Media Archeology: XIX Century
Reflection on three devices
Reflection on three devices
By analyzing three specific devices invented during the 1800s, I am not attempting to infer grand generalizations, or claim direct and undisputed lineages from any of those devices to our current technologies. This si mostly a fun exercise that may help the reader realize the indirect and serendipitous connections that shape the course of technological evolution. In turn, the analyzed devices –the Jacquard loom, the musical pocket watch, and the stereoscope– should also be understood as both, highly innovative, and logical evolutions of previous practices, theories and technologies. The featured devices are compared to more recent technologies on the basis of diverse criteria. This article is also intended as indirect commentary on the myth of originality, and its revered status in techno-utopianism.
The Jacquard loom: programming, storing and quantifying images
While the Jacquard loom’s (1804) status as a predecessor of the digital computer is still debated amongst media scholars [1], its importance and influence in the evolution of automated image-making is widely acknowledged. Due to its physicality and mechanical nature, it may be more intuitive to compare the loom with another physical device, but in many ways the Jacquard loom is more akin to image-making software. Its use of punch cards as input device is a key factor that has drawn comparisons to punch-card operated computers, but Jacquard’s cards were only used to codify, store and automate the production of tapestries.
It is important to mention that in current terms, the 5,500 year old practice of weaving can be understood as a binary code, with threads having either an “up” or “down” state. Besides that, the creation of algebraic patterns dates back to ancient cultures, and was masterly developed during the Islamic Golden Age [2]. In order to be more efficiently reproduced by human weavers, some patterns had already been encoded using diverse forms of binary notation systems, but this systems were not standardized and could mostly be understood by those within the weaving discipline [3]. In that respect, the real innovation of Jacquard’s device was to make visible both, the binary nature of weaving, and the programmable loop of algebraic patterns [4]. Beyond tapestries, this device pioneered the automation and standardization of programming, storing and quantification of images as understood today. Jacquard’s device made it necessary to translate every single image and pattern into a collection of punch cards. By counting the punched and unpunched spaces in a particular collection of cards, its corresponding image could now be clearly visualized and understood as pure information. Fundamentally, these cards described what today we would call a bitmap.
Jacquard did implement information input systems that would go on to inspire the pioneers of automated computing, particularly Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace [5]. How should this be interpreted in regards to contemporary computation is a question of personal and disciplinary perspectives. I would say that its influence is clear within the context of information theory, and the understanding of images as collections of discrete measurable units. If comparisons needed to be drawn, I would compare Jacquard’s device more to pioneering image-making software like Photoshop than to any general purpose computer.
The musical pocket watch: a portable status symbol
German clockmaker Peter Henlein is commonly credited as the inventor of the first portable timepieces (c. 1500), while the first music boxes were developed by Swiss watchmakers around 1770. In 1796 the Genevan watchmaker Antoine Favre-Salomon incorporated music into his pocket watches by developing the first comb and cylinder music box mechanism [5]. From that point on, music watches came to represent the intricate precision of the watchmaking discipline. Often made of precious metals, and featuring ornate details, these were expensive and luxurious devices. By the mid-1800s, kinetic ornamental plates were incorporated into these timepieces. Swiss watchmaker Charles Reuge created pocket watches featuring a kinetic scene of courtship in the front, and one of an explicit sexual act hidden behind a cover it the back.
Considering that accessibility has become a great interest in interface design, we could argue that the tone-based repeaters integrated into this musical pocket watches reflects similar concerns. The repeater provided aural feedback to the user as an alternative to the visual display.
Depending on the buyer’s budget, music pocket watches could be customized. A selected melody could be programmed by creating unique cylinders and discs, while personalized messages could be engraved on the watch itself. Besides providing accurate time, these devices represented socioeconomic status. They also pioneered a form of portable mechanical multimedia.
Precise timekeeping communicated industriousness, which became a highly admired value in Victorian era Europe. Industriousness, it was stated, was rewarded with wealth. A refined artistic taste, another value held in high regards by the European elites, was rewarded with social prestige. The most exclusive music pocket watches became a portable symbol of both, industriousness and sophistication. It that respect, I would compare this device to the Apple Watch.
The stereoscope: the science and commerce of binocular vision
Optics is a phenomenon that has boggled artists, philosophers and scientists for thousands of years. Even today, neuroscientists debate the exact mechanisms by which light waves become visual information in our brains [6]. Two related issues that remained unresolved until 1832 are binocular singleness and depth perception (stereopsis). Binocular singleness refers to the fact that, even though we capture a different perspective with each eye, these two perspectives are combined into a single visual experience. By alternating vision from one eye to the other, artists such as Leonardo DaVinci realized that each eye experienced a slightly different visual perspective, and that depth perception resulted from the combination of both eyes, but did not understand exactly how or why this happened [7]. Since Ibn al-Haytham developed the principles of modern optics in 1021 Iraq, no answer to these two questions had been satisfactory.
In 1832 English scientist and inventor Charles Wheatstone embarked on a thorough exploration of binocular vision, and described a stereoscope for the first time. In 1838 he presented his findings on stereopsis to the Royal College of London, and by 1840 was producing reflecting and refractive stereoscopes. In 1849 the Scottish inventor David Brewster presented the prototype of a refracting lenticular stereoscope, but the device failed to gather interest. It wasn’t until the French instrument maker Jules Duboscq paired Brewster’s design with a set of photographic stereo cards that the stereoscope became commercially viable.
By the mid-1850s the new 3D industry was booming in Britain. Publishers competed to produce better devices and more appealing stereo cards. Stereographers were sent to far-off lands to capture exotic places that the general public would never be able to experience otherwise. With the slogan “no home without a stereoscope,” The London Stereoscopic Company sold a million stereo cards in 1862 [7]. By the end of the 1860s enthusiasm for stereo photography had mostly faded in Britain.
The advent of Kodachrome film resulted in the 1939 patent of the View-Master, a lenticular stereoscope that could display 7 different color stereographs mounted sequentially on a cardboard disk. The View-Master gained popularity, and during World War II was used by the United States military to produce training materials. In 1951 the manufacturers gained the rights to reproduce the Walt Disney Studios characters. This move instantly turned the View- Master into a favourite toy which was eventually acquired by Mattel. While Fisher-Price still manufactures the toy, adult interest in stereoscopy had mostly faded by the end of the 1960s.
The mid-1980s brought new interest on stereoscopy due to the emergence of virtual reality, but the application failed to produce commercially viable products. It wasn’t until a 2012 Kickstarter campaign for a device called the Oculus Rift that the interest in stereoscopy was again embrace by multinational corporations.
While the technologies required to produce convincing and immersive virtual reality experiences go way beyond stereoscopy, I would still relate Brewster’s lenticular stereoscope to Meta’s Oculus Quest. After all, both could be considered head-mounted displays, and all of the Quest’s computing power would be irrelevant without lenticular stereoscopy.
The fact that Wheatstone’s and Brewster’s devices failed to produce any commercial success until they were paired with compelling content, is a lesson that applies to all new VR devices as well, the Quest included.
[1] Davis, Martin, and Virginia Davis. “Mistaken Ancestry: The Jacquard and the Computer.” TEXTILE, vol. 3, no. 1, 2005, pp. 76–87. Crossref, https://doi.org/ 10.2752/147597505778052594.
[2] Harlizius-Klück, Ellen. “Weaving as Binary Art and the Algebra of Patterns.” TEXTILE, vol. 15, no. 2, 2017, pp. 176–97. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1080/14759756.2017.1298239.
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[5] Bruderer, Herbert. Milestones in Analog and Digital Computing. Springer, 3rd, 2020. Crossref, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40974-6_5
[6] Seth, Anil. Being You: A New Science of Consciousness. Dutton, 2021.
[7] Hannavy, John. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Photography. Taylor and Francis, 2013.