift from HIGH and LOW divisions in the classification of 'Fine Art’ to one that researches inclusively so

as to investigate all manifestations of cultural production.

ii) The shift from selected (museum) objects for study to one that addresses the play of cultural meaning and

the role of cultural product in the discourse(s) of cultural studies.

iii) The consideration of cultural product previously ignored or devalued as insignificant vehicles of cultural

meaning: i.e. graphic and industrial design, the mass-media (popular print, radio, film and television),

sequential art (comics and animation), ongoing traditions of female domestic industry such as embroidery and

other textile products, the role of fashion in self and group identity, the examination of jewellery and other

accoutrements as legible cultural signs, and the transmission of personal, group and cultural signifies through

consumption patterns, including popular culture.

iv) The addition of new methodologies to the lexicon of (ART/CULTURAL) HISTORY research and the

establishment of the cross-disciplinary profiles between New Art/Writing/Performance History and other

humanities studies, including: Feminism (HER-story as against his-story), film theory, post-colonial studies

(drawing on a revitalized sociology, anthropology and studies in oral history), new-Marxist studies,

psychoanalysis, psychology, Queer theory, structuralist and post-structuralist critical theory (contemporary

philosophy).

SIGN-POSTING SIGNIFICANT SOCIAL, CONCEPTUAL AND TECHNICAL CHANGE THAT

HELPS TO MAP THE TERRAIN OF MODERNITY IN CULTURAL PRODUCTION

WHERE TO START?

Postcard-photograph of the Argenteuil Railway Bridge outside Paris, c. 1895-1900

The impact of rail travel, especially in France after 1815:• The parcelling and scheduling of time and space• The increasing pace of vision negotiating rapid shifts in point of view• The public interest in the effects of retina afterimage.

Technological context of the late 19th Century – social and scientific pointers to an understanding of the 19th Century, an equal energy and activity in the empirical and human sciences accompanied the rapid growth of industry and industrial inventions in the 19th century. A corresponding increase occurred in the secular belief that the progression of human knowledge for the betterment of human society would displace spiritual faith in religion and ungovernable fate.1808: Malus, The polarisation of Light.1827: Ohm's Law – 1831: Faraday, Law of Electrical Induction – 1833: Faraday, Electrolysis – 1834: Jacobi, Electric Motor1835: Colt, Revolver1837: Morse, Telegraph 1839: Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre (1789-1851), Photography1846: Morton, Ether anaesthesia – 1848: Haucock, Appendix operation

1876:Bell-Gray, Telephone1877: Edison, Phonograph 1883: Maxim, Machine Gun1885: Daimler/Benz, Motor Car 1889: Kodak markets portable cameras that shoot with transparent film1897: Marconi,Wireless 1895: Lumiere, cinematograph 1895: Rontgen, x-rays

1850: Bauer, Submarine – 1866: Whitehead, Torpedo1856: Perlin, Tar based dye1859: Charles Darwin publishes The Origin of Species through Natural Selection

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) writes his Salon of 1846: 'To the Bourgeoisie' and 'On the heroism of Modern Life', Paris.

1865: Mendel, Laws of heredity1867: Nobel, Dynamite. / 1867:Monier, reinforced concrete1871: Maddox-Eastman, Brominde print

1848: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifest

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) writes The Salon of 1895: The Modern Public and Photography and The Painter of Modern Life 1859-63, Paris.

In 1874, in the studio of the photographer Nadar, 35 Boulevard des Capucine, Paris, the First Exhibition of the Société Anonyme des Artistes Peintres, Sculpteurs, Graveurs, etc (late called the ‘Impressionists’) takes place.

1863 Salon des Refusés: Edouard Manet (1832-1883) exhibits three paintings: • Young Woman Reclining in Spanish Costume, 1862–63, Oil on canvas, 94.7 x 113.7 cm, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut, USA• Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Le Bain - The Bath) 1863. Oil on canvas, 208 x 264 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris• Mademoiselle V. in the Costume of an Espada, 1862, Oil on canvas, 165.1 x 127.6 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Bauer two cylinder press first built in November 1814, it was used it to print an entire issue of The Times (London) in one

night. Another Koenig and Bauer machine, an automatic perfecting press built as early as 1816, was capable of printing both sides of a sheet of paper in one operation, using a special system which automatically turned the paper over. Large

numbers of impressions could now be printed within a short space of time, making the automatic cylinder press ideal for producing newspapers, magazines or even encyclopaedias.” Gutenberg Museum Mainz <www.gutenberg-museum.de/>

Friedrich Koenig (1774-1833)

In 1810, Friedrich Koenig (1774-1833) a German Engineer working in London develops a steam-powered traditional flat-bed press followed, in 1812, by a cylinder press. (Jobling & Crowley 13).

In 1814, The Times introduces the steam-powered press, developed by Friedrich Koenig and in 1821, the steam-powered press is first used in France.

Mechanised Printing

John Parry, London Street Scene, watercolour, 760 x 1065mm, 1835. Alfred Dunhill Museum and Archive, London.

