Readings: Charles Babbage, "On The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures" London 1835

I have previously stated that steam, water and steam power are specific characteristics of the MachinaKafe that I would like to further explore in the Studio Dedale. One key source I have turned to at the beginning of my research are the works of Charles Babbage. Babbage was a 19th century English Engineer.

"[...] we shall notice, in the art of making even the most insignificant of them,
processes calculated to excite our admiration by their symplicity
or to rivet our attention by their unlooked-for results."
(On The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures p.3)

So begins Charles Babbage's essay, stop.

So begins my reading of Charles Babbage's essay on the manufacturing processes of 19th England, its impact of the distribution of labour between men and the consequent restructuring society's daily lives.

"The three principle advantages derived from mechanical and
manufacturing processes seem to arise principally from three sources:
-The addition which they make to human power.
- The economy they produce of human time.
- The converion of substances apparently common and worthless
into valuable products."
(On The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures p.6)

What are the consequences of such restructuring of people's capacity when the men who make transform into the men who delegate? What is this economic framing of time? What happens to men when time is mechanized? What are the effects of the three eight hour shift days (eight hours sleep? eight hours work? eight hours leisure?)? What is leisure time versus work or mechanized time?

If machines have a conscious then their conscious is absolute, resolute, even righteous. The separation of labour from man, implanted in the machine is the simultaneous draining of certainty, of heirarchy, of order perceived in the physical world around us. Doubt, imagination, anarchy, impiousness, chaos, overtake the drive of our minds. Certainly the Springtime revolutions of 1848 (Milan, Paris, etc...), mass transformation of traditional European city centres into modern day infrastructures (Haussmann's Paris), and the invention of the Picturesque landscape (Olmstead's numerous invented natures), each point to symptoms of social unrest going on hand in hand with the mechanization of landscape. I am cautious, however, and note, that I can not say for certain what are the connections, if such connections exist. This is all a brief overview, and of course, requires more in-depth research and analysis. Please comment!!

.....Back to Babbage......

On steam power:

"The force of vapour is another source of moving power:
but even in this case it cannot be maintained that power is created.
Water is converted into elastic vapour by the combustion of fuel.
The chemical changes which thus take place are constantly
increasing the atmosphere by large quantities of carbonic
acid and other gases noxious to animal life. The means by which
nature decomposes these elements, or reconverts them into a solid
form, are not sufficiently known: but if the end could be
accomplished by mechanical force, it is almost certain that the power
necessary to produce it would at least equal that which was generated by
the original combustion. Man, therefore, does not create power; but, availing
himself of his knowledge of nature's mysteries, he applies his talents to
diverting a small and limited portion of her energies to his own wants: and
whether he employs the regulated action of steam, or the more rapid and
tremendous effect of gunpowder, he is only producing on a small scale
compositions and decompositions which nature is incessantly at work
in reversing, for the restoration of that equilibrium which we cannot
doubt is constantly maintained throughout even the most
remotest limits of our system."
(On The Economy of Machinery and Manufactures p.18)

(excuse the long excerpt!) Out of the text many suggestions begin to flood my head as to the nature of the machine as god-like figure, the place of the machine, if it is a mere representation of nature, within the object/subject context, or the physical attributes of vapour: ethereal, light, burning, mystifying. I think it is relevant to delve more into this approach to the MachinaKafe and my own interest with water steam hierarchies both defined by the form and operation of the machine, and outside sources too.