Synchronisation

Nichts ist so aktuell wie die Gegenwart; gegenwärtig sein aber heißt gleichzeitig sein mit etwas anderem, und diese Gleichzeitigkeit muss immer eigens durch geeignete Operationen der Übertragung, der Überbrückung, der Abstimmung und ihre Werkzeuge hergestellt werden. So schlicht erklärt sich die grundlegende und aktuelle Relevanz des Themas der Synchronisierung ebenso wie seine kulturtechnische und medienphilosophische Ausformung.

Following the methods of structural anthropology and Bruno Latour, the contribution discusses societies not as wholes in Durkheim’s sense but as collectives. Along the fundamental duality between material processes (corporeality) and mental states (inwardness) four main ontologies of social forms are presented, in which the two axes regulate specific continuities and differences between humans and non-humans of a collective: animism, totemism, naturalism and analogism.

Relational spaces are variable patterns which establish an order of the coexisting. In them, forces of dispersion come into effect that form positional relationships and neighborhoods. In line with the philosophical concept of relational space, the paper sketches a media ecology of coexistence, of the simultaneous juxtaposition of the scattered, and envisages an ethics and aesthetics of distribution. Starting with Martin Heidegger’s ontological postulate of an “original dispersion of existence” and its post-structuralist and philosophical critique, various concepts of relational spaces and regimes of dispersion are discussed.

Karl Würzburger’s radio theory labels novel vocal-acoustic forms of presence with the concept of “Mikrophonie” (microphonics). Passing through the microphone, transmitted voices undergo a ubiquitous distribution, which in a play with effects of presence and absence promotes the development of specific forms of radiophonic voices.

The hypothesis of a new geological era, the “Anthropocene”, is discussed intensively since its presentation by the chemist and Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen in 2000. The beginning of the Anthropocene is usually dated to 1800 and put into the context of the industrialization. Since then, according to Crutzen, mankind has become a quasi-geological force and human infrastructures have developed into a primary influence on the biological, geological and atmospheric processes on Earth. In their contribution, Christian Schwägerl and Reinhold Leinfelder present examples of the long-term changes and arguments for the “reorganization of the entire Earth system”, supporting the thesis of the Anthropocene and the “man-made” Earth. In their article they contradict the premature impression that the Anthropocene is nothing but a new umbrella term for everything that is considered an environmental problem. Rather, the authors emphasize the potential of man and his technologies for the positive design of his habitat and the transformation of the earth. They understand the Anthropocene not only as a description of a purely physical state, but also as a social and scientific challenge. Niels Werber puts in his contribution the notorious epoch threshold 1800 in question. Furthermore, he criticizes that the discourse of the Anthropocene relies solely on the supposed evidence of science, especially of geological data and figures, and thus neglects in its effort to describe a “geological age of mankind” precisely the emerging knowledge of man, social order and culture. Instead, Werber understands the “Anthropocene” as a contribution to the “self-description of society,” i.e. to a possible integration of mankind and society into the world.

1. Die fantastischen Abende des Robert-Houdin Mit der neu gezogenen Schneise des Boulevard Haussmann ist nun endgültig das Gebäude verschwunden, das an der Nummer 8 des Boulevard des Italiens gelegen war und in dem sich seit 73 Jahren das Théâtre Robert-Houdin befand, das so viele Generationen von Kindern beglückt hatte. Es ist eine Berühmtheit des alten Paris, die sich nun ihrerseits im Nichts auflöst. …

Georges Méliès wird in erster Linie als Filmemacher gewürdigt, genauer: aufgrund seiner Pionierleistungen im Bereich filmischer Spezialeffekte. Weniger Beachtung findet seine Betätigung als Zauberkünstler – meist nur am Rand erwähnt, wird sie häufig als eine Art ›Vorspiel‹ zu seinem filmischen Schaffen gehandelt. Tatsächlich weist vieles darauf hin, dass die Kinematographie nur eines unter Méliès’ vielfältigen Betätigungsfeldern als Unterhaltungskünstler war – neben dem Varieté, dem Automatenbau, dem Karikaturenzeichnen, der Kulissenmalerei und insbesondere der Zauberkunst, der er sich die längste Zeit seines Lebens widmete. …

In its first part, the article reconstructs descriptions of corporal perception of simultaneity. Abstract concepts and categories of time are secondary to these perceptions and objectified by means of language. In a second part, with reference to system theory, the perspective is turned around, so that simultaneity is discussed as a secondary mode of social relations and the inner stream of consciousness; in this view, simultaneity is based on world experience and techniques of synchronization. In conclusion, the paper analyses how modern electronic mass media and especially (live) television produces and manipulates autonomously worldwide synchronization.

From the 16th to the 18th century, the introduction of longitude on the high seas was considered the greatest scientific challenge. The paper outlines their impact on the creation of the British Empire, physics, and the early philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Against the background of this story, a historical ontology of the clock is developed. While the clock was a machine in the Middle Ages, it became an instrument in early modernity and a medium in the 19th and 20th century. As a medium of existence, the clock is not only an ontic device to measure the time, but also an ontological thing that provides access to the technical nature of existence.

At the beginning of the 19th century, chronology is emerging as a historical subdiscipline. Using the example of a draft by Karl Dietrich Hüllmann, a forgotten precursor of economics, the paper pursues effects of cultural and social synchronization. In contrast to the doctrines of his time, Hüllmann surprisingly justifies the origin of the state with reference to the calculation of time: thus, technically produced chronology serves him as an argument that rivals theories of contract based on natural history.

Micheal Snow’s talking picture »Rameau’s Nephew […]« (1974) develops an ever unstable taxonomy of audio-visual relations in the talking movie. The contribution investigates this experimental film by following three motives – translation, surface, water – with which the talking movie reflects itself. Thus, moments of transition between mere technical lip-sync and “synchresis” (irreducible audio-visual synthesis of perception, a term coined by Michel Chion) – prove to be a critical point of the talking movie. In this perspective, synchronization is to be understood as a process which distributes and correlates potentials of homogenization and heterogenization.

Our society is often understood and discussed as a society of non-contemporaneity (Ungleichzeitigkeit)—an issue that undoubtedly corresponds to a widespread and disturbing feeling in today’s society. Both at personal level and in communicative contexts one often has the impression of an interlacement and a contrast among different rhythms, temporal horizons, durations and terms, and the result is usually a sort of pressure and a sense of inadequacy. It seems to me, however, that the difficulties we have to face don’t depend so much on the fact that we belong to a culture (or even to the intersection among various cultures) of not-contemporaneity: such cultures have existed, we can describe them and we can reconstruct their relationship with time, but they didn’t have the problems of disorientation that seem to torment us today. On the contrary: we have them because our culture is rather a culture of contemporaneity, and this produces problems of synchronisation and a complexity of temporal relations we still cannot adequately deal with.