Street as text

Both images depict posters almost exclusively comprised of type and printed on cast iron letterpress or newer steam-powered cylinder presses, first invented and developed by Friedrich Koenig in 1814.

France: Anonymous. Distraction d’un Afficheur (Amusement of a bill sticker) c.1820. Paris, Musée Carnavalet

Ceravolo M & Uhrich R c.2010, Typographics, Vancouver Film School, Grab Length: 1min 56sec

Johann Alois Senefelder (1771–1834) Austrian actor and playwright who invented the printing technique of lithography in 1798.

The 19th century spectacle of graphic design in the public domainIn the early nineteenth century, lithography, a planographic printing process was developed in Germany by Alois

Senefelder (1771-1834), also known as litho, offset litho and eventually photolithography. (Livingston 1992, p.

123)

An "improved" lithographic press from the 1825 publication Engravers' Complete Guide, part of Mechanics' Library, or, Book of Trades / by C.F. Partington.

In his 1936 paper “The Work of Art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction”, Walter Benjamin observed that in the early nineteenth century: “lithography...permitted graphic art for the first time to put its products on the market, not only in large numbers as hitherto, but also in daily changing forms. Lithography enabled graphic art to illustrate everyday life, and it began to keep pace with printing.” (p.213)

George William Joy (1844-1925). Bayswater Omnibus 1895. 172 x 121cm. Oil on canvas. London, Museum of London, UK.

Impact of lithography, first invented in 1796 by Aloys

Senefeder (Bavarian 1771-1834), on advertisements

and posters after its perfection, in 1837, by Godefroy

Englemann (French), the posters depicted above the

passengers in the Omnibus were most probably

printed on a flatbed lithography press.

Image & Text

After 1875, package designs chromolithographed on tin for food and tobacco packages used bright flat colours, elaborate lettering, and iconic images to create an emblematic presence for the product. (Meggs 1998, p.151)

Engraving of Robert Stephenson (1803 - 1859), Engineer. After a photograph by Mayall. 21.5 x 17cm

THE STOCKTON AND DARLINGTON RAILWAY'S first engine, "Locomotion," built by Robert Stephenson & Co., in 1825. This engine weighed 8 tons and hauled a load of 50 tons at 5 miles an hour on level track.

RAILWAYS and MODERNITY

Map of Bristol & Bath, UK, Railways in 19th Century

British Main Rail Lines by 1845

John Everett Millias (1829-1896), Ophelia, 1851-1852, oil on canvas, 72.6 x 111.8 cm, The Tate Gallery, London.

William Holman Hunt (1827-1910), The Hireling Shepherd, 1851, oil on canvas, 76.4 x 109.5 cm, Manchester City Art Galleries.

Elisabeth Bronfen on John Everett Millais’ Ophelia (1851–1852):

“The growth of the railways had a significant impact on the Pre-Raphaelite artists. For the first time the countryside was within easy reach of the capital. Some of their earliest works were painted in Surrey, which had been made accessible by the extension of the London and Brighton railway in 1847. John Everett Millais and William Homan Hunt were able to make landscape studies in Ewell in Surrey, which formed the background of Ophelia and The Hireling Shepherd.” (http://www.tate.org.uk/)

Issue – the masking of modernity

Galerie de Bois. Palais Royal Galleries: La Sortie du Numero 113. 1815. engraving.

Les Galeries de Bois, Palais Royal exterior 1828. Before demolition. Paris.

“The first building which deserves the designation 'arcade'

stood in Paris at the Palais Royal. Its commercial success

and legendary fame as the promenade of an emancipated,

urban society of the post-revolutionary era made the arcade

a fashionable trend. The arcade endowed the pedestrian

once again with his full import and became the driving force

behind a reorganisation of public space. It became the

unmistakable index of urban life” (Geist J F 1979, “Preface”

Arcades: The History of a Building Type, trans. Newman J

and. Smith J.H, Prestel-Verlag, Munich p,viii)

"The 'arcade' as a glass covered passageway which

connects two busy streets and is lined on both sides

with shops" (Geist 1979, p.4)

MODERNITY AND PARTICIPATING IN THE SPECTACLE OF THE “NEW”

The Arcade and flânerie (the flâneur (male) & the flâneuse (female).

The flâneur could wander...so long as the crowd did not

take on a definite shape – as a social class, for instance –

and as long as the street could still be conceived as an

intérieur [Fr.] (as it was most obviously in the arcades).

(Frisby 1985, p250)

Strand Arcade, Sydney, 1891-92. Photograph c. 2009

Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II

Milano, Italy. Completed 1865. Architect:

Giuseppe Mengoni. Named after the

Italian King Vittorio Emanuele II who ruled

between 1861-1878. 21 Nov. 2009 – Youth Radio & Website Promotion Flash Mob Event “Britney Spears” in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II Milano, Italy. Grab Length: 4min 51sec

19th Century Architecture and Technology – Iron, Glass, Light, Space, Movement: Arcades, Great Exhibition Halls , Department Stores, Central Railway Buildings

Joseph-Nicephore

Niepce (1765-1833)

Joseph-Nicephore Niepce Rear courtyard of the Niepce Home. 1826.

