The technological sublime
Jos de Mul. The technological sublime. In: Koert van Mensvoort and Hendrik-Jan Grievink (eds.), Next Nature. Nature Changes Along With Us. Barcelona/New York: Actar, 144-148.
The sublime is an aesthetic concept of ‘the exalted,’ of beauty that is grand and dangerous. Through 17th and 18th century European intellectual tradition, the sublime became intimately associated with nature. Only in the 20th century, did the technological sublime replace the natural sublime. Have our sense of awe and terror been transferred to factories, war machines, and the unknowable, infinite possibilities suggested by computers and genetic engineering?