Introduction Techn and Medi, Keywords at Stake

Introduction Techn and Medi, Keywords at Stake

In the“Typewriter”chapter of his tripartite treatise on modern technologicalmedia, Friedrich A. Kittler juxtaposes Martin Heidegger’s rumination on theconnection of being, hand, and writing with Walter Benjamin’s treatment ofapparently the same subject. To call it a juxtaposition is not entirely correct,though. The two citations are not physically contiguous in Kittler’s monograph.And the lengths are uneven. On the side of Heidegger is a two-page excerpt fromParmenides, a collection based on a series of lectures the philosopher gave at theUniversity of Freiburg in the winter of 1942-43 (Kittler 198-200); whereas on theside of Benjamin is but a one-liner from One-Way Street, which Kittler uses as acaption for an illustration in his book (Kittler 196). The picture, we are told, showsthe writing hand of Jan Tschichold, the figure instrumental in the modernizationof typography; and the caption-worthy remark by Benjamin reads,“to substitutethe innervation of guiding fingers for the continuous movement of the hand.”Theentirety of the paragraph this line is culled from, in a different translation, goes asfollows:“The typewriter will alienate the hand of the man of letters from the penonly when the precision of typographic forms has directly entered the conceptionof his books. One might suppose that new systems with more variable typefaceswould then be needed. They will replace the pliancy of the hand with the innervationof commanding fingers”(SW 1: 457).