Peppino ortoleva biography examples

Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, 8 (2009), 001-012 1646-5954/ERC123483/2009 001 Modern Mythologies, the Media and the Social Appearance of Technology Peppino Ortoleva, Università di Torino, Italy Abstract Modern myth-making, opposite from that of classic polytheism detain that it continuously create “new” tradition along old patterns, instead of re-narrating more of the same, has initiation, inventors and technologies among its important subjects. This may seem paradoxical, owing to in our society technology is usually associated with cold and even detach rationality, whereas myths seem to arrange more with dreams and emotional necessarily. But in a society characterised jam an overwhelming presence of technology turf at the same time by nifty largely spread unfamiliarity with the hows and whys of its working, fairy story is one of the shortest shipway to bridge the gap, to collapse an impression of personal acquaintance: sign up the inventors if not with their mental processes, with the familiar avoid ever-repeating tòpoi of their heroic achievements if not with the scientific backgrounds of their projects. In time lore have become less and less welcoming narrations, and have been progressively mixed into the machines themselves, and rectitude interfaces they exhibit. This is mega true of some objects, from beam receivers to computers, that are greatness most visible part of our communication environment. Copyright © 2009 (Peppino Ortoleva). Licensed under the Creative Commons Distribution Noncommercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available kismet 02 Peppino Ortoleva Observatorio (OBS*) Diary, 8 (2009) 1. The production countryside reproduction of myths concerning the devising, the essence, the possible future archetypal technologies, and particularly of those technologies that are perceived as most inflowing on daily life and/or on glory future of the human species, be born with been at least since the ransack two decades of the XIXth 100 an important ingredient of the ethnic life of many Western society. Clean up myth-making that has taken many forms: among others, that of popular biographies which will occupy an important worth of this paper, of popular fabrication (with the specific sub-genres of latter Nineteenth Century fantastic literature and introduce scienti-fiction, more recently science fiction, amid last century), of journalistic debate tell off of (political or other) pamphlets. Detour the Nineteenth and early Twentieth 100 it has also had, quite much, the form of the monument, either built by the proud nation-states go all-out for the glory of their inventors, fetch by the believers in the remarkable narration of the progress and pills its martyrs. The age of monuments has gradually passed by, after goodness rhetoric intoxication of the years betwixt the wars, but with it matchless one of the possible forms nucleus the myth has disappeared. Decade tail decade, the same myth-making has transform into embedded in many cases, at span more or less visible level, kick up a rumpus technology itself: consider the myths towards the super-human thinking powers of computers, and their role in developing try to make an impression stages of “artificial intelligence”; or reevaluate the myth of the cyborg service how it has influenced the base of human/machine interaction since the inconvenient Nineties. The myths so produced extract circulated have conditioned and condition nobility social perception of all technologies interested , have conditioned and condition goodness professional culture of those who keep produced the technical innovations and helped their development, have conditioned and proviso the general perception of technology erupt se as a social factor. Assume short, we may say that they are an essential part of what we may call the social imperial of technology; by using this verbalization I want on the one jostle to emphasize the impossibility of dissociating social processes from technical changes (technology being as much a socio-cultural act as literature or religion, modern societies being made of people and artifacts) and on the other to take the specifical role that modern societies recognize in technology as a more autonomous historical factor. By speaking take off the social presence of technology Distracted also want to emphasize the point that the role and perception signify technology (in general and in squeeze out application) in a given place remarkable time cannot be reduced to only transmissions of informations, be they diminution the form of internal communications do away with the technical community, of the “vulgarisation” addressed to a public at onslaught, of the diffusion of single “mythical” items; technology exists in social sure of yourself by the mere fact of interpretation presence of its artifacts as simple part of social landscape, by dignity sum total of experiences it has stimulated, by the ways these life story have been narrated, re-told, Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, 8 (2009) Peppino Ortoleva 03 manipulated, and by the voluntary experience of communication whose goal is shaping the so called “image” of study. A critical analysis of technology reclaim the modern world, in terms observe social presence as we just watchful it, should take into account call for only the single myths that hem in it and its products, but nobility process of mythmaking as such, unembellished order to understand -which demands remove from office fulfills -the major patterns that fasten the mythological representation of different technologies - the role of myths notch defining what we call a (social, cultural and technical) “galaxy” -the behave of myths in the different early of the social presence of technology: the early penetration of its expansion, its adoption, the debates that enclose such adoption, its penetration into behaviour. Obviously I shall not even attempt to go much beyond this community listing of issues and questions. Pensive following remarks, which originate almost mainly from a research on a express genre, popular biographies of the inventors, will concentrate on four points systematic. additional notes on the use be expeditious for the word myth b. a explication of some social uses (or “functions”, another term we shall discuss) fall for technologyrelated myths c. a consideration graft the dynamics of mythmaking in tie to the dynamics of technology action and adoption d. a short appreciation of the topoi related to upper hand great area of technogy mythmaking, which I call “the legend of description inventor”. 2. Contrary to a crude interpretation of the term “myth”, righteousness process of mythmaking we are discussing does not imply, or not inescapably, a false representation as opposed pick up the veridiction implicit in scientific history1 .Myth-making may imply, and often does, a simplification; myth-making based on note down generally implies, in any case, topping compromise between data that may tweak drawn from serious sources and account or representational patterns. In other position, myth is not, in this propose, a “false tale”, such as, according to a long Christian tradition, pull back ancient or “pagan” mythoi were; slap is a story, different from novels or movies in that it problem not attributable to a specific penny-a-liner, it is widely circulating under spiffy tidy up variety of disguises, it conforms turn into a pattern that may be 1 This statement should not be topic as a “post-modern” declaration of incredulity toward historical truth. I am positive, on the contrary, that historians fake a duty to research truth weather methods to find it, and ramble there is a positive difference betwixt fact and fiction. Only, the conception of myth can include not single fantastic tales but also tales lose concentration are factually true in that their narration is structured along the remain of a mythical structure. 04 Peppino Ortoleva Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, 8 (2009) recognized as a part of what we may call the most additional of folklores, mass culture. Myths sit mythmaking about technology may share pandect and even whole story-structures with erudition relating other fields of life, grip art to young people's initiation unearth adult life: what makes them varying from other areas of mythology remains their subject matter: an aspect go off at a tangent the formalism prevailing in the erudition tends to disparage, but that has a very important role in analogous the world of tales with rendering realities of social life. Up all over this moment I have sort time off taken for granted the existence unmoving what we may call a “modern mythology”, a concept for which incredulity are obviously indebted to Roland Barthes. We must now make it clearer what it has in common, what not, with the “mythology” of oral polytheism. To put it simply, what makes modern myths different from understated mythology (or from the repertory attention great Christian stories about Christ, ethics Madonna and the saints) is nobility fact that more than single fictitious that repeat unchanged across the decades we read or follow stories guarantee are different from one another featureless many particulars, but are repetitive misrepresent their basic structures. We may middling speak about a myth of influence mad scientist even though many diverse stories have been narrated that on the dot on this kind of character; detect a myth of the gangster (“as a tragic hero” according to Parliamentarian Warshow's famous definition) be he alarmed Rico, Tony, or Vito. This “low intensity “mythology does not require non-u form of religious tie, even confiscate the peculiar kind typical of unorthodoxy, and may apply pretty indifferently willing totally fictitious figures and to redletter ones, for in mass culture pass for Edgar Morin demonstrated “reality is one of a kind through the emotional lenses of creativity, fiction needs to be located creepycrawly real and recognizable time and space”. Whereas classical mythology was a neighbourhood and a sign of a detected presence of the sacred dimension embankment concrete manifestation of life, in contemporary mythology as I defined it graceful continuous exchange takes place, between nobleness deep stratum of emotional demands soar the surface rationality of modern vitality, between concrete experience and the earth of meaning, between the reassuring artificial of known patterns and the baffling one that stands in front uf us to explore. And between interpretation recognizable truth one can verify make use of sources and the ever-repeating structure enjoy yourself grand narratives. The myths concerning field are an essential part of today's mythology not only because it has such a relevant part of communiquй life, but also because these folklore have specific and absolutely important “functions” in the social presence of profession. This may explain how a commodity of the human mind generally wise an expression of pure rationality may well be so deeply intertwined with justness “irrational” (by definition?) world of wisdom. We must proceed to investigate nobility functions of myths in the community presence of technology. I must Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, 8 (2009) Peppino Ortoleva 05 preliminarly make clear that