Typographic Era

1. Mechanical. Industrial. Expansive. XVI-XX centuries. Typographic Era Try to take some distance and see those two as different civilizations organized around its technological means. Electric. Automated. Media related. XX-XXI century. Implosive. Electric Age

2. Mechanical. Industrial. Expansive. XVI-XX centuries. Typographic Era McLuhan said, technology ends shaping its users Electric. Automated. Media related. XX-XXI century. Implosive. Electric Age

3. Mechanical. Industrial. Expansive. Western civilization. XVI-XX centuries. Typographic Era Center A technological invention: The Movable Printing press (Guttemberg, XVI century) carries a deep change in western culture. With Knowledge being collected and transmitted through books and those being widely available, social roles change, religious reform happens, nationalisms grow, knowledge expands and science flourishes. Humans change their habits as a result of the accommodation to a new technology.

4. Mechanical. Industrial. Expansive. Western civilization.XIX-XX centuries. Typographic Era Center By mid eighteenth to nineteenth century, all the repercussions of this new technology had fully developed in the West. • Universities are the centers of transmission of knowledge.• Knowledge has become structured according to very different and defined disciplines. (Fragmentation)• All knowledge had been stored and classified through books. (Intensity) • Reading encourages grouping according to language. (Nationalisms) • There are specialists for every field of knowledge. (Specialization) • Specialist hold a high social/economical status. • People have become accustomed to follow a linear type of thought. • Storytelling has become linear.

5. Electric. Automated. Media related. XX-XXI century. Implosive. Electric Age Margin With a fully Industrialized society that has had little change in the last 70 years, New opportunities happen on the margin of the market, of society. Cultural blending is not seen any more as a detriment of social identity. New cultural forms happen in the the margins of society, were immigrants blend.

6. The book as a way of transmitting information. The eye becomes the primordial sense (reading). All the other senses relegated to a second plane as recipients of information. Typographic Era Visual Official documents, proofs in Court, are always written documents .They have fundamental importance and need to have been verified by an authority (stamped). Signature as a proof of identity. (it was a problem at the beginning of e-commerce)

7. All the senses have the same importance. Tactile/ Acoustic space (not visual!) Electric Age Tactile Sound becomes more and more important. Social revolution carried through Rock, Pop music during 20 century. Quality of sound. Definition of Noise. (headphones to hear music, to not hear noise)

8. Typical of literary cultures. Writing is visual. Analytical sense. Allows distance/detachment. Typographic Era Eye Avid readers are generally not very emotional individuals. Reading is actually decoding alphabetic combinations. Long reading demands high levels of concentration and intense brain activity in a very specific area of the cortex. Both seeing and assimilating speech 9in conversation) are natural activities in humans. Reading and writing implies another level of brain activity.

9. Typical of oral culturesThe constant monitor. Sound emanates from every environment. Immersive. Pre-literary cultures function like post-literary cultures (like the age of Internet) Electric Age Ear Sound is more physically experienced (vibration). Is more compatible with other sensorial inputs, (taste, touch, simple seeing) It is processed by the brain in a more direct fashion. This is why it also has a more emotional effect.

10. Rational. Mechanical. Linear (like reading). Analytical. Extensive. Specific knowledge expands to very possible sphere of life (Dictionary, Encyclopedia) Typographic Era Complete Cataloguing, classifying is almost a vice of Western Culture. There are specialists for any field of knowledge. Those specialists learn through books, with little pragmatic verification of what they learn. In a linear type of structure is mandatory to arrive to completion to obtain any kind of benefit from the whole process.

11. Intuitive. Non linear (input from everywhere). Interactive. Synthesis. Electric Age Incomplete In an intuitive kind of process, not every step is verified, and not specific sequence of though is needed. Though processes involving intuition work faster because they don’t need every bit of information (although the have a higher margin of error, of course). Non linear processes don’t need to follow an specific sequence of events either. Both intuition and Interactivity work more with pattern recognition than with Analysis of the parts.

12. Detachment. Non involvement. Western rationalism: uniform, continuous, sequential. Typographic Era Rational A rational process needs to follow a very strict progress of thought. It needs to take into account every step of the process (to be verified through logic), what makes it highly sequential and linear in nature.

13. Emotional deep Participation of oral cultures/ media cultures. (reality shows, celebrity culture…) Electric Age Intuitive Intuition needs a pre-acquired knowledge (in a similar case). That type of knowledge can be socially and culturally transmitted. Intuition is more social than rationalism. Because it needs less detachment is also more emotional in nature. Emotions are very easily spread through Humans, so emotions are also highly social. When a group has an emotional experience it always becomes a deep experience and a highly participatory one.

