Inside the Machine: Art and Invention in the Electronic Age

With Inside the Machine, cultural historian and archivist Megan Prelinger (Another Science Fiction) tells the story of advancements in electronics, from radio broadcasting and vacuum tubes to space travel and bionics. She focuses on what the art used to advertise these wondrous and emerging technologies reveals about the culture of the era, and offers a fascinating visual history of the early 20th century's transformative electronic inventions.

Early creators of electronics faced a problem: how to explain new technologies to people who had no previous reference point for them. Prelinger notes that, unlike today's incremental advancements, what emerged during the early to mid-century resembled nothing that came before it. These innovations dramatically changed how people understood and related to the world. The light bulb not only enabled people to see in the dark more clearly than ever before, but also redefined the very idea of daytime. Therefore, visual representations of inventions had to show not only the object itself but what society could expect from the new technology.

Creators and artists alike celebrated and concentrated not just on the object and the end result but how it worked--on individual components. They wanted the public to see vacuum tubes and transistors that made the latest television, telephone and computer work. And when showing the final product was not enough, the artists began to create what Prelinger calls "science fiction" art, with futuristic visions of space travel and bionics.

In today's world, where people get excited about the latest smartphone but don't care how it works, Prelinger's book is both insightful and entertaining. --Justus Joseph, bookseller at Elliott Bay Book Company, Seattle, Wash.

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