Farewell to the Gutenberg-Galaxy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5128874 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Norbert Bolz, Michelle Mattson |
| Year | 1999 |
| Issue | 78 |
| Pages | 109 |
| Publication date | 1999-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | New German Critique (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0094-033X • E-ISSN: 1558-1462 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/488455 |
| OpenAlex | W2328300329 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
The acceleration of technical development around 1800 released processes that the categories of the Gutenberg-Galaxy could no longer adequately describe. From then on, speed is produced and creates a kinetic high. Fashion replaces style, advertising replaces art, and filmic reality takes the place of aesthetic beauty [sch6ner Schein].1 Today, it has become a commonplace that designers and directors are the actual agents of social creativity, rather than artists. In order to do justice to this intensifying development, aesthetics must undergo a reorientation: from a theory of art toward a theory of the media-technological aisthesis. Walter Benjamin's Passagenwerk gives us the first indications of such a theory. It is an interface between the Gutenberg-Galaxy and the world of the new media Benjamin's old-fashioned name for it is the study of thresholds [Schwellenkunde]. Two cultures or technologies can, like astronomical galaxies, pass through one another without collision; but not without configurational change. Similarly, in modem physics there is the concept of 'interface' or the meeting and metamorphosis of two structures. Such 'interficiality' is the very key [ ... ] to our twentieth century.2 At the beginning of the nineteenth century the machine is the form in which production accelerates so much that it actually forces a tremendous intensification of life's tempo.3 While the bodily organs of human
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,29 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2023 (15) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |