“New Media Changing Spatial Orientation Of Self”

The 4-page cover (front cover, inside front, inside back, and back cover) of Explorations 2 (April 1954) features pages from the Feenicht’s Playhouse ‘newspaper’. The newspaper headline reads:

New Media Changing Spatial-Temporal Orientation Of Self

There are 24 ‘reports’ on the 4 newspaper pages, with a total of 3 pictures and, inside the back cover, a single ‘ad’ — for the movie “Bwana Devil”, in “3-D natural vision”, a new viewer experience providing “A Lover in your arms” and “A Lion in your lap!”!  Now!

The best of these reports, “Time-Space Duality Goes”, narrowly edges out “Historic Time Comes To End”, “Modern Art All The Bunk”, and “Ploof Book Sells Millions” (“Sabrina Horne’s bosom, a prominent part of this novel, was agitated”).

Time-Space Duality Goes

Today scientists announced that western notions of time and space once believed to be intuitive and universal, are, in fact, neither.  Recognition of this fact stems from two sources: (1) a growing awareness that other cultures do not share these particular metaphysical concepts, and (2) realization that these concepts are rapidly changing in our own society.
Since the Renaissance the metaphysics underlying our language and thinking has imposed upon the universe two grand cosmic forms said to be utterly separate and unconnected aspects of reality. These are: (1) static three-dimensional  infinite space, and (2) kinetic one-dimensional, uniformly and perpetually flowing time, which is, in turn, the subject of a three-fold division: past, present and future.
But for modern man, lineal thought, chronological order, historical sequence, causal relationships, and all that these imply, are no longer of vital importance. Time standing alone has ceased to be a primary value; only as an ingredient of a larger whole is it now important. The novel, the autobiography, the essay are no longer structured by historical time, while emphasis upon causality and succeeding impressions, is being replaced by emphasis upon the single gestalt standing alone. The “past” and the “future” have become part of the “now”, and time and space are one.
Scholars are divided in their enthusiasm over these changes. Some argue that the end of the time-space duality, inseparably connected with science since the Renaissance, means the end of science. They view with alarm the new role of space, and fear for the printed page and the analytical argument. One large foundation has thrown its full weight behind traditional time studies. Other scientists are not so sure, and wonder if perhaps science will not only survive but flourish in this new climate.
Attempts to explain this revolutionary trend must be sought not in changes in the techniques of production of commodities, but in changes in the techniques of packaging and distributing ideas and feelings, which for man at least is as important as the food-quest itself. The power for change is not in the content of the messages, but in the form of the media themselves. Just as in the industrial revolutions, human relations and personality patterns were changed more by the means of production than by the commodities produced, so will these new media…1

  1. Explorations 2, April 1954, front cover, emphasis added