Looking Back, Looking Ahead

Digging through the library today, I found several other images of the telephonoscope as it was imagined in the late nineteenth century. These are all from a book called La vingtième siècle (The Twentieth Century) written and illustrated by Albert Robida in 1883. Written as a speculative account of the year 1955, The Twentieth Century is full of impressively prescient futuristic devices like subways, public telephones, submarines and helicopters. Robida also imagines female emancipation and military service, correspondents reporting live from war zones, and the ability to see and hear projected images of women doing sexy things in the privacy of your own home. Quite the visionary, that guy.

Telephonoscope: a necessary item for your boudoir

Some big screen telephonoscope options.

Ooohhh, she’s rolling down her garter…

Meanwhile, in the twenty-first century, I’ve been fascinated this week by a different kind of futuristic speculation about the possibility (necessity?) of new liberal arts. Written and published by a bunch of new-mediay people, the entire text is available as a free PDF, and makes for an entertaining, semi-snarky, thought-provoking browse. Among other recommended courses of study, these new liberal arts include attention economics, photography, reality engineering, and inaccuracy. I’m not sold on attention economics as a new liberal art, but I’d love to sign up for video literacy.