The advent of photography and the mechanical (technical) means of reproduction

• Baudelaire, Charles. “The Salon of 1859: The Modern Public and Photography.” Modern Art and Modernism: A

Critical Anthology. Ed. Francis Frascina & Charles Harrison. London, Harper & Row, 1984. 19-21.

• Holmes, Oliver Wendell "The Stereoscope and the Stereograph" (1859) Art in Theory 1815-1900: An Anthology

of Changing Ideas. Eds. Charles Harrison, Paul Wood and Jason Gaiger. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1998.

668-672

• Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936) Illuminations. Ed. Hannah

Arendt. Trans. Harry Zohn. London: Fontana, 1992. 211-244

Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre

(1799-1851)

Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre Paris Boulevard.

1839: daguerreotype, metal plate photograph

Photograph of Samuel Morse (1791–1872) c.1844

Morse-Vail Telegraph Key, 1844-1845

Samuel Morse Telegraph Receiver, 1844

In Paris, in early March of 1839, Morse who had experimented with photosensitive materials

introduced himself to Daguerre, who then visited Morse to witness a demonstration of his

prototype telegraphic system. (Refer: Batchen “Eleciticity Made Visible” p.36)

“if...electricity can be made visible...I see no reason why intelligence

might not be instantaneously transmitted by electricity to any

distance” (Samuel Morse (1837) Qtd. Batchen p.27)

A .-B -...C -.-.D -..E .F ..-.G --.H ....I ..J .---K -.-L .-..M --

N -.O ---P .--.Q --.-R .-.S ...T -U ..-V ...-W .--X -..-Y -.--Z --..

0 -----1 .----2 ..---3 ...--4 ....-5 .....6 -....7 --...8 ---..9 ----.Fullstop .-.-.-Comma --..--Query ..--..

Morse Code AlphabetThe International morse code characters are:

Source: <http://ling.ucsc.edu/~hank/morseabc.html> Accessed 04/08/08

Photograph of Charles Babbage (1791 - 1871), c.1843

Charles Babbage (1792-1871) Analytical Engine, 1812-incomplete-1871. A mechanical calculating machine

Dider Petit et Cie, Portrait of J.M. Jacquard (1752-1834). c.1839 – In 1840, Babbage acquired a copy of this image.

Mathematics and programable

machines – the Jacquard

Loom

The French National Trade Exhibition of 1849 caught the attention of the Englishman Henry Cole and stimulated the idea of a 'Great Exhibition' of international proportions.

In London, the Great Exhibition of 1851 acted as a giant counter revolutionary measure – an event to foster fear as well as pride in the minds of the British people.

Technological context of the late 19th Century – social and scientific pointers to an understanding of the 19th Century, an equal energy and activity in the empirical and human sciences accompanied the rapid growth of industry and industrial inventions in the 19th century. A corresponding increase occurred in the secular belief that the progression of human knowledge for the betterment of human society would displace spiritual faith in religion and ungovernable fate.1808: Malus, The polarisation of Light.1827: Ohm's Law – 1831: Faraday, Law of Electrical Induction – 1833: Faraday, Electrolysis – 1834: Jacobi, Electric Motor1832: Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875), first described the principals of the stereoscope1835: Colt, Revolver1837: Morse, Telegraph 1839: Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre (1789-1851), Photography

1844: French Industrial Exposition, Paris.

1846: Morton, Ether anaesthesia – 1848: Haucock, Appendix operation

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) writes his Salon of 1846: 'To the Bourgeoisie' and 'On the heroism of Modern Life', Paris.

1848: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifest

1850: Bauer, Submarine – 1866: Whitehead, Torpedo

1851: The Great Exhibition, London.

1851: Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), improving Wheatsone’s idea, creates the standard popular form of the stereoscope, using photography. It is displayed and demonstrated at the Great Exhibition in London.

1852: Aristide Boucicaut establishes his dry goods retail store Bon Marché, Paris.

1855: Exposition Universelles, Paris.

France: Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) poster for a book by Louis Hart detailing the wonders of the Industrial Exposition of 1844. Musée des Arts Décoratifs. (rpt. Gallo p39)

1863 Salon des Refusés: Edouard Manet (1832-1883) exhibits three paintings, including: • Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Le Bain - The Bath) 1863. Oil on canvas, 208 x 264 cm. Musée d’Orsay, Paris

1869: Aristide Boucicaut lays foundation stone for world’s first department store, Bon Marché, Paris.

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) writes The Painter of Modern Life 1859-63, Paris.

Karl Marx Born Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany 1818; died London, U.K. 1883. German Social Scientist and Revolutionary. Born into a lapsed Jewish middle-class family, Marx studied law and philosophy at the University of Bonn and Berlin where he joined the radical followers of Frederich Hegel (1770-1831). Marx completed doctoral thesis but was barred from a profession as a university lecturer because of his political views, so in 1842 he turned to journalism and became editor of a local paper, the Rheinische Zeitung (Rhenish Gazette). Shortly later the paper was suppressed by the local authorities and in October 1843 Marx emigrated to Paris where he came into contact with 19th century French socialist ideas: Louis Blanc, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and others. Marx's influential and important writings date from this time, Paris 1844.

In Paris Marx began his lifelong friendship and collaboration with Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), during this period Marx wrote for a paper concerned with Franco-German social and political affairs, his writings bought diplomatic pressure from the Prussian Government and Marx was expelled from France in 1845, he moved to neighbouring Brussels, in Belgium.

In Brussels Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels began to develop their ideas on the circumstances of the industrial PROLETARIAT (Wage-Labourer, Working Class). (Fontana Dict. of Modern Thinkers. 491-493)

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world in different ways; the point is to change it.” (Marx Theses on Feuerbach 1845. 533)

KARL MARX – MODERNITY UNDER CRITIQUE

Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)

In Brussels, as events in Europe moved towards the civil unrest and revolutionary uprisings of 1848, Marx and Engels were commissioned to write a manifesto for a secret society called the 'Communist League', in 1848 on the eve of the European Revolutions, Marx and Engels published the commissioned 'Communist Manifesto'.

Marx then briefly returned to Germany before moving his wife (Jenny von Westphalen) and children to London on the advice of Engels. Marx lived in London for the rest of his life.

In 1840s the UNITED KINGDOM (BRITAIN/ENGLAND) was the most advanced of the European Industrial states...with the most advanced consequences of industrialisation. In the 1850s Marx began work on the

writing of Das Kapital a project by which he aimed 'to lay bare the laws of motion of capitalist society'. This project remained unfinished on his death, and of the three volumes completed only one was published in his lifetime.

Marx and Engels were leading figures in the First International (Working Men's Association) at its foundation in

London in 1864, until a split dissolved the association in 1872. Marx also supported and championed the cause of the Paris Commune uprising of 1871. The Commune supplied Marx with a model of that transitional society between capitalism and communism that he called 'the dictatorship of the proletariat'. Marx was little known during his lifetime but quickly became famous after his death, particularly after the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia that established the Soviet Government (USSR).(The Fontana Dictionary of Modern Thinkers:

Second Edition. Ed. Alan Bullock & R.B. Woodings. London: Fontana, 1992. 491-493)

Selected list of influential Marxist writings, title, date and place first published:• German Ideology 1846 Paris• The Poverty of Philosophy 1847 Paris

• The Communist Manifesto (with Engels) 1848 London• Wage-Labour and Capital 1848 London• The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte 1852 New York• A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy 1859 Berlin• Das Kapital (Capital) 1865 Hamburg

Karl Marx (1818-1883) photograph. born Trier, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, 5th May 1818; died London, U.K. 14th March 1883) Cover Photograph for The Portable Karl Marx. Ed. Eigene Kamenka.

A quick summary of Karl Marx's THEORY OF CLASS STRUGGLE:

“According to Marx history may be divided into several periods; ancient civilisation, feudalism and capitalism.

Each period is characterised by a class structure consisting of a ruling and an oppressed class.

The ruling class, which owes its position to the ownership and control of the means of production, controls also, though often in subtle ways, the whole moral and intellectual life of the people.

According to Marx, law and government, art and literature, science and philosophy: all serve more or less directly the interests of the ruling class.

In the period of its revolutionary ascendance each class is "progressive" in two senses of the word. Its economic interests are identical with technical progress and hence with increased human welfare. And its efforts to pursue

these interests align this class on the side of liberating ideas and institutions and against all who retard technical progress and human welfare. But in time an ascending class may become a ruling class ... it turns from a champion of progress into a champion of reaction.

A social class in Marx's terms is any aggregate of persons who perform the

same function in the organisation of production... i e. "Freeman and slave, ... lord and serf ... in a word, oppressor and oppressed" are the names of social classes in different historical periods.

These classes are distinguished from each other by the difference of their respective positions in the economy.

Fundamental to Marx's theory of class conflict is his belief that work is men and women's basic form of self-realisation.” (Bendix and Lipset 1967, pp.5-11)

• Marx & Engels on class struggle from The Communist Manifesto (1848):

“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.

In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations. (Marx and Engels1848 in Kamenka 1983, pp.203-204)

Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has simplified the class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other – bourgeoisie and proletariat” (Marx and Engels1848 in Kamenka 1983, p.204)

KEY MARXIST CONCEPTS: ECONOMIC CLASS/CLASS CONFLICT/BOURGEOIS/PROLETARIAT

• Marx and Engels on class struggle (1847):

“The condition for the emancipation of the working class is the abolition of all classes, just as the condition for the emancipation of the third estate, of the bourgeois order, was the abolition of all estates and orders.The working class, in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will no longer be any political power, properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of the antagonism in civil society.In the meantime, the antagonism between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie is a class struggle, whose most complete expression is a total revolution." (Poverty of Philosophy 1847. Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe. Vol.1/Sect. 6. 227-228. rpt. Bottomore and Rubel 1976, pp.243-244)

DEFINITIONS FROM The American Oxford e-Dictionary, Mac OS X Edition 2009.• BOURGEOIS

Bour•geois |bo)r! zh wä; !bo)r zh wä|adjectiveof or characteristic of the middle class, typically with reference to its perceived materialistic values or conventional attitudes: a rich, bored, bourgeois family | these views will shock the bourgeois critics.• (in Marxist contexts) upholding the interests of capitalism; not communist: bourgeois society took for granted the sanctity of property.noun ( pl. same)a bourgeois person: a self-confessed and proud bourgeois.

ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from French BOURG . Compare with BURGESS.

DEFINITIONS FROM The American Oxford e-Dictionary, Mac OS X Edition 2009.• PROLETARIAT

Pro•le•tar•i•at |"pr*li!te(')r+'t| (also archaic pro•le•tar•i•ate)

noun [treated as sing. or pl.]

workers or working-class people, regarded collectively (often used with reference

to Marxism): the growth of the industrial proletariat.

• the lowest class of citizens in ancient Rome.

ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from French prolétariat, from Latin proletarius (see

PROLETARIAN).

BASIC CONCEPTS IN MARXISM Karl Marx (1818-1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), Political economists and SociologistsTERMS: Marxism; Class conflict; Proletariat (Working Class); Bourgeoisie (Middle-Class/Ruling class)

MARXIST DIALECTIC: COMMUNISM

Anti-thesis Conflict Thesis

Synthesis

Anti-thesis Conflict Thesis

Synthesis

Anti-thesis Conflict ThesisProletariat/Working Class Bourgeoisie/middle-ClassLeft intelligentsia Capitalists/Industrialists Revolutionary Forces (Aristocracy, Church)

Reactionary forces/Fascism

• Marx & Engels on the bourgeoisie from The Communist Manifesto (1848):

KARL MARX and FRIEDRICH ENGELS address the historic unfolding, from the discovery of America to the powerhouse of the industrial

revolution, that “paved the way” for the emergence of the new dominant class, the bourgeoisie (middle-class), stating that:

“Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has

given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn,

reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same

proportion the bourgeoisie developed, increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down

from the Middle Ages.” (Marx and Engels in Harrison, Wood and Gaiger 1998 p177)

• America’s discovery “paved the way” for “modern industry” to “establish the world market” (p177)

• The world market gives an “immense development to commerce” (p177)

• The world market gives an immense development “to navigation” (p177)

• The world market gives an immense development “to communication by land [railways/telegraph]” (p177)

• The result of the expansion of world market, commerce, navigation and communication by land is that the bourgeoisie developed and

increased their capital and wealth by the same proportion over all pre-existing classes. (Marx and Engels in Harrison, Wood and Gaiger

1998 p177)

• Marx & Engels on the bourgeoisie from The Communist Manifesto (1848):

“The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones.” (Marx and Engels in Harrison, Wood and Gaiger 1998 p177)

• Modern bourgeois society “sprouted from the ruins of feudal society” (p177)

• Consequently, modern bourgeois society “has not done away with class antagonisms” (p177)

• Modern bourgeois society has on the contrary “established new classes” (p177)

• Modern bourgeois society has established “new conditions of oppression” (p177)

• Modern bourgeois society has established “new forms of struggle in place of the old ones” (p177)

• Marx & Engels on the bourgeoisie from The Communist Manifesto (1848): KARL MARX and FRIEDRICH ENGELS assert that with every advance in capital and wealth of the bourgeoisie (middle-class), from the period

of feudal nobility to that of the modern state, comes an incremental increase in their political power, leading to indisputable ascendancy:

“Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. …

[However] the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for

itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern State is but a committee for

managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.” (Marx and Engels in Harrison, Wood and Gaiger 1998, p177)

• The executive of the modern state “American, United Kingdom and European Parliaments) are a “committee for managing the common affairs

of the whole bourgeoisie”(p177)

• Marx & Engels on the bourgeoisie from The Communist Manifesto (1848): KARL MARX and FRIEDRICH ENGELS note that at points in history the bourgeoisie (middle-class) “played a most revolutionary

part” (p178), however the bourgeoisie having overthrown feudal regimes, such as occurred with the American and French Revolutions,

the ascendant bourgeoisie while it “has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors’, and has

left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous ‘cash-payment’.” (p178). In Marx and Engels

opinion the society of modern industry and its political instruments has “drowned” the old evils:

“of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It

has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has

set up that single, unconscionable freedom: Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political

illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.” (Marx and Engels in Harrison, Wood and Gaiger

1998, p178)

• The bourgeoisie state has done away with religious fervour, chivalrous enthusiasm and philistine sentimentalism (p178)

• The bourgeoisie state has installed a market place driven by “egotistical calculation” (p178)

• The bourgeoisie state has reduced the worth of human existence to that measured by its “exchange value” or in other words what you

can get for yourself, your labour, your skills in the market place. (p178)

