In The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man (1962), Marshall McLuhan provided the methodological apparatus for media theory to come. He introduced the term Gutenberg Galaxy to designate the historical era in which one particular medium, printed text, is prioritized over all others. McLuhan’s theoretical innovation does not consist in the fact that he conceives this medium as a product of its age, but that he reverses this causal relation: media technology constitutes historical epistemes. In The Gutenberg Galaxy, he claims that the invention of the movable type by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450 has — over the course of centuries — eventually unfolded into a hegemonic political, cultural and social order. In turn, The Gutenberg Galaxy corresponds to a specific kind of subject that McLuhan baptizes Gutenberg Man. This typographical man is a medially defined subject that is programmed to process printed texts. According to McLuhan, this has numerous implications: the typographic man reduces sense perception to visuality, trims temporality to linearity, chooses uniformity over heterogeneity, and prioritizes private over public life. By replacing the trumpet with a typewriter, Ellison subscribed to all the aforementioned aspects of the hegemonic discourse and chose to become a typographic man.
What The Gutenberg Galaxy shares with Gramophone, Film, Typewriter and ‘Living with Music’ is the fact that it captures an imminent medial shift. Even though McLuhan acknowledges that — at the time of writing — printed text is still a dominant medium, he expects its reign soon to be destroyed by a contemporary technological medium: electricity. According to him, the supersession of the Gutenberg Galaxy and the typographic man by another medial universe of knowledge — the electric age — a new social order and a corresponding subject is unavoidable and irrevocable. The position that McLuhan defends is deterministic in a twofold way: the dominant medium determines the human condition, and technological progress is an irreversible process. These two aspects combined form a position that is commonly known as technological determinism.
Marshal McLuhan conceives history as a linear succession of hegemonic, medial epistemes. By describing a synchronic rather than a diachronic shift from music to text, Ralph Ellison disturbs the underlying logic of the media theorist’s technological determinism. His seemingly trivial shift from trumpet to typewriter has ramifications on an ontological, an existential and a political level. Ontologically, it implies a coexistence rather than a succession of different medial epistemes. In ‘Living with Music’, a universe of music exists parallel to the Gutenberg Galaxy. Existentially, this means that the typographic man is not a historically determined subject but a (conceptual) persona amongst many. Most importantly, it suggests that the transition from musician to author was inspired by political rather than personal motives. It meant a conscious choice to actively participate in a major discourse rather than a minor one.
“Writing, however, stored writing — no more and no less.” (Kittler: 7)
In the introduction to Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Friedrich Kittler radicalizes McLuhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy by fertilizing it with insights from poststructuralism. Even more than McLuhan did, Kittler emphasizes the autonomous status and the hermetic structure of this medial episteme. He defines the Gutenberg Galaxy as an endless chain of signifiers, a hegemonic text without an accessible outside. In fact, Kittler transforms the Gutenberg Galaxy in such a way that this medial episteme actually resembles Jacques Derrida’s concept of writing (écriture). “Therefore, all data flows, provided they were really streams of data, had to pass through the bottleneck of the signifier. Alphabetic monopoly, grammatology.” (Kittler: 4) In Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, however, text is a historically contingent writing system rather than an onto-theological horizon of knowledge. Consequently, Kittler carefully distinguishes between different epistemes on the basis of their dominant media. The Gutenberg Galaxy was a particular medial episteme in which the movable type functioned as a universal medium. This realm of text functioned an autonomous and hegemonic writing system that could only store and transmit alphabetical characters and musical notes.Everything else just did not exist.
More simply, but no less technically than tomorrow’s fiber optic cables, writing functioned as a universal medium — in times when there was no concept of medium. Whatever else was going on dropped through the filter of letter or ideograms.” (Kittler: 4)
The non-textual was a constitutive but inaccessible outside, and could therefore only exist as a theological or metaphysical postulate.
Since Kittler historicizes the concept of writing, the non-textual is not just a synchronic but also as a diachronic supplement to the Gutenberg Galaxy. More precisely, history itself is a concept that could only exist within the confinements of this specific medial episteme. “History was the homogenized field that, as an academic subject, only took account of literate cultures. Mouths and graphisms were relegated to prehistory. Otherwise, stories and histories (both deriving from historia) could not have been linked.”(Kittler: 4) According to Kittler, the concept of history functions as an exclusive principle because it is inextricably linked to writing: it is the totality of everything that has ever been written, as opposed to everything that has ever happened. Within the Gutenberg Galaxy, the former was mistaken for the latter, because this medial episteme did not have a concept of medium. As long as writing functioned as a universal medium, there was neither the need nor the possibility to conceptualize it as such. Only after new, technical devices were invented the concept of a medium emerged. In this universe of technical media, the typewriter was only one writing system amongst others — hence the title Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. As soon as writing stopped being a universal medium, however, history had to lose its universalist pretensions and the outside its transcendent status.
