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Inside the Machine: Art and Invention in the Electronic Age
A visual history of the electronic age captures the collision of technology and art―and our collective visions of the future. A hidden history of the twentieth century’s brilliant innovations―as seen through art and images of electronics that fed the dreams of millions. A rich historical account of electronic technology in the twentieth century, Inside the Machine journeys from the very origins of electronics, vacuum tubes, through the invention of cathode-ray tubes and transistors to the bold frontier of digital computing in the 1960s. But, as cultural historian Megan Prelinger explores here, the history of electronics in the twentieth century is not only a history of scientific discoveries carried out in laboratories across America. It is also a story shaped by a generation of artists, designers, and creative thinkers who gave imaginative form to the most elusive matter of all: electrons and their revolutionary powers. As inventors learned to channel the flow of electrons, starting revolutions in automation, bionics, and cybernetics, generations of commercial artists moved through the traditions of Futurism, Bauhaus, modernism, and conceptual art, finding ways to link art and technology as never before. A visual tour of this dynamic era, Inside the Machine traces advances and practical revolutions in automation, bionics, computer language, and even cybernetics. Nestled alongside are surprising glimpses into the inner workings of corporations that shaped the modern world: AT&T, General Electric, Lockheed Martin. While electronics may have indelibly changed our age, Inside the Machine reveals a little-known explosion of creativity in the history of electronics and the minds behind it. 154 color illustrations
272 pages, Hardcover
First published August 17, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
February 10, 2024
Marking as finished but I couldn't be bothered to read this dense text. The exploration of that specific flavor of art was mildly interesting but just not my cup of tea.
I actually think this would be a nice gift for someone who likes computer history in all its glory, but in this day and age, I can't be arsed about vacuum tubes and diodes and whatnot. :P
I actually think this would be a nice gift for someone who likes computer history in all its glory, but in this day and age, I can't be arsed about vacuum tubes and diodes and whatnot. :P
November 15, 2015
In Inside the Machine, published in August, cultural historian Megan Prelinger surveys the visual presentation of advances in electronics. To study how increasingly abstract developments were given tangible form in order to convey them to businesses, workers in the field, and the general public is an ingenious and provocative idea. But reading the book provides a decidedly mixed experience.
Anyone who grew up learning about the scientific and technical developments she chronicles in her text is likely to trip repeatedly over her descriptions, and a reader who doesn’t already know may come away misinformed or confused. A few examples: Prelinger speaks of vacuum tubes “sorting” electrons; a better term would be controlling or modulating. She refers more than once to three basic forces that govern all matter; she labels one of them “magnetism” and calls another “the nuclear force.” This may be her attempt at a convenient simplification, but physics recognizes four fundamental forces—the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravity. She speaks once or twice of radar astronomy when she means radio astronomy. She seems unclear on a few aspects of computers and programming. She gives the impression that the jet engine and the jet-propelled airplane were invented in the U.S.A.—“Bell Aircraft had built the first jet in 1942 (with engines by General Electric)”—which as far as I can tell is thoroughly incorrect. She reports “the loss of all of the Ranger spacecraft to computer and navigational failures,” but the final three missions in that series succeeded. She refers to the prospect of “quark computing” instead of quantum computing. (For the record, I read the published version of the book, not an advance galley.)
And yet the book’s bountiful illustrations are wondrous, almost flashback-inducing for anyone whose experience goes back very far. They’re drawn from such sources as promotional brochures, the catalogues of component makers, and ads as well as editorial art from trade and general-interest publications such as Electronics magazine, Scientific American, and the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers. Their dates of origin range from the 1910s to the mid-70s, though they’re drawn mainly from the 40s through the 60s. Prelinger’s overall subject categories cover vacuum tubes including cathode-ray tubes, crystals, transistors, circuit boards, computers, avionics and space electronics, and bionics. In the artwork, one finds hands and heads, sinuous lyrical swoops, landscapes of circuit symbols, jazzy rhythmic patterns, colors both muted and bold, dots and bars and grids… To my eye, virtually none of it is kitschy (contrary to one published review), and much of it is still vivid and fresh enough that it’d look good on a wall today. (See for yourself. Five of the book’s illustrations are reproduced in a W. W. Norton Tumblr post, and a handful of others are offered in a Fast Company Design post.)