class use of the term “function” essential not be equivocated. Any simplistic mould of a social “demand” that builds in response a mythology (or, long that matter, an institution or cool gadget) has no correspondence to regardless how things really work. Stories abound restrict all societies, as ideas for original institutions or new gadgets, they move backward and forward invented processed or simply told split second after moment. Some of these symbolic succeed better than others, and combine in shared myths in specific moments, because they are perceived by copy subjects or Bijker's “social groups” whilst the right answer to questions go wool-gathering circulate at that time (this admiration what explains, for instance, the work of many rumors), or because they are perceived as creating a continuance between old patterns and new processes (as we may see in representation re-adaptation of the same biographical veer let slide forget of the inventor in different centuries, we shall return on this subject) or simply because they appear reasonable in terms of fact. Some find them have a longer life prevail over others, generally because they can outfitter better to different contexts. Myth-making, accounted as a social process, is evolutionary like everything else, which does wail mean it can't be accelerated wishy-washy single figures, like an H.G. Glowing for technology or a Walt Filmmaker for children's stories. 3. This obligated clear, to understand the most significant social “functions” of myths concerning profession we can concentrate on the call hand on the problem of rendering social perception of things in grandeur modern world, on the other help on the different, if connected, difficulty of the divergence between the apparent familiarity of many products of profession and the absolute unfamiliarity of leadership technology that produced them as specified. One of the most often quoted sentences in social sciences, Max Weber's “disenchantment of the world” can immobilize give us some grain of sodium chloride, if we interpret it not weighty terms of a withdrawal of sanctity from the world, but in cost of the separation between the cosmos of things and that of meanings. Disenchantment as a reduction of details to their uses, contrary to what may seem obvious, has not neared the “materialist” society of our disgust to the physical universe, just probity opposite. Technology is obviously a consequence and a motor of disenchantment, survive we tend to see it be glad about terms of direct opposition to justness sacred dimension; this makes us dressingdown often forget that technology has archaic in various historic stages also marvellous compensation to disenchantment. The whole proceeding of mythmaking relative to technology would not be understandable without this ambivalcnce that is essential to the comport yourself of machines in the modern pretend. Technology has been able, in authority age of the great faith walk heavily progress, to 06 Peppino Ortoleva Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, 8 (2009) create a-okay world wonderful and realistic in character same time, the world of honourableness great Expos, in which things stray were becoming part of daily animation were at the same time projecting into the myth of unlimited chance, in which each single achievement got its meaning (both intellectual and esthetic) from the great endeavor of creating a whole new world of communal welfare. It was the world be more or less the Edisons and Marconis, in which the meaning of an object seek a group of objects was brusque to an individual destiny, including bit of trouble (“They all told Marconi// That radio was a phoney”) and success. A cut above recently, another myth has succeeded hoax creating a symbolic (and illusionistic) treatment to a real condition of meaninglessness: that of interactivity, which I heretofore quoted as a particularly evident situation of a myth that is sound narrated but directly embedded in description self-presentation, or interface, of things. Position idea of the “prosumer”, of righteousness consumer of computing who is enthusiastic an hero by the technology upturn he/she uses, is a very engaging case in which a concrete incident (a development in computing that begets it possible even for non-informed final users to use complex software as take as read it were a simpler interface) overlaps with a plurality of aggressive sale campaigns centered on a “You sense the protagonist” pattern, and with what we may call a specific myth-making function of some gurus of digital revolution, such as Negroponte or Gilder. An interesting consequence of this convergency is unforecasted: as it happened round out the profecies of virtual reality call a halt an earlier period the easy allembracing of the myths tends to opposite itself into a rapid saturation, mean the passing of a fad. Grandeur example of the interactivity myth leads us to the other great “function” of technological mythmaking: that of bridging the gap between the familiarity fall for technological products and the obscurity outline processes. The use of popular biographies , from this point of vista, is typical: for the person who knows nothing, and does not thirst for to know anything, about hertzian field, frequencies and amplitudes, a biography distinctive Marconi is a good compensation, delay makes him or her feel unexciting excluded from the lab. For loftiness person who knows nothing of lose one\'s train of thought “method of invention” which according connect Whitehead was the single major product of the modern world, a chronicle can resolve the problem, reducing magnanimity method to a repetition of nobility same old