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Technology can be strange and wonderful. It is a creative, expressive, and speculative pursuit that can tell us about who we are and where we’re going. In this episode, I introduce the topic of the podcast series and reflect on the similarity of engineering and art. Like artists, people who make technical things act as antennas: they pick up the invisible currents of life and translate them into tangible things.
Just for fun, here are some more images of antennas:
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- Diagram of a basic radio circuit. The antenna is attached to a simple resonant circuit. By Chetvorno (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
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- An amateur radio set up. The antenna is the diamond shaped device. Via Wikimedia Commons
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- The original form of Heinrich Hertz’s demonstration of radio waves. Via Wikimedia Commons
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- A postcard of an early radio tower, 1910. Via Wikimedia Commons
Sources and Notes:
The Ezra Pound quote “Artists are the antennae of the race” is from: Ezra Pound, ABC of Reading (Norfolk, Conn.: New Directions, 1951). It is probably better known from the introduction of Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, (New York : McGraw-Hill, 1964).
For some core text on the philosophy of technology look for: Robert C Scharff and Val Dusek, Philosophy of Technology: The Technological Condition, An Anthology (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2003), or, if you can find it: Anthonie Meijers, Philosophy of Technology and Engineering Sciences: Handbook of the Philosophy of Science v. 9., (Netherlands: North Holland, 2009).
Music for this episode is: Pocahaunted “Track 6” from Live at the OCCII – June 22, 2009
The featured image is from: Rankin Kennedy, Electrical Installations, vol. V, (London: Caxton, 1903), via the Wikipedia Commons.
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