Re: <nettime> Pianos, torpedos and mobile phones

[J-D marston <mars0139@umn.edu>]

Recently finished William Gaddis's last book, a novella - Agape Agape.  
The narrator, on his death bed (Gaddis), is realing in one amazing
extended monologue.  What he had meant to do was write a history of the
player piano.. which at times this book is, more so is it mediatations on
a technocratic society embedded in capitalism, vice versa?  Although none
of this is that far from Gaddis's own unending obsession with the
playpiano - in all of its loaded signification... his first published
piece was a short anecdotal history of the player piano that appeared in
the Atlantic Monthly in 07/1951.  Although I think he lacks the
ideologue's faith, his fiction is quite marxist in parts, and very much a
link between the Pynchon and Joyce.  Interesting to folks involved in
techonology and more nuanced critiques of capitalism's production of
meaning..

Jd.

On 30 Jun 2003, nettime-l-digest wrote:
> 
> Subject: <nettime> Pianos, torpedos and mobile phones
> 
> Came across this in the Economist recently.  It's a fascinating story of
> how music (specifically, player pianos) provided a technology that was
> used to solve a military problem and that went on to be a part of modern
> telecommunications...




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