Cultural Studies
Of Pencils and Pixels
Sonja Neef’s ‘Abdruck und Spur’ (‘Imprint and Trace’, 2008) offers a sweeping re-evaluation of the relationship of handwriting and technology. While the historical part of the book may be overambitious, insofar as it discusses even the evolutionary origins of handedness, reviewer Frank Berzbach applauds Neef for successfully defending her claim that ‘there is no final dichotomy between, on the one hand, printing as a mechanical, technical, or digital way of writing and, on the other hand, handwriting as an individual, unique, and singular trace’; instead, the two have been historically and systematically intertwined, and the Manual continues to survive in the Digital.
Where Techno Lives
After a much publicised boom in the 1990s, Berlin’s club culture has received comparatively little attention in recent years. However, as reviewer Norbert Niclauss writes, a new book by Tobias Rapp (“Lost and Sound”, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 2009) shows that, despite its reduced ‘surface visibility’, the culture of techno music in Berlin is alive and well. Indeed, Niclauss argues, Rapp’s book should not only be of interest to aficionados of techno music, but also to cultural policy-makers, since the current flourishing of medium-sized clubs and venues can only be understood against the backdrop of the wholesale failure of earlier urban redevelopment efforts.
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