New Media and its Parallel Worlds

The concept of a parallel world frequently is associated with fiction or a circumstance separated from reality in some way. However the concept of a parallel world can be intrinsically linked to a space between fact and fiction, where reality and fantasy interact to create a discourse that ultimately breaks down the binary distinction between true and false in favor of a more subjective viewpoint in which to view society and its constructs. The history of photography and New Media at the end of the 19^th century in America is a clear example of the construction of parallel worlds that existed within the realms of scientific discovery and paranormal experience.

With the invention of the microscope and telescope at the turn of the seventeenth century came an expansion of vision, encompassing the microscopic world of cells to macroscopic images of the universe. The enhancement of the human eye produced what Tom Gunning, a historian of media, calls a “sense of vertigo” as “the finite visible and tangible world of material things was transformed into the mere surface of an infinite universe; the microscope and telescope revealed a limitless expanding, and decentered space in which science reigned” (“Invisible” 53). As the microscope and telescope became more widely used as scientific tools, perceptions of the world began to shift, marking the beginning process of an expanding worldview centered around optical technologies.

            In the early nineteenth century the invention of the daguerreotype and similar photographic technologies which fixed images to metal and glass (calotypes, cyanotypes, ambrotypes, and ferrotypes) led to another shift of perspective as the photograph presented a frozen moment in time, created by light rather than the human hand. Science, which previously relied on drawings to depict observed phenomena, heralded photography as an empirical tool. Photography’s ability to capture instantaneous phenomena along with the improved accuracy over drawings created a shift in the perception of photographs within the discourse of science. The move in science from drawing to photography granted photography legitimacy as a form of scientific evidence.

Photography, perceived as objective truth and revealing an invisible world, became simultaneously magical and scientific and its veracity was fully established when used in combination with the microscope and telescope, bringing the unseen micro and macroscopic into public view. As Gunning notes, “microscopic and telescopic photography combined new technologies of vision capable of recording as well as enlarging and also made the scientist’s vision widely accessible for the first time via classroom and public lectures” (“Invisible” 54). Thus the microscope and telescope, united with photography, became verifiable objective tools of science whose images and owing to the reproducibility of photographs, could be spread into the public. Photography, no longer bound to the visible world, could produce images of the invisible world previously limited to scientists.

            Scientific photographs helped create and became a part of what Gunning has termed a “widespread culture of display and demonstration” in which scientific progress, through education or entertainment, was examined by a mass audience (“Invisible” 52). The public, granted access to scientific knowledge, was able to experience firsthand the effects of the broadening of perspective and worldview that accompanied scientific change. As media historian Jeffrey Sconce observes, “…an early fascination in American culture with fantastic media technology has gradually given way to a fascination with forms of fantastic textuality” (10). Photography provided concrete evidence for the now infinite world made visible, spurring public interest in science.

The Spiritualist movement, most famously known for spirit photography and séances, combined this interest with science with the spiritual, exhibiting and promoting the idea of a parallel world in which spirits operate. This spirit realm was conceivable because the micro and macroscopic became parallel worlds to observable physical reality, existing in flux alongside but somehow separate from the perceivable, so fantastic interpretations by the general public of science, technology, the future, and spirituality became acceptable and in certain places commonplace. The association of new media with the fantastic began with photography and remains an observable phenomenon today, creating a field of parallel worlds in which fact and fiction intertwine.

Works Cited/Bibliography

Collins, Jo, and John Jervis. “Introduction.” Uncanny Modernity: Cultural Theories, Modern Anxieties. Ed. Jo Collins and John Jervis. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 1-9.

Connor, Steven. “The Machine in the Ghost: Spiritualism, Technology and the ‘Direct Voice’.” Ghosts: Deconstruction, Psychoanalysis, History. Ed. Peter Buse and Andrew Stott. New York, NY: Macmillan, 1999.

Gunning, Tom. "Invisible Worlds, Visible Media." Brought to Light. Ed. Corey Keller. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. 52-63.

Gunning, Tom. “Phantom Images and Modern Manifestations: Spirit Photography, Magic Theater, Trick Films, and Photography’s Uncanny.” Fugitive Images: From Photography to Video. Ed. Patrice Petro. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995. 42- 71.

Gunning, Tom. “Uncanny Reflections, Modern Illusions: Sighting the Modern Optical Uncanny.” Uncanny Modernity: Cultural Theories, Modern Anxieties. Ed. Jo Collins and John Jervis. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008. 68-90.

Nelson, Geoffrey. Spiritualism and Society. New York, NY: Schocken Books, 1969.

Sconce, Jeffrey. Haunted Media: Electronic Presence from Telegraphy to Television. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.