Representations of Technology in Poetry
By Neha Mulay
The industrial revolution marked the start of mechanized means of production. Since then, literary texts have sought to express the impact of the developments on the human consciousness and the world.
The creation of tools and processes that amplify efficiency raised key philosophical concerns surrounding the definition of what it means to be human and the extent to which a utilized piece of machinery becomes part of the self through function and use.
Movements such as Romanticism served as a repudiation of the industrial age, and believed in the redemptive power of natural world. Gothic Texts such as Frankenstein explored the idea of human life being an assemblage of parts functioning together in working order animated by technology whilst also serving as a cautionary tale about the perils of unchecked power and development.
These original anxieties and preoccupations surrounding technology have morphed as the digital age has revolutionized the means of our interaction with the world. Today, the digital is inescapable, an active permeation in our lives. The pandemic has, in particular, heavily skewed our reliance on technology.
If the male gaze was coined to reflect the ever-present nature of the patriarchy, then the digital gaze—particularly in terms of surveillance—also feels omniscient. In the age of information, knowledge is power and data is the new invisible currency. Surveillance is the price we pay for convenience and utility. In many ways, these developments have led to a shift—today, technology and the digital go beyond means of operation and exist as modes of saturated being.
Poetry has long sought to capture the digital and the technological and the ways in which our interactions with these created processes shape our selves. Technology, the mechanical, and the digital all have nuanced differences between them in terms of definition. Mechanics often refer to external tools that help us actualize the conceptual while the digital is often a conceptual screen/space with tangible implications. Whatever the definitions may be, most technologies are premised on the external extension of human function.
We are not one-dimensional beings in that our actions and facets are based on symbiotic processes, tools, external objects, and transactions all create an ecosystem of transfer and movement.
In many ways, automation or the desire to animate an object or a body all stem from a space, an inadequacy that cannot be solely fulfilled by the human body or a paramount grief that seeks to wrestle control away from the forces that govern life and death. This is apparent in Kathryn Nuernberger’s poem “René Descartes and the Clockwork Girl”:
After Descartes’ daughter died, / he took to the sea. They say he went / so mad with grief he remade her / as automaton. A wind-up cog and lever / elegy hidden in the cargo hold
This substitution of the lost with symbol, and the making of a function in the memory of flesh speaks to our psychological reliance on the mechanical and the technological. Tales of robots, animated monsters, and loved ones recreated in metal are as much an attempt to preserve life as they are a recalibration of the way in which life appears—ergo, the very definitions of life itself.
After all, sci-fi and other genres consistently return to what it means to be human. If the body is a series of signals, neurons flashing, each organ, each cell possessing its own manner of sentience and code then what separates man from machine? While simplistic, this question is at the root of many literary examinations of the digital and the technological.
Furthermore, agency and sentience are questions that literature frequently explores.
We are surrounded by objects, wires, and invisible signals, and while attributing them with awareness may be confined to the literary realm, the creation of these metaphors in poetry point to a conscious contemplation of these objects and particles and their modes of being, particularly in light of the ideas surrounding the body and machinery.
Of course, labor is an inescapable concern here—like any industry, technology has created a whole ecosystem dedicated to the proliferation of the industry, a process that often gives rise to problematic issues such as outsourcing and the exploitation of labor.
The poem “The Radio Animals” by Matthea Harvey, through personified radio particles, is evocative of the demands, tribulations and toils of work and the doubt and noise perpetuated by such treatment:
“The radio animals travel in / lavender clouds. They are / always chattering / they are always cold.”
Additionally, the poem also delves into the surveillance issues that are often inherently part of the tech world, which further contribute to a negative culture and undercut the agency of individuals. These anxieties surrounding the rampant growth and hunger of technology and consumerism are apparent in the “Moloch” figure epitomized by Ginsberg’s “Howl”:
Moloch whose eyes are a thousand blind windows! Moloch whose skyscrapers stand in the long streets / like endless Jehovahs! Moloch whose / factories dream and croak in the fog! Moloch whose smoke-stacks and antennae crown the cities!
The idea of workers chugging away for the benefit of a larger, indifferent, and exploitative entity is a vehement preoccupation in “Howl.” Similarly, “Radio Animals” seems to be making a similar commentary about the price of tech and the consequences of engagement.
Of course / we’ve wired their / confessionals and hired a / translator. / We know that / when they call us Walkie Talkies they mean it / scornfully
Labor relies largely on compliance, and surveillance is an effective way to ensure compliance, particularly because while it is undoubtedly a violation, the sheer extent of its presence makes it difficult to combat and, in many ways, it is already part of our psychological mind scapes.
Indeed, this monitoring is so much a part of our psyche that we often mistake an unfair enforcement of power for an antidote to the loneliness of the modern world, which is ironically perpetuated in large part by technology and the rise of fragmented forms of communication such social media. Sarah Kortemeier’s “Surveillance” is a prime example of this:
“We already know we’re watched…there is something watching us. / Please, something, watch us.
At some point, surveillance became so entrenched in the fabric of our lives that its motives evolved past safety and towards a unique profit model—screens that glow softly in their presence, at our command and are almost uniquely tailored to fit our needs and preferences.
It is no surprise that films such as Her illustrate the dangers of this phenomenon whereby human companionship is so marred with inadequacies that the technological provides a personalized, on-demand utopia. In addition to this, technology often bleeds into our means of communication, fragmenting our language and our texts. A Visit From the Goon Squad uses technology as a medium and expresses the gaps within communication through the use of power point presentations.
Other contemporary texts take this concern and amplify it. The question no longer becomes whether surveillance is preventable or even enjoyable, rather, the new challenge is forming a coherent sense of self in a digitized and increasingly intangible world.
Increased digitization has led to an amalgamation, a strange blurring of boundaries. In today’s age, particularly in light of the pandemic, technology is not just an extension of man, rather, it becomes a means for a new kind of existence, an animation and participation necessary in order to work and learn. The tools animate us and we, as creators, are both the source and the fluid movement.
Indeed, one could go so far as to argue that in the digital age, form is an inconvenience, therefore, formless ways of being have cropped up to address the inadequacy of our own bodies to occupy the myriad realms in which we now operate. Jorie Graham’s poem “Honeycomb” from her collection Fast epitomizes this:
“Ode to Prism. Aria. Untitled. Wait. I wait. Have you found me yet. Here at my screen.”
“Don’t forget to log-in my exile. This one. Female MRN 3912412.”
When the body and the technological become inextricably intertwined, the result is fragmentation and loss. In an age where substitution, replication, and automation are highly normalized, texts reflect the resultant sense of disorientation.
While some critique this infiltration, others comment on and demonstrate the sheer extent to which these tools permeate modes of existence. Whether technology serves as mode, fuel, or ache in poetry, as texts show an increased awareness of the impact of the technological, radically new forms and frontiers of exploration arise, and we are catapulted in an age that is as novel as it is replicated.