new adventures in low-fidelity
In The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographical Man (1962), Marshall McLuhan provided the methodological apparatus for media theory to come. He introduced the term Gutenberg Galaxy to designate the historical era in which one particular medium, printed text, is prioritized over all others. McLuhan’s theoretical innovation does not consist in the fact that he conceives this medium as a product of its age, but that he reverses this causal relation: media technology constitutes historical epistemes. In The Gutenberg Galaxy, he claims that the invention of the movable type by Johannes Gutenberg around 1450 has — over the course of centuries — eventually unfolded into a hegemonic political, cultural and social order. In turn, The Gutenberg Galaxy corresponds to a specific kind of subject that McLuhan baptizes Gutenberg Man. This typographical man is a medially defined subject that is programmed to process printed texts. According to McLuhan, this has numerous implications: the typographic man reduces sense perception to visuality, trims temporality to linearity, chooses uniformity over heterogeneity, and prioritizes private over public life. By replacing the trumpet with a typewriter, Ellison subscribed to all the aforementioned aspects of the hegemonic discourse and chose to become a typographic man.
What The Gutenberg Galaxy shares with Gramophone, Film, Typewriter and ‘Living with Music’ is the fact that it captures an imminent medial shift. Even though McLuhan acknowledges that — at the time of writing — printed text is still a dominant medium, he expects its reign soon to be destroyed by a contemporary technological medium: electricity. According to him, the supersession of the Gutenberg Galaxy and the typographic man by another medial universe of knowledge — the electric age — a new social order and a corresponding subject is unavoidable and irrevocable. The position that McLuhan defends is deterministic in a twofold way: the dominant medium determines the human condition, and technological progress is an irreversible process. These two aspects combined form a position that is commonly known as technological determinism.
Marshal McLuhan conceives history as a linear succession of hegemonic, medial epistemes. By describing a synchronic rather than a diachronic shift from music to text, Ralph Ellison disturbs the underlying logic of the media theorist’s technological determinism. His seemingly trivial shift from trumpet to typewriter has ramifications on an ontological, an existential and a political level. Ontologically, it implies a coexistence rather than a succession of different medial epistemes. In ‘Living with Music’, a universe of music exists parallel to the Gutenberg Galaxy. Existentially, this means that the typographic man is not a historically determined subject but a (conceptual) persona amongst many. Most importantly, it suggests that the transition from musician to author was inspired by political rather than personal motives. It meant a conscious choice to actively participate in a major discourse rather than a minor one.
In the introduction to Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Friedrich Kittler radicalizes McLuhan’s Gutenberg Galaxy by fertilizing it with insights from poststructuralism. Even more than McLuhan did, Kittler emphasizes the autonomous status and the hermetic structure of this medial episteme. He defines the Gutenberg Galaxy as an endless chain of signifiers, a hegemonic text without an accessible outside. In fact, Kittler transforms the Gutenberg Galaxy in such a way that this medial episteme actually resembles Jacques Derrida’s concept of writing (écriture). “Therefore, all data flows, provided they were really streams of data, had to pass through the bottleneck of the signifier. Alphabetic monopoly, grammatology.” (Kittler: 4) In Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, however, text is a historically contingent writing system rather than an onto-theological horizon of knowledge. Consequently, Kittler carefully distinguishes between different epistemes on the basis of their dominant media. The Gutenberg Galaxy was a particular medial episteme in which the movable type functioned as a universal medium. This realm of text functioned an autonomous and hegemonic writing system that could only store and transmit alphabetical characters and musical notes.Everything else just did not exist.
The non-textual was a constitutive but inaccessible outside, and could therefore only exist as a theological or metaphysical postulate.
Since Kittler historicizes the concept of writing, the non-textual is not just a synchronic but also as a diachronic supplement to the Gutenberg Galaxy. More precisely, history itself is a concept that could only exist within the confinements of this specific medial episteme. “History was the homogenized field that, as an academic subject, only took account of literate cultures. Mouths and graphisms were relegated to prehistory. Otherwise, stories and histories (both deriving from historia) could not have been linked.”(Kittler: 4) According to Kittler, the concept of history functions as an exclusive principle because it is inextricably linked to writing: it is the totality of everything that has ever been written, as opposed to everything that has ever happened. Within the Gutenberg Galaxy, the former was mistaken for the latter, because this medial episteme did not have a concept of medium. As long as writing functioned as a universal medium, there was neither the need nor the possibility to conceptualize it as such. Only after new, technical devices were invented the concept of a medium emerged. In this universe of technical media, the typewriter was only one writing system amongst others — hence the title Gramophone, Film, Typewriter. As soon as writing stopped being a universal medium, however, history had to lose its universalist pretensions and the outside its transcendent status.