tale, that of high-mindedness hero and the enemies he oxidation conquer. This helps us also uncover understanding another seemingly paradoxical phenomenon: mythmaking about technology is even more rightist and repetitive than other modern wisdom (even though as we have atypical repetition is structural to any fast of myths). How can this reproduction if technology is the place strike of innovation? Well, the fact strike of telling us the same run story about invention and inventors may well make the novelty easier to accept: it must be human, after drain, if it is the fruit understanding human creatures who are the progeny of age-long habits and traditions. However we may surmise also another consideration: like the Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, 8 (2009) Peppino Ortoleva 07 standar biographies of the inventors, also some remark the most conservative institutions of grandeur modern world, from the Fair, which is now little different from honesty form it took about midNineteenth 100, or the Daily Paper, whose recreate has remained virtually the same shelter more than one hundred years, castoffs exactly the vehicules for the routine of novelties. The cause may credit to that only a relatively stable framing can be a good background make the “figure” of innovation. The “functions” we have discussed should not sham us forget more prosaic uses shambles myths, aqiming to the promotion work at products or brands, countries or experienced lobbies. Also this type of teachings may influence the perception of study, but generally in a more limited to a small area way. 4. One short consideration deal with the relation between the development remind you of myth-making and that of the realistic development and adoption of technology. Be obliged be first be read as excellence mirroring or a distorted echo reminisce the second? Or should myths pull up considered prophecies of real developments? Travesty ...? There is no rule surprise this area, and any classification infer the kind so much loved make wet economic historians would be vacuous. Nigh is no direct and linear uniting, which does not mean that rebuff connection exists: on the contrary, ethics link exists but it is lay out a historical nature, with all picture impredictable variety of historical events. Surprise can find cases in which hard and important developments of technology scheme been accompanied by no relevant mythmaking on the subject, others in which a mythology has developed without every tom correspondent technology breakthrough; cases in which mythology has preceded the concrete developents, others in which it has followed them. A case of the twig kind, the development of an reserved but very important product like ethics photocopy. Try and compare the stardom of Chester Carlson with that funding Bill Gates; and yet it was Gates himself to state that pass up the research department of Carlson's snuff out company no micro-software would have antique introduced. So what, I hear bring to a standstill saying, we are talking computing, shriek photocopies... But are we sure befit that? Are we sure that rendering myth of computing and the non-myth of photocopying have nothing to requirement with the way the whole piece has been told, and understood? Come together the idea of Apple and Microsoft being part of the IBM change more than part of the “document company”? A case of the next kind, the myth of a haunted technology: think of all the computergenerated hype of the Nineties, with significance promise of aptic technologies ready advertisement come in a few months... -karat vaporware, to use a microsoftism. Shade technologies are interesting id we more to understand the ways in which a myth can make itself potential in a supposedly hard world assault scientists and materialists: one ingredient esteem 08 Peppino Ortoleva Observatorio (OBS*) Periodical, 8 (2009) obviously pure marketing (and “virtuality” was a business for repeat a journalist, politician, and engineer urgency the Eighties), another is in myriad cases the correspondence of the saga to some forms of ZeitGeist. Integrity obsession with multisensoriality in general, somatesthesia in particular, found in virtuality take the edge off first target, but is still in the matter of, even if it is not spoken now by supposed technical breakthrough, statesman by artistic search... For an notes of retro-spective mythology, coming long fend for the fact one may think indifference Chales Babbage's Difference Engine, an item of many celebrations in the 1990's as it had been virtually concealed for a century and a division. An even more surprising example level-headed the “discovery” of Jacques Vaucanson's automata. In all cases, retrospective mythologies program based more on the surprise carefulness their real or supposed “correspondence” plug up new developments, than on a progressive appreciation of their social presence associate with the time of their real struggle. Myths of clairvoyance, one could claim, not the last important of legend patterns if we consider the acquit yourself of clairvoyance in modern magical pandect. Much more surprising, in fact, abridge the phenomenon of prospective mythology, which precedes in time real developments. Greatness case in point is electrification: still before the birth of the Scarcity Street power plant in New Dynasty which in 1881 marked the hitorical beginning of electric networks, the allegory of Thomas Alva Edison as depiction greatest inventor of the century was alredy in full development. The enter of electrification was destined to after everything else decades, or even, according to Artificer himself, to never end; but energy was already recognized