• Of all the new freedoms introduced by the bourgeoisie state the one most prized is that of “Free Trade” (p178)

• Marx and Engels then sum-up the bourgeoisie state as one “veiled by religious and political illusions ” masking market drive “exploitation”

in place of the pre-existing yet highly visible and direct “brutal exploitation” of feudal society. (p178)

• Marx & Engels on the bourgeoisie from The Communist Manifesto (1848): KARL MARX and FRIEDRICH ENGELS, using historic analogies, argue that in their modern ascendancy the bourgeoisie is committed to

wondrous “accomplishments” that must be continually surpassed. In making this observation Marx and Engels address the ambient condition

of rapid change that distinguished the condition of modernity from that of earlier epochs, especially for those living in 1848 who remembered

the pace of pre-industrial life:

“The Bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionizing the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of

production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was,

on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionizing of production,

uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguished the bourgeois epoch

from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions are

swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is

profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his

kind.” (Marx and Engels in Harrison, Wood and Gaiger 1998, p.178)

KARL MARX and FRIEDRICH ENGELS having earlier noted that the rise of the bourgeoisie corresponds to that of the industrial global market

now turn their attention to the issue of imperialism and colonial power (supported by the export of “cheap prices” and European

values/“civilization”):

“The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of

communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The cheap prices of its commodities are the

heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensely obstinate hatred of

foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels

them to introduce what it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a

world after its own image.” (p.178)

• The bourgeoisie because of the power of the means of production and communication at their disposal reach into every corner of the world.

• No one can withstand the output of industry in the modern bourgeois states with their “cheap prices”. (p.178)

• Consequently, the values of the bourgeoisie, such as taste in commodities, styles of dress, types of dwellings, modes of transport and

occupations, are exported and thrive in every corner of the globe: in short the bourgeoisie “creates a world after its own image”. (p.178)

Column Stereoscope. 1870s.

French stereoscope slide claiming to be of an ‘artistic subject’, 1887. (Christie. 75)

SIMILI VERRE – similarities spectacles, implying a spectacle of incredible reality that in today’s terms would equate to the rhetoric surrounding claims made of the quality of experience to be found in virtual reality environments. In English, verisimilitude.

PLAYING WITH THE BINOCULAR PARALLAX – THE STEREOSCOPE

David Brewster. Lenticular Stereoscope. 1849. (Crary 121)

Hippolyte Jouvin. le Pont-Neuf. c.1860-65. Stereoscope photograph.

• 1832: Sir Charles Wheatstone (1802-1875), first described the principals of the stereoscope• 1839: Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre (1789-1851), Photography [PHOTOCHEMICAL MEDIA CAPTURES LIFE]• 1851: Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), improving Wheatsone’s idea, creates the standard popular form of the stereoscope, displayed and demonstrated at the Great Exhibition in London.

Gaspard-Felix Tournachen Nadar (1820-1910) Portrait of Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867). Photograph. c.1860

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867) ‘The Salon of 1859: The Modern Public and Photography’:

Poetry and progress are like two ambitious men who hate one another with an

instinctive hatred, and when they meet upon the same road, one of them has to give

place. If photography is allowed to supplement art in some of its functions, it will soon

have supplanted or corrupted it altogether, thanks to the stupidity of the multitude

which is its natural ally. It is time, then, for it to return to its true duty, which is to be

the servant of the sciences and arts – but the very humble servant, like printing or

shorthand, which have neither created nor supplemented literature. Let it hasten to

enrich the tourist’s album and restore to his eye the precision which his memory may

lack; let it adorn the naturalist’s library, and enlarge microscopic animals; let it even

provide information to corroborate the astronomer’s hypothesis; in short, let it be the

secretary and clerk of whoever needs an absolute factual exactitude in his profession

– up to that point nothing could be better. (Salon of 1859: The Modern Public and

Photography, p.20)

• Baudelaire C, ‘Salon of 1846: “To the Bourgeoisie” and “On the Heroism of Modern Life”’ rpt. in Harrison C, Wood P & Gaiger J

1998, Art in Theory 1815-1900: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Blackwell, Oxford, pp.300-304

• Baudelaire, C, ‘The Salon of 1859: The Modern Public and Photography’ rpt. in Frascina F & Harrison C (eds) 1984, Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology, Harper & Row, London, pp.19-21.

• Baudelaire C (1863), ‘The Painter of Modern Life’ rpt. in Frascina F & Harrison C (eds) 1984, Modern Art and Modernism: A

Critical Anthology, Harper & Row, London, pp.23-27.

Oliver Wendell

Holmes (1809-1894)

“I look into the eyes of the caged tiger, and on the scaly train of the

crocodile, stretched on the sands of the river that has mirrored a hundred

dynasties. I stroll through Rhenish vineyards, I sit under Roman arches, I

walk the streets of once buried cities, I look into the chasms of Alphine

glaciers, and on the rush of wasteful cataracts. I pass, in a moment, from

the banks of the Charles to the ford of the Jordan, and leave my outward

frame in the arm-chair at my table, while in spirit I am looking down upon

Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives.” (p.59)

Primary Text:

Oliver Wendell Holmes (1859) “The Stereoscope and the Stereograph” in The Atlantic Monthly 3 June 1859: pp.738-748, rpt. in Newhall B (ed) 1980, Photography: Essays & Images: Illustrated Readings in the History of Photography, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, pp.53-61 (ISBN: 0-87070-385-4).

Oliver Wendell Holmes on the fidelity of detail transmitted by the stereoscope (p.58):

“A painter shoes (sic) us masses; the stereoscope figure spares us nothing, – all must be there, every stick, straw, scratch, as faithfully as the dome of St. Peter's, or the summit of Mont Blanc, or the ever-moving stillness of Niagara. The sun is no respecter of persons or of things” (p58).

Advertising Hand-bill for Holmes Stereoscope c.1868.

Gottfried Semper (1803-1879) German Architect and visitor to the Great Exhibition, London, 1851.

The impact of the Great Exhibition of 1851 on the imagination and design for a Global Market.

“Barely four weeks have passed since the close of the exhibition...

And yet, the great impression which the exhibition made upon

thousands of wondering minds and striving spirits still continues

to ferment within them. The full import of this feeling cannot

properly be measured.” (Semper rpt. Art in Theory 1815-1900 331)

Reflecting upon lessons to be learnt from visiting the Great Exhibition,

Semper made the following points:

• Products must be calculated with an eye to the market adapted to the market

• Any commodity must permit the greatest possible range of universal application

permitted by its purpose and materials of manufacture

• The ultimate location or destination of a commodity or product remains unknown

• The personal qualities of the individual whose properties the commodity or product will

become remains unknown

• Therefore, the commodity or product is "not permitted to enjoy any characteristic

features or any local colour – on the contrary the commodity or product must "possess

the capacity to accommodate itself harmoniously into any and every environment."

Between 1797 and 1849 ten national exhibitions were held in Paris, with the emphasis on 'to sell and to instruct'. By 1849 these exhibitions are run for 6 months, which becomes the standard for all future international expositions.

Global progress consumed at a glance,1851. Or the adventures of Mr and Mrs Sandboys their son and daughter, who came up to London to enjoy themselves and see the Great Exhibition. Source: Henry Mayhew and George Cruikshank, 1851.

IMPERIAL SPECTACLE

“Trade had created Western power; the exhibitions were no more than an expression of that power” (Greenhalgh 22)

• A monument to consumption in

concentrated form

• A differentiated labour of unification –

supplied through a system of objects

• Capitalism consolidated both economically

and semiotically

• The Exhibition commenced the era of

spectacle

• 1851: Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), improving Wheatsone’s idea, creates the standard popular form of the stereoscope, displayed and demonstrated at the Great Exhibition in London.

“The Corliss Engine was useful as a source of power and important as a reflection

of national pride. It was a large steam engine that stood in the center of the hall,

dominating the space and siezing the attention of visitors, and supplying the

power that drove the hundreds of machines on display in Machinery Hall of the

Exhibition. Its importance was emphasized by its central position and imposing

size, but also by the decision of the Exhibition organizers to officially open the

celebration by having President Ulysses S. Grant and Emperor Dom Pedro of

Brazil start the engine.” (Library of Congress accessed 01 August 2010 @ http://

memory.loc.gov)

The Stride of a Century: c1876, lithograph.:A cartoon celebrating the centennial of the United States. The figure of Brother Jonathan, a precursor of Uncle Sam, straddles the towers of the main building at the Philadelphia World's Fair of 1876. Between his feet the North American continent, crossed by a railroad, appears on a half globe. Hot-air balloons labeled "1776" and "1876" rise toward the top of the print on either side. (Library of Congress, accessed 01 August 2010 @ http://loc.gov)

Lithograph showing the official start of

America's 1876 celebration when

Emperor Dom Pedro of Brazil and

President Ulysses S. Grant opened the

Centennial Exhibition by starting the

Corliss Engine. From a sketch by Theo.

R. Davis, reprinted as an Illustration in:

Harper's Weekly, 1876 May 27, p.421.

Alexander Graham Bell c.1876

Sketches, undated; handwritten text top and bottom of page, 1876. Box 273, "Subject File: The Telephone--Drawing of the Telephone, Bell's Original" Alexander Graham Bell Family Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

The first Bell telephone(Top) Alexander Graham Bell’s “liquid” transmitter and (bottom) his tuned-reed receiver, which carried the first intelligible transmission of speech, March 1876.

“Mr. Watson come here. I

want to see you”

Alexander Graham Bell, who patented the telephone in 1876, inaugurating the 1,520-km (944-mile) telephone link between New York City and Chicago on Oct. 18, 1892. (rpt. http://www.britannica.com)

Edison’s Telephone Transmitter 1877 for improvement of the Bell Telephone 1876. (rpt. http://edison.rutgers.edu/transmit.htms)

Poster for Bout-de-Zan et le crime au telephone (1914, France, Gaumont, Directed by Louis Feuillade). Lithograph (cinema poster), 40 x 30" (101.6 x 76.2 cm). Department of Film Collection (MOMA, NY)

William Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905), Portrait of Aristide Boucicaut (1810-1877), oil on canvas, 146 x 84 cm, Private Collection.

Émile Zola Au bonheur des dames [The Ladies’ Paradise] 1883.

Interior, “La Galerie de la Rue de Babylone”, of Bon Marché in 1880. (Rpt. Wilson, E 1985, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. Virago, London, p148)

The Bon Marché retail initiative consisted of:• Cash sales only,• Rapid turnover, high velocity, high volume sales,• Result is ready capital to reinvest in new stock.• Stock purchased through direct negotiations with manufacture, the buyer is now internalised as an employee of the Magasin – this brings down costs by cutting out the middleman "agent", lower costs can be passed on to customer, stimulating rapid turnover, etc....• Building of Bon Marché, between 1869 – 1887: on an entire city square bordered by the rues Babylone, Sevres, Bac, and Velpeau. The architect was L-A Boileau (1812-1896) and the engineer: Gustave Eiffel (1832-1923)

Aristide Boucicaut (1810-1877) and Marguerite Boucicaut [nee Guerin] (1816-1887)

Boucicaut and Bon Marché–The Department Store –

Bon Marché, the monster exposition hall dwarfing the city skyline. 1896. Agenda

FLÂNERIE, DEPARTMENT STORES AND WINDOW SHOPPING (FLÂNERIE – FLÂNEUR AND FLÂNEUSE)

“The flâneur is still on the threshold, of the city as of the bourgeois class. Neither has yet engulfed him; in

neither is he at home. He seeks refuge in the crowd. Early contributions to a physiognomics of the crowd are to

be found in Engels and Poe. The crowd is the veil through which the familiar city lures the flâneur like a

phantasmagoria. In it the city is now a landscape, now a room. Both, then, constitute the department store that

puts even flânerie to use for commodity circulation. The department store is the flâneur’s last practical

joke.” (Benjamin W [1934] rpt. Leach 1997, p.37)

Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) Paris street: A rainy day. 1877. Oil on canvas. 212 x 276cm. The Art Institute of Chicago. (The Third Exhibition. 1877)

Illustration from Louis Hart Physiologie du flâneur (1841). reproduced by permission of the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Butler Library, Columbia University, New York (rpt. in Tester 1994, pp.24-25)

“London Shopgirls in the lunchbreak, 1890, by the French illustrator ‘Mars’: fashion in the street – working girls become smart.” Rpt. Wilson, E 1985, Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity, Virago, London, p.151

Parisian department store in 1877, experimenting with electric lighting

for evening trading attracts crowds to its Rue Marengo entrance. The

plate glass windows and doorway hardly differentiate the threshold of

street from interior. Anomynous. l'entrée rue Marengo éclairée par la

lumière électrique. Lithograph. Rpt. Fig 80. in Marrey B 1979, Les

Grands Magasins: des origines a 1939, Librairie Picard, Paris, p.91

ANONYME. La construction de la Tour Eiffel vue de l’une des tours du Palais du Trocadéro.1888-1889. Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Georges Garen (1854-1912). Embrasement de la Tour Eiffel pendant l’Exposition universelle de 1889. 1889. Coloured engraving, 65 cm x 45 cm, , Musée d’Orsay, Paris

1883 – Eleventh Cincinnati Industrial Exposition: The National Exhibition of Industry and Art, Poster. Krebs Lithographing Company, USA.

Kodak Camera, 1888. Unlike earlier cameras that used a

glass-plate negative for each exposure, this original

Kodak camera, introduced by George Eastman, came

preloaded with a 100-exposure roll of flexible film. After

finishing the roll, the consumer mailed the camera back

to the factory to have the prints made. Photograph

courtesy of the National Museum of American History

Thomas Edison (1847-1931) american inventor of telegraph, phonograph, microtelephone and incandescence lamp, here in 1889 with is new gramophone

Thomas Alva Edison demonstrating his tinfoil phonograph, photograph by Mathew Brady, 1878

Thomas Edison (1847-1931) tinfoil gramophone 1877

Edison Advertisement, The Milwaukee Journal, Dec. 2, 1915, p.9

The Recording of Sound

Leonetto Cappiello, Gramophone J'Accuse colour lithograph, c.1910, printed by Vercasson, Paris, 240 x 160cm.

Lucien Faure (French graphic designer, 1872-1943), The Empire Typewriter, 1897, Colour Lithograph (poster), ndi. Victoria & Albert Museum, London.

The Oliver (Typewriter Booklet), ca.1898, Oliver Typewriter Co. St. Louis, MO, USA (Located at: Duke University Libraries, Digital Collections, Emergence of Advertising in America, Database of over 9,000 items dating from 1850 to 1920.)

The Oliver (Typewriter Booklet), ca.1898, Oliver Typewriter Co. St. Louis, MO, USA ( Duke University Libraries, Digital Collections)

END of LECTURE