That's kinda what I meant in response to Ton's Mad Men post - though Kittler's take seems a little overstated, extreme. Lacuna - had to look that one up!
Sound recording and cinema are the other main elements of the turning point, in his account. The three inventions separate our perceptive and linguistic processing into distinct "channels" and undermine the myth of the sovereign, unifying, self-aware subject in charge of all these processes.
Yes, it's definitely overstated. He borrows some of the most annoying mannerisms of McLuhan and Foucault, who are both given to sweeping pronouncements. Still, he gets me thinking.
On cinema as discursive machine-gun, I think Kittler is also indebted to Argentinean filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, who, in a 1960s artistic-political manifesto declared, "The camera is the expropriator of image-weapons; the projector, a gun that can shoot 24 frames per second."
Getting more interesting, I think I'll go ahead and buy this book.
That's kinda what I meant in response to Ton's Mad Men post - though Kittler's take seems a little overstated, extreme. Lacuna - had to look that one up!
ReplyDeletePS: Thanks for the continued update - interesting stuff. Surely his 'turning point' isn't completely concerned with the invention of the typewriter?
ReplyDeleteSound recording and cinema are the other main elements of the turning point, in his account. The three inventions separate our perceptive and linguistic processing into distinct "channels" and undermine the myth of the sovereign, unifying, self-aware subject in charge of all these processes.
DeleteYes, it's definitely overstated. He borrows some of the most annoying mannerisms of McLuhan and Foucault, who are both given to sweeping pronouncements. Still, he gets me thinking.
On cinema as discursive machine-gun, I think Kittler is also indebted to Argentinean filmmakers Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino, who, in a 1960s artistic-political manifesto declared, "The camera is the expropriator of image-weapons; the projector, a gun that can shoot 24 frames per second."
ReplyDeleteGetting more interesting, I think I'll go ahead and buy this book.