14. Literate. Rational. Linearly structured according to a structure. Typographic Era Composition

15. Intuitive. Fragment/collage. Free/random mix of elements. Integration. Electric Age Improvisation

16. Literary culture. Highly structured. Written information. Typographic Era Syntax Rules in the use of a language or a system. Its use and knowledge makes a highly instructed (specialized) individual in that language or system. You can speak a language without perfectly using/knowing its correct syntax. The more syntax you use, the more structured the language becomes.

17. Collage. Every opinion counts (blogs, info from sites). Plural. Electric Age Mosaic In a mosaic, a collage, every bit and piece counts as itself, without taking importance off their contribution to the whole.

18. Specialization (only the specialist’s opinion counts) Partial point of view. Central government. Nationalisms. Typographic Era Soliloquy In the same way that this era is characterized by a tendency to the center (to itself) through specialization, intensity, and productivity, it tends to produce soliloquy. “ The artist as a genius, as an exception”. “The voice of the country, the best of us”. There is only one clear voice because a few broadcast and press Media control the flow of all information (news). That information spread through Radio, TV and newspapers actually comes from even fewer information agencies.

19. Internet. Information from every point of view. No borders. Involvement. Electric Age Chorus Media is easier to produce at a personal level. The cost and diversity/specialization of equipment needed has highly decreased. Distribution of media, with the internet, is free (citizen-journalism). When events take place, specially at international level, many versions of the event can be heard. People with no influence in broadcast media/government can be heard. The influence of centralized institutions decrease. Everybody can have a voice.

20. Specialization. Individuality. Competition. Typographic Era Self expression Individuality is greatly appreciated. With fewer social support (family/ group) success is more important. People compare themselves at a higher level ( not with their neighbor, relatives, small group surroundings, but at a more abstract level. People want to feel detached form their own social group. Success, individuality, original self expression are all valid pathways. Competitive character is also encouraged.

21. Highly social. Tribal. Non egocentric. Electric Age Group therapy Eve at a psychological level, we have gone from individual psychoanalysis to group therapy. When society tends to be less individualistic, we realize human interaction can be healing.

22. Mechanical, analytical attitude. Expansive. Linear. Covering every aspect of experience. Typographic Era Active The mechanical, typographical era, tends to follow every path to completion (linear paths need to get to the end). Science makes huge progress because of the increased analytical approach and the value given to work and success. This era wants to discover, understand and control. Expand.

23. Recycling. Readapting. Translating previous/other experience.Synthesis, not Analysis. Electric Age Reactive With most “systems in place” (medicine, science, education), the electric age doesn’t tend to build/act but to reorganize/react. The challenge now is not to be able “to understand as a way to build/discover/control something new”, but how to combine all existing systems into something better, simpler and more effective. That is to synthesize.

24. Mechanical age. Analytical system. Splits, divides everything by means of control.Centralization. Typographic Era Build Specialization in knowledge is not only a way of getting social prestige/higher salaries. It responds to a deeper need of an Analytical system of breaking everything into the simplest bit (in order to comprehend it better). With so much specialization (dedicated spaces), works of infrastructure become huge. Metropolis are developed following the model of the Roman empire, as huge centers connected by huge and long paths of transportation.

25. Automation brings Decentralization as a consequence .Knowledge is not localized. Surfing the web. Electric Age Wander At a physical level, the biggest consequence of the electric age will be the dissolution of the cities. There is no need to live at a certain place to be able to work. The very expensive and confining infrastructure is not needed either. At a more abstract level, high specialists are not an imperative anymore. The result is that “career paths/professions are not live long options anymore. People need to be flexible. Everybody needs to have a certain level of technical expertise ( the same way that everybody needed to drive and have a car before, the computer is also the way of transportation).

26. Rational. Linear. Specialist is valued by society. Appreciation of age as a synonymous of experience. Society organized acordingly. Typographic Era Experience Knowledge and specialization, individuality, are all values that increase with experience, with age. In the typographic era experts are people that have worked on the same thing for a very long time and have succeeded.

27. Intuitive/ innovative approach. Praise of youth. Everything is possible, since experience is not a pre-requisite. Since the apparition of Rock and Roll and Pop music, youth has highly increased its value. (that was also the time of TV and the formative years of pop culture). We have got to a time were there is nothing comparable to youth. Electric Age Innocence Beauty follows exclusively the cannon of youth: men and women are more attractive the closer they get to the markers of youth in their own genders ( bright eyes, strong hair, tight skin, flat stomach, strong muscles, high breasts, narrow hips). Even psychologically, young characters are preferred: cheerful fearless attitude. Quick, loud, temperamental reaction to events. Pathological optimism. Endless energy. At a work level, experience and a long career are not imperatives anymore. Some of the new technologies haven’t had time to be taught at a University and they are better apprehended by people with more time and “fresher brains”. Younger people are becoming socially/economically influential ( Steve Jobs, Bill Gates).

28. Consequence of experience. Competition. Typographic Era Achievement In a linear-typographic society, achievement arrives at the end of the path. Television has been underlying for fifty years the exception of that: Athletes. People who’s career culmination happens before they fully enter adulthood. Notice that in the Film era, athletes were celebrated as a group (by nationalities!). TV presents celebrity-athletes. Individuals whose career can be emotionally followed.

29. Praise of youth. Everything is possible. Equivalent of experience and achievement. Celebrities become mediatic role models. Electric Age Celebrity With experts and older people emptying the stand of role-models, a new kind of those enter the mediatic scene: the famous people. Notice that a celebrity figure doesn’t exactly match the role of the self-made individual or the genius. People are famous for not very deep reasons and they are so as a need of the media to present new faces (by popular demand). Later on, celebrities become role-models for the media (just as living hangers, they personalize the different products that advertisers sell in that media).

30. Expansive knowledge. Categorized, analyzed, structured. Typographic Era Science Science, as an expanding, analytical, systematic type of knowledge has flourished through the Mechanical-typographic era.

31. Emotional knowledge. Non rational (intuitive). Non structured according to traditional formulas. Electric Age Magic Other types of knowledge that were not recognized by the center are accepted now (examples on health issues). Those are systems that are not as rationally based, but that may have more emotional impact (reiky therapy, sound therapy). Also systems that could not match the traditional formulas of those fields (Acupuncture).

32. Structured knowledge. Individuality. Expansive attitude. Typographic Era Will The Mechanical-typographic era needs conviction and constant hard work to flourish.

33. Emotional knowledge. Immediate. Electric Age Wish Because the electric age causes time to compress, doesn’t need the individual to accumulate large amounts of knowledge, and doesn’t need him to have a long path of experience. Because individuals are allowed and encouraged to have a very developed emotional side, WISH, with it its immediate and emotional character becomes more dominant than will.

34. Expansive knowledge. Categorized, analyzed, structured. Facts, partial point of view. Self importance. Typographic Era History History is a very important source of knowledge for the Mechanical-typographic era. Historical facts are some of the first things ever recorded in writing. History is just a point of view about past events. They can fabricate whole systems of believe, not always based on the true facts.

35. Emotional knowledge. History, facts are not important. Masses are impacted and influenced emotionally. Electric Age Leyend In the Electric era, with all parties given they point of view, History gets highly discredited. Knowing the past has become less important, almost a form of entertainment. A piece of history, reviewed as a movie, resembles more a legend than anything else. If history doesn’t make so much emphasis on the facts, but gives more importance to its emotional aspects, We are back into a legend structure.

36. Organized, structured society. Centralization. Typographic Era Politics A very structured society, with will to expand and tendency to centralize, produces strong governments, so politics are very important to its good functioning. Political issues are taken with a got of energy and very serious focus.

37. Emotional knowledge. Facts are not important. Electric Age Prophecy Politics, and specially national politics are also highly discredited in the Electric era. Nationalism is not seen as a value anymore, there is plenty of information, social relations and sympathy towards people/institutions from other countries, so having been born somewhere else is not a big issue. Borders seem to collapse, and this one is not an exception. Regarding politics as a way of foretelling the future (political campaigns), it comes back to almost an entertaining arena. It is a colorful social event, fully supported by the media, but the ultimate seriousness is gone. People still react to politics, but in an area closer to emotional participation. And not with too much will.

38. Product/object oriented society. Individuality Product of specialization. Typographic Era Art In the Mechanical-typographical era, Art is a product of the self-expression of the genius. An artist is an exceptionally gifted individual, and art is mostly appreciated as something greater that what the average can do. It is also highly elitist in its content (difficult to apprehend, takes time and study to be familiar with). In many cases it is presented as the maximum achievement of a nation.

39. Emotional knowledge. Intuitive approach. Non specialization. Facts/objects are not important. Reality is not praised. Electric Age Dream Art has lost its social prestige. Everybody can express themselves in the audiovisual medium. The mediums that Art, Work and Communication use are almost identical, so the traditional difference in medium that distinguished Art (painting, stone sculpture, forge and cast) is gone. Art has become more democratic. Even people that dedicate themselves to be an artist, tend to produce less and less “real objects”. Reality, execution, facts are not so important in this era. Reflection, experience and emulation (virtual reality) can work as well as the others.

40. Structured knowledge of reality. Expansive. (verification needed) Typographic Era Doubt In a civilization based on verified facts and clearly structured paths of work, one needs to doubt to keep the quality of work. It is a guarantee of the perfect functioning of the system. Doubt implies effort and more work (it is expansive in nature).

41. Emotional knowledge. Non rational (intuitive). Knowledge not so related to facts. Electric Age Certainty In a civilization with high emotional presence, with emotions not understood as weakness, but as a way of participating in the social arena, certainty is more present than doubt. Believing in a legend is less dangerous than believing in History, specially if you are not wishing to act on it.