In her commentary, Prelinger now and then serves up bits of jargon, but she’s almost uniformly clear and insightful. She elucidates stylistic influences from such sources as constructivism, surrealism, collage, and the Bauhaus. Sometimes Prelinger is able to identify the particular graphic artists who created these works, figures such as Willi Baum, Herbert Bayer, Jacqueline Casey, and Raul Mina Mora; a few were allowed to sign their work, and company archives preserve the names of others. Though she’s good at tracing themes and motifs, she’s at her best, I think, in her readings of particular illustrations. In discussing a 1961 ad for the Burroughs B 5000 computer, for instance, she combines an account of the company’s position in the mainframe industry and some technical details of the B 5000’s development with an elucidation of the ad’s graphical components, in which she finds a “lacy curtain” of numbers and dot patterns in front of a “parted black drape,” behind which is the computer itself. She says, “The image both encloses and reveals the machine,” and “The result is a form of industrial theater.” Descriptions like this help one more fully to see and understand what one is looking at in the artwork.
The visual system makes up a substantial part of the human brain, and as ancient cave paintings suggest, our grasp of the world has always relied on our ability to represent it graphically. Yet the 20th century may be the first we could call the age of the image, as it was also the beginning of the electronic age. Despite its missteps, Prelinger’s act of visual archaeology in this book does a service to both.
Anyone who grew up learning about the scientific and technical developments she chronicles in her text is likely to trip repeatedly over her descriptions, and a reader who doesn’t already know may come away misinformed or confused. A few examples: Prelinger speaks of vacuum tubes “sorting” electrons; a better term would be controlling or modulating. She refers more than once to three basic forces that govern all matter; she labels one of them “magnetism” and calls another “the nuclear force.” This may be her attempt at a convenient simplification, but physics recognizes four fundamental forces—the weak nuclear force, the strong nuclear force, electromagnetism, and gravity. She speaks once or twice of radar astronomy when she means radio astronomy. She seems unclear on a few aspects of computers and programming. She gives the impression that the jet engine and the jet-propelled airplane were invented in the U.S.A.—“Bell Aircraft had built the first jet in 1942 (with engines by General Electric)”—which as far as I can tell is thoroughly incorrect. She reports “the loss of all of the Ranger spacecraft to computer and navigational failures,” but the final three missions in that series succeeded. She refers to the prospect of “quark computing” instead of quantum computing. (For the record, I read the published version of the book, not an advance galley.)
And yet the book’s bountiful illustrations are wondrous, almost flashback-inducing for anyone whose experience goes back very far. They’re drawn from such sources as promotional brochures, the catalogues of component makers, and ads as well as editorial art from trade and general-interest publications such as Electronics magazine, Scientific American, and the Proceedings of the Institute of Radio Engineers. Their dates of origin range from the 1910s to the mid-70s, though they’re drawn mainly from the 40s through the 60s. Prelinger’s overall subject categories cover vacuum tubes including cathode-ray tubes, crystals, transistors, circuit boards, computers, avionics and space electronics, and bionics. In the artwork, one finds hands and heads, sinuous lyrical swoops, landscapes of circuit symbols, jazzy rhythmic patterns, colors both muted and bold, dots and bars and grids… To my eye, virtually none of it is kitschy (contrary to one published review), and much of it is still vivid and fresh enough that it’d look good on a wall today. (See for yourself. Five of the book’s illustrations are reproduced in a W. W. Norton Tumblr post, and a handful of others are offered in a Fast Company Design post.)
