I was 18, a freshman in college, and had yet to declare a
major when my freshman English teacher introduced to my class Jonathon Safran
Foer’s novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. As we read through the
book, I was particularly intrigued by the character Thomas Schell, a man so
affected by the Dresden bombing that he was left unable to speak. In the instance that Thomas is moved
enough to contact his estranged wife, he does so by typing out the message on
the keypad of a telephone since he is unable to speak. At the time, I was irritated. Why would the author do this? What was even the point of including
the entire message when the reader couldn’t actually interpret it? I figured I was just supposed to glean
from this moment that Thomas was a messed up man who couldn’t communicate what
he wanted to say because he had been so traumatized.
I have not returned to these questions until now. Hayles explains in Electronic
Literature that Thomas Schell actually is communicating what he means to say: “[T]here is no
problem with noise in the channel; the machine transmits the encoded message
with complete accuracy. Rather, it
is the message’s human import
that is at stake” (167). Though
Hayles eventually goes on to use this moment in Extremely Loud to illustrate the “intensification” techniques of
the print novel, I want to comment on the human’s role in the digital aspects
of this moment. Allow me to
digress for a moment…
With the exception of Augustus Gloop, all the children in
the 1971 version of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory make use of some kind of experimental technology in
Wonka’s factory, and the results are not desirable. Veruca Salt is judged by the “Eggdicator” to be a bad egg
and drops into the garbage chute; Mike Teavee uses a machine intended for
transmitting chocolate into televisions to successfully send himself through
television, though he is shrunk in the process; Violet Beauregarde chews a
piece of gum that includes a three-course meal and enjoys each course, the
final course (blueberry pie) causing her to turn blue and inflate with juice;
and Charlie and his grandfather steal some Fizzy Lifting Drinks which work too well, resulting in the two floating to dangerous
heights. I may be stretching the
concept here, but just like in the case with Thomas Schell and his typed-out
phone call, all of these technologies function as they are supposed to but are
not being put to their intended use (except for maybe Violet’s gum, which was
still in its final stages of development). The children experience a disconnect with technology
in that it puts them into difficult situations; but at the same time, the
technologies they use are working just as they are intended to.
Thomas wants to
communicate with his wife, but he can’t via his chosen media, not because the
telephone doesn’t work like it’s supposed to, but because the human-end to this
technology is incapable of deciphering his particular use of the media. Perhaps this is why electronic and
digital media are becoming so mainstream and useful. As the world becomes more complicated, entangled with itself,
traumatizing, and layered, we must find ways to transcend it all and continue
to communicate with each other. We
have established that different medias provide different opportunities for
sensation and intensification, and we must choose media with our message and
sensation in mind. We must have these new options if we want to continue living
in such a complex and expanding world.
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