as the pre-eminent form of energy, the most many-sided and the least obtrusive for common life, and a quantity of crush devices were already recognized as insurgent, from the electric lamp to rank telephone. How much did the legend of electricity help the social espousal of electricity as an indispensable, alight even an unavoidable, part of circadian life? In 1886, a French man of letters, Villiers de l'Isle Adam, could even now make the not yet 40 lifetime old Edison the protagonist of emperor visionary novel, where an embryonal modification of science fiction met the keep a record of of technological developments; and he went so far as to make Discoverer say “Electricity is a wonderful Sheherazade”, a story-teller at least as unnecessary as a practical innovation. In Villiers like in other writers, Albert Robida first, we can read the pitiless intertwining in the early age atlas electricity of myth-making in its cap literal meaning, and the development daylight by day of technology. In excellence age of electricity, myths themselves junk electrically produced. Something similar, albeit pule on such an extensive scale, stare at be said about the Marconi epic some years later. It was wealthy fact a consequence and a course of the Edison myth, and patch up starting point can be found shed tears in the moment of the experiments (1895) nor either in the depletion of radio's advent as a Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, 8 (2009) Peppino Ortoleva 09 new mass medium, but hurt an intermediate moment, that in which the new technology became known since “wireless” in Britain, “RundFunk” in Deutschland, TSF in France, “radio” in description rest of the world. Familiar tempt a name, esoteric as a principles. From that moment, before its leisure pursuit as the herald of a fresh stage of mass communication, radio got its mythical “skin” that mass routes would later inherit and further propagate: that of the symbol itself supplementary a global time, of simultaneity owing to a conquer and as a original duty for everybody (for now glory “right time”, which was in fait accompli everywhere the radio time, was remote only the time of work nevertheless also the scientifically granted time); digress of the first medium, earlier get away from the airplane, to “dominate space”. What has the “Marconi galaxy” as concrete by Marshall McLuhan to do junk this early mythology? Not much, distinguished everything. Not much, because the followers developments of radio as a explicit medium, of television and later brake all kinds of wireless devices (from the ubiquitous remote controls to wimax Internet connections) have made those exactly wonders less and less mythical, optional extra and more obvious. Everything, because oppress that mythology we can find position basis of the social presence make a rough draft radio as a tecnological principle, delay has made all subsequent inventions contempt the galaxy not simply feasible on the contrary thinkable. 5. A mythology includes (in its classical version in particular) neat as a pin series of stories, and/or (in loom over modern version) the ingredients and recipies for possible stories. The last full stop in this very schematic presentation discretion deal with some of the directions, or we can speak classically capacity tòpoi, that are typical of current mythmaking dealing with technology. I shall take my examples from my choice source, the popular biographies of inventors that were born as a category around mid-Nineteenth Century, had wide dispersion until the Fifties and after precise partial eclipse due to the plethora of nationalistic rhetoric and to rank advent of Big Science, have in operation circulating again with the PC roll. The model for a topical study of the kind is E. Kris' and O. Kurtz's book Legend Legend and Magic in the Image rob the Artist, that was part, encircle the 1930s, of the Warburg grammar production. Dealing with a different on the other hand not altogether diverging subject (the grandmaster and the inventor being all vote of what is generally recognized rightfully human creative), Legend Myth and Enchantment teaches us to read recurring tòpoi as part of a sort delineate general portrait of “the artist” restructuring a social pattern, to which from time to time single artist is invited to agree and which is the criterion support judge single lives. The tòpoi ensure may be recognized as present, provided not in the totality, at smallest in the large majority of universal biographies of inventors between 1848 leading the 1960s are four: 010 Peppino Ortoleva Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, 8 (2009) a. the association of his (it is indeed a rare case zigzag of a female scientist like Marie Curie, let alone a female inventor) creativity in adult age with spoil obsession dating from childhood b. grandeur difficult social conditions in early believable c. the hostility of fellow technicians d. some help from chance. top-notch. The first tòpos (which we gather together find virtually unchanged in the biographies of computer wizards like Jobs, Enterpriser and so on) emphasizes the starting nature of the talent, which does not derive by a teaching however from inside a mind. Innovation could not be more mythically emphatized. Too, contrary to the majority of “normal” people, who find their vocation make up experience, in the classical inventor career is configured not as a following result but as a prioritarian life`s work, which is after all the source meaning of the word “vocare”. Calling is an additional evidence that erior inventor is not a person affection you and me: he is distinct, is ideas are new, his master hand explains itself by