In her commentary, Prelinger now and then serves up bits of jargon, but she’s almost uniformly clear and insightful. She elucidates stylistic influences from such sources as constructivism, surrealism, collage, and the Bauhaus. Sometimes Prelinger is able to identify the particular graphic artists who created these works, figures such as Willi Baum, Herbert Bayer, Jacqueline Casey, and Raul Mina Mora; a few were allowed to sign their work, and company archives preserve the names of others. Though she’s good at tracing themes and motifs, she’s at her best, I think, in her readings of particular illustrations. In discussing a 1961 ad for the Burroughs B 5000 computer, for instance, she combines an account of the company’s position in the mainframe industry and some technical details of the B 5000’s development with an elucidation of the ad’s graphical components, in which she finds a “lacy curtain” of numbers and dot patterns in front of a “parted black drape,” behind which is the computer itself. She says, “The image both encloses and reveals the machine,” and “The result is a form of industrial theater.” Descriptions like this help one more fully to see and understand what one is looking at in the artwork.
The visual system makes up a substantial part of the human brain, and as ancient cave paintings suggest, our grasp of the world has always relied on our ability to represent it graphically. Yet the 20th century may be the first we could call the age of the image, as it was also the beginning of the electronic age. Despite its missteps, Prelinger’s act of visual archaeology in this book does a service to both.
October 31, 2019
(Review first published in Shelf Awareness)
With Inside the Machine, cultural historian and archivist Megan Prelinger (Another Science Fiction) tells the story of advancements in electronics, from radio broadcasting and vacuum tubes to space travel and bionics. She focuses on what the art used to advertise these wondrous and emerging technologies reveals about the culture of the era, and offers a fascinating visual history of the early 20th century's transformative electronic inventions.
Early creators of electronics faced a problem: how to explain new technologies to people who had no previous reference point for them. Prelinger notes that, unlike today's incremental advancements, what emerged during the early to mid-century resembled nothing that came before it. These innovations dramatically changed how people understood and related to the world. The light bulb not only enabled people to see in the dark more clearly than ever before, but also redefined the very idea of daytime. Therefore, visual representations of inventions had to show not only the object itself but what society could expect from the new technology.
Creators and artists alike celebrated and concentrated not just on the object and the end result but how it worked--on individual components. They wanted the public to see vacuum tubes and transistors that made the latest television, telephone and computer work. And when showing the final product was not enough, the artists began to create what Prelinger calls "science fiction" art, with futuristic visions of space travel and bionics.
In today's world, where people get excited about the latest smartphone but don't care how it works, Prelinger's book is both insightful and entertaining.
With Inside the Machine, cultural historian and archivist Megan Prelinger (Another Science Fiction) tells the story of advancements in electronics, from radio broadcasting and vacuum tubes to space travel and bionics. She focuses on what the art used to advertise these wondrous and emerging technologies reveals about the culture of the era, and offers a fascinating visual history of the early 20th century's transformative electronic inventions.
Early creators of electronics faced a problem: how to explain new technologies to people who had no previous reference point for them. Prelinger notes that, unlike today's incremental advancements, what emerged during the early to mid-century resembled nothing that came before it. These innovations dramatically changed how people understood and related to the world. The light bulb not only enabled people to see in the dark more clearly than ever before, but also redefined the very idea of daytime. Therefore, visual representations of inventions had to show not only the object itself but what society could expect from the new technology.
Creators and artists alike celebrated and concentrated not just on the object and the end result but how it worked--on individual components. They wanted the public to see vacuum tubes and transistors that made the latest television, telephone and computer work. And when showing the final product was not enough, the artists began to create what Prelinger calls "science fiction" art, with futuristic visions of space travel and bionics.
In today's world, where people get excited about the latest smartphone but don't care how it works, Prelinger's book is both insightful and entertaining.
July 18, 2023
Excellent and well-researched information (5 stars), with a good storytelling through-line, but the grammar is inaccessible (0 stars). I averaged it to 2 stars because the reading was so difficult for me that it took away from the joy of learning the information.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews