The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning
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The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning

The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning The Condition of Postmodernity 13 - autonomous learning

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266 The experience of space and timeas class structure, diplomacy, and war tactics in terms of modes oftime and space makes possible the demonstration of their essentialsiilarity to e ::c plicit considerations of time and space in literature,phtlosọphy , sClen e, and art' (pp.1-5). Lacking any theory of technologicalmnovatIon, of capitalist dynamics across space, or of culturalproduction, Kern offers only 'generalizations about the essentialcult ,: ral d : velopment of the period.' But his descriptions highlightt?e mcred ble confuslOns and oppositions across a spectrum of possIblereactIons to the growing sense of crisis in the experience of timeand space, that had been gathering since 1848 and seemed to come toa head ju t before the First World War. I note in parenthesis that1910-14 IS roughly the period that many historians of modernism(begnni g with Virgnia Woolf and D. H. Lawrence) point to ascrucIal m the evolution of modernist thinking (see above p. 28;Bradbury and McFarlane, 1976, 31). Henri Lefebvre agrees:Around 1910 a certain space was shattered. It was the space ofcommon sense, of knowledge, of social practice, of politicalpower, a space hitherto enshrined in everyday discourse, just asm abstract thought, as the environment of and channel forcommunication ... Euclidean and perspectivist space have disappearedas systems of reference, along with other former'common places' such as town, history, paternity, the tonalsystem in music, traditional morality, and so forth. This was atruly crucial moment. (Lefebvre, 1974)Consider a few aspects of this crucial moment set, significantlyenough, between Einstein's special theory of relativity of 1905 andhe general theory of 1916. Ford, we recall, set up his assembly linem 1913. He fragmented tasks and distributed them in space so as tomaximize efficiency and minimize the friction of flow in production.In effect, he used a certain form of spatial organization to acceleratethe turnover time of capital in production. Time could then beaccele aṭed (speed-up) b virtue of the control established throughorgalllzmg and fragmentmg the spatial order of production. In thatvery same year, however, the first radio signal was beamed aroundthe world fro the Eifel tower, thus emphasizing the capacity tocollapse space mto the sImultaneity of an instant in universal publictime. Th power of ireess ?ad been clearly demonstrated the yearbefor lth the rapId dlffuslOn of news about the sinking of the!ztamc (Itself a symbol of speed and mass motion that came to griefm much the same way that the Herald of Free Enterprise was to keelover to speedy disaster some seventy-five years later). Public timeThe rise of modernism as a cultural force 267was ecoming ever more homogeneous and universal across space.And It was not only commerce and railways, for the organization oflargẹ-sc. ale commuting systems and all the other temporal coordm t1 ns that mad metropolitan life bearable also depended uponestabhshmg some ulllversal and commonly accepted sense of time.The more than 38 billion telephone calls made in the United States in 914 .emphasizd the .power of i I. tervention of public time and spacem dally an d pnvate hfe. Indeed, It was only in terms of such a public.sense of time that reference to private time could make sense. DeChi ico appropriately celebrated these qualities by conspicuouslyplacmg clocks (an unusual gesture in art history) in his paintings of1910-14 (see plate 3.9).The eactions pointed in many directions. James Joyce, for one,begn hIS quest to capture the sense of simultaneity in space and timedunng tis period, insisting upon the present as the only real locationof expenence. He had his action take place in a plurality of spaces,Kern (p. 149) notes, 'in a consciousness that leaps about the universeand mixes here and there in defiance of the ordered diagramming ofthe cartographers.' Proust, for his part, tried to recover past time andto create .a sense of individuality a d place that rested on a conceptionof expenence across a space of time. Personal conceptions of timebecame a matter of public commentary. 'The two most innovativenovelists ?f the period,' Kern continues, 'transformed the stage ofmodern hterature from a series of fixed settings in homogeneousspac ' (of the so t hat re list novelists typically deployed) 'into amultltude of quahtatvely dIfferent spaces that varied with the shiftingmoods and perspectlves of human consciousness.'Picasso and Braque, for their part, taking their cue from Cezannewho had be un to bre k up t?e space of painting in new ';'ays in the1880s, expnmented WIth cubIsm, thus abandoning 'the homogeneousspace of lmear perspective' that had dominated since the fifteenthcentury. Delaunay's celebrated work of 1910-11 depicting the EiffelTower (plate 3.10) was perhaps the most startling public symbol of amovement that tried to represent time through a fragmentation ofspace; the protagonists were probably unaware that this paralleledthe practices on Ford's assembly line, though the choice of the EiffelTower as symbol reflected the fact that the whole movementhad something to do with industrialism. It was in 1912, also, thatD rk?eim's .E:lementa? forms of the religious life was published:l lth ItS exphclt recogllltion that 'the foundation of the category timel th rhythm f social life,' and that the social origin of spacehkewlse necessanly entailed the existence of multiple spatial visions.Ortega y Gasset, following Nietzsche's injunction that 'there is only

268 The experience of space and timePlate 3.9 De Chirico's The Philosopher's Conquest (1914) exploresmodernist themes of time and space explicitly. (The Art Institute of Chicago,Joseph Winterbotham Collection)a perspective seeing, only a proper perspective knowing,' formulateda new version of the theory of perspectivism in 1910 which insistedthat 'there were as many spaces in reality as there were perspectiveson it,' and that 'there are as many realities as points of view.' ThisPlate 3.10 Delaunay's Eiffel Tower (transfer lithograph, 1926), firstexhibited in 1911, uses a familiar image of construction to examine thefragmentation and break up of space typical of cubism. (Collection, TheMuseum 0 f Modern Art, New York, Purchase Fund)

268 <strong>The</strong> experience <strong>of</strong> space and timePlate 3.9 De Chirico's <strong>The</strong> Philosopher's Conquest (1914) exploresmodernist themes <strong>of</strong> time and space explicitly. (<strong>The</strong> Art Institute <strong>of</strong> Chicago,Joseph Winterbotham Collection)a perspective seeing, only a proper perspective knowing,' formulateda new version <strong>of</strong> the theory <strong>of</strong> perspectivism in 1910 which insistedthat 'there were as many spaces in reality as there were perspectiveson it,' and that 'there are as many realities as points <strong>of</strong> view.' ThisPlate 3.10 Delaunay's Eiffel Tower (transfer lithograph, 1926), firstexhibited in 1911, uses a familiar image <strong>of</strong> construction to examine thefragmentation and break up <strong>of</strong> space typical <strong>of</strong> cubism. (Collection, <strong>The</strong>Museum 0 f Modern Art, New York, Purchase Fund)

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