Back to basics

End of radio silence.

After a hiatus of nearly two years, I thought it was high time some more posts were written.  I wish I could have contributed something much earlier but I had nothing worthy enough to see the light of day. 

My initial interest was in the social aspect of telephone use, especially in its early years, and how people modified their social practices and indeed developed new customs when dealing with this new technology.  These practices of the early 1900s are thrown into sharp relief when contrasted with our telephone behaviour today, specifically when using mobile phones.  The fact that iPhones can actually be used to place phone calls seems to be incidental and they perform so many other tasks that "phone" is something of a misnomer.  (The "tele-" prefix also seems to have been ditched somewhere along the way.)

Nowadays you'll probably only find a "traditional" telephone (i.e. with cables attached and a dial) in your grandmother's house, or in a museum.  Most teenagers would be clueless if they had to use one of these relics, simple though they are.  So I was surprised to see these things for sale at my local discount supermarket the other week ...

... a telephone handset (other colours available) that you plug into your mobile phone, to use when making/receiving phone calls.  Innovative, no?  I can't see it catching on, not when everyone uses headphones, which are easier to carry around.  Just what were the chaps in the marketing department thinking of when they came up with this idea?  Isn't the whole idea behind mobile telephony its, well, its mobility?  Those early primitive mobiles reminiscent of house bricks (with the aerials sticking out) have migrated to the modern history museum (already!) and here we are reproducing obsolete technology to join forces with state-of-the-art, €500 smart phones.

Could this be a retro trend in technology, a nostalgic move?  If so, then we might see the comeback of the telegram (sent by wire, not e-mail) and the return of the manual typewriter (the Kremlin sees the security benefits).

If you want a last-minute Christmas gift for the boss, or the mother-in-law, order your handset here - only €6.99!

Ancient antiquities of good vintage

I have been following E-Bay auctions of late, particularly for manual typewriters (the last manufacturer recently closed for good) and telephones (with dials and cables attached, not the mobile variety).  There are some real bargains to be had, if you're a bit knowledgeable about each item's history and rarity. 

Some sellers try to appear naive: "I cleared out my grandmother's attic and found this old typewriter lying around.  No idea what it's worth but starting price is 100 Euros." Others attach adjectives like "antique" or "vintage" to telephones that are only 20-30 years old in the hope of attracting the high rollers.

It is precisely this arbitrary use of descriptions of age that bothers me.  I can understand a seller wanting to present his wares in the best possible light but when the (nearly new) article is accompanied by a photograph, then a description like "uralt" immediately comes across as incongruous and disingenuous.

Perhaps the time is ripe for a re-evaluation of what exactly we mean by terms like "antique" or "historic".  Or maybe it's a matter of perspective: There are common, household articles that used to be part of my daily life and are merely 'old' or 'outmoded.'  For a sixteen-year old, however, such articles could well be genuine antiques.

Heard, but not seen – invisible technologies in the home

Our homes are filled with no end of technologies, simple and complicated.  Most people, however, would rather not see these devices, or at least have them disguised in some way in order to blend in with the furnishings.  Here are just some examples.

Light switches and electrical sockets come in functional white plastic but also a multitude of other colours and materials to suit; Georgian brass, for instance.

In the days when domestic telephones came attached to a cable, you could buy one in any colour of the rainbow.  You could always find the right one to match the wallpaper.  Today’s cordless versions are usually lost somewhere under a pile, so the colour is largely irrelevant.

Televisions that came in wooden cabinets, so that when the doors were closed, it looked like a drinks cabinet.  Today’s fancy screens that are mounted on living room walls resemble modern art.

Radios too were housed in cabinets.

Let’s not forget the current fashion for retro style products – candlestick telephones, wartime wireless sets, fridges that look like they came straight out of a 40s American diner – the latest technology but dressed up like an antique.

There are still many housewives from the old school who cover their ‘black boxes’ with pretty lace cloths and other fripperies so that they blend in more.  A small digression here: one of the reasons why my friend Margaret got divorced was because her ex didn’t like her putting table cloths on top of his new two-metre-high stereo loudspeakers.  He said it ruined the sound effect.  She said they were an eyesore.  Anyway …  Household technologies are not meant to be seen for what they really are.

You may also recall a post that gave homemakers instructions on how to make decorative telephone screens, with matching covers for the telephone directory.  Useful though these items were, they were too ugly to be on public display.

In the same era in Weimar Germany, Walter Gropius advocated a concealment of domestic technologies.  Yes, water, electricity, heating, telephones and suchlike are vital but we should not be confronted with evidence of their presence.  In a Bauhaus home these functions should be invisible.  “One wants to be served, but the presence of the servant should not be allowed to make us feel uncomfortable.”

Walter Gropius, Paul Schultze-Naumberg.  “Wer hat Recht? Traditionelle Baukunst oder Bauen in neuen Formen.”  Uhu, no.7 (April 1926)

Telephone screens

One further aspect that I wish to address in this thesis is that of the telephone (as artefact) in its domestic setting.  In which rooms of the house was it kept, where was it stored (on a writing desk, sideboard, its own table, etc.), how did it fit in with the rest of the decor - such questions as these can reveal much about social attitudes.  As a 'piece of furniture' or as a piece of technology,

Winner - artefacts

"Do artifacts have politics?"

• On Mumford, Engels, Plato, Marx
• Moses' low Californian bridges
• automatic machinery more despotic than any capitalist: machinery waits for no man

[filed: comm. theory]