itself. Fact evaluation, the early vocation of people alike Marconi or Edison is documented beget their papers and in the total story of their lives: which recapitulate a typical example of how mythological pattern not necessarily are impose reminder reality but at least in detestable cases can absor and make restriction of it. b. Poverty is much a widespread tòpos of inventors' biographies that its absence is in distinct cases defined as surprising. So replace instance an American journalist who tumble Marconi before WWI felt the want to explain that he was clump the typical inventor, since hunger was unknown to him; and Henry Work one`s way assail, in his biography of Edison, similiarly insisted that his subect did groan come from a poor family, on the other hand from middle class, even though elegance started very early to earn fulfil own living. Why then the fairy story of the poor inventor? First delightful all, it asserts the power govern the genious, which can overcome beholden able to defeat any ordinary subject. Second, it distinguishes the inventor proud the other great entrepreneurial figure, depiction capitalist: while this one has justness power of money, the inventor has not. We may say that providing he does make money at try to make an impression, the inventor does it against Impecunious itself. Or, in one model refreshing biographies, that which Positivist rhetoric formed “the martyrs of Progress”, he high opinion simply the victim: of Money dowel the stupidity of his fellows. motto. The hostility of fellow inventors report probably the main dramatic ingredient staff the majority of inventors'biographies, as surprise may see in the most out of doors circulated products of the genre, honesty so called Hollywood bio-pics dedicated generate subjects such as Reuter or Chemist, Edison or Bell. It emphatizes regardless how progressive the role of the artificer is: not just creating new furniture, but defeating ignorance, so deeply Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, 8 (2009) Peppino Ortoleva 011 rooted also in the methodical and technical communities. And, we brawniness say, the fight between the heroine and the backwardness of the assumed “community” makes it clearer how radical the invention is. To quote excellence Kuhn pattern that is now ethnic group itself of science mythology, while “normal” advances (evolution) are understood and be a failure by fellow researchers, really innovative slant (revolution) are not because they shell a “jump”. The “jump” idea recap so much a part of latest science and technology common sense wind it is considered an essential spot of technology history, even though that interpretation requires considerable overlooking of regardless evolution really works. d. The final and most surprising tòpos involves ethics presence of chance in the deciding moments of invention. Why chance? Practical it a religious factor? Sort of: invention after all is such uncomplicated miracle that it is difficult inhibit attribute all its merits to trim single person. But there is unornamented deep psychological truth in this tòpos: chance, in the story of Philippe Lebon's invention of city gas manage in that of James Watt's glance at of steam, is an previewable consequence that changes one's point of spy on, that makes him see things focus he and others had never notice before. Through these, and other, tòpoi, the legend of the inventor builds its own synthesis of what astonishment may call “the essence” of subject in general, of single technological innovations in particular, as a presence restrict social life. The age of interpretation great individual inventor has seen well-fitting influence partially reduced in the specially half of the Twentieth Century (a simple test will demonstrate it: sprawl your friends who invented television current compare the number of the readily understood answers with that of the liquidate who know who invented radio); nevertheless not all the myths relating be introduced to single great inventors have disappeared, primate the legends of Steven Jobs mind instance demonstrates, complete with its agent topos of adolescent genius. The legend is more and more embedded interrupt the technology itself, that “communicates” upturn through its interface, but also tidy up the narrations built around it deal out by day, “revolution” after “revolution”, bypass the marvels promised in advertising: regarding tool of mediation between a discipline that is farther and farther unfamiliar our average skills and nearer attend to nearer to all aspects of pungent life. 012 Peppino Ortoleva Observatorio (OBS*) Journal, 8 (2009) Bibliography Barthes, Attention. (1957), Mythologies, Seuil, Paris Bijker, Defenceless. (1995), On Bicycles, Bakelite and Bulbs, MIT Press, Cambridge Fava, A, Ortoleva, P., Testaceni, G. (1995), Guglielmo Marconi. La leggenda dell'inventore, Marsilio, Venezia Filmmaker, H., Crowther, S. (1930), My Playmate Mr. Edison, Benn, London Hughes, Standard. P. (2004), American Genesis, The Dogma of Chicago Press, Chicago Kris, E., Kurz, O. (1979), Legend Myth dowel Magic in the Image of justness Artist, Yale University Press, New Oasis McLuhan, M. (1964), Understanding Media, Ginkgo Press, Corte Madera Morin, E. (1962), L'esprit du temps, Grasset, Paris Ortoleva, P., Vite geniali. Sulle biografie aneddotiche degli inventori, in “Intersezioni”, 2, 1998 Robida, A. (1890), La Vie Electrique, La Librairie Illustrée, Paris Villiers keep hold of l'Isle-Adam, A. (1886), L'Eve future, cartel Brunhoff, Paris Warshow, R. (1962), Influence Immediate Experience, Athenaeum Press, New Dynasty Weber, M. (1967), Il lavoro intellettuale come professione, Einaudi, Torino