string and storytelling
Richard Aedy: David, when did we invent string?
David Turnbull: Well the precise point in time of course is impossible to identify but the most secure dates for the earliest evidence of it is 26,000BC in impressions on baked balls of clay found in central Europe roughly where Czcchoslovakia is now.
Richard Aedy: It seems like a very kind of mundane idea string but it actually turned out to be quite important didn’t it?
David Turnbull: I think it was more than quite important and apart from mundane I think it was revolutionary. A woman called Elizabeth Barber, wrote a book five years ago called Women’s Work in which she had a throw away line, the string revolution. From my perspective, humble though string may be, it actually provided the possibility of everything that now constitutes the basis of civilisation. It’s humble in the sense that it’s merely fibre but it’s revolutionary in two senses. In the sense that it overthrows the orthodox understanding of the history of technology which is based on the 5% of the remains we’ve found to date, all of which are made of stone, hence the usoe the term lithic as in Neolithic, Paleolithic and so on.
We organise our understanding of the history of technology in terms of how big a stone, how cleverly shaped and formed they were. Whereas no stone was all that useful unless you had the capacity to join things together. And this is what string does for you, string makes baskets, it makes nets, it makes cordage, it enables you to haft things, join things, weave things, make things and in fact 95% of all our original technology was made either of plant fibre or wood. Nearly all of which has entirely evaporated, just gone to dust in the record.
Richard Aedy: So string was the first joining technology basically and from that profound implications?
David Turnbull: From that we were able to make cloth, textiles, from that we were able to make nets, from that we were able to make baskets. And the fundamental characteristic of such technologies is that enables you to move, it enables you to feed yourself, enables you to trap small birds. And the whole history of the origins of technology now needs to be rewritten in the light of what you might call ‘soft technology’ as opposed to what we’re stuck with at the moment which is basically ‘hard technology’ which has also shaped our understandings of how technology works today.
Richard Aedy: And story telling is the thing that provides the information or did in the past, is that what you’re saying?
David Turnbull: Story telling is how a particular piece of technology becomes seamlessly integrated into our cultural practices.
Richard Aedy: So if we tell stories about a piece of technology then we understand it, and we’re comfortable with it, and we can use it?
David Turnbull: That’s right?
Richard Aedy: And if we don’t tell stories about that piece of technology it’s going to bewilder us.
David Turnbull: And it’s also the case it’s how be bring technologies into existence we, as it were, dream them into existence, we tell ourselves stories about how things could be, should be. Much of modern high tech is a form of narrating into existence in a sense – tell a story to see who catches it.
Richard Aedy: So you think this is still happening now David?
David Turnbull: Oh absolutely.
Richard Aedy: We didn’t abandon this along the way?
David Turnbull: No, no, it’s an essential component of all human culture throughout time.
Richard Aedy: Storytelling.
David Turnbull: Storytelling.
Richard Aedy: And a big part of it was because of technology.
David Turnbull: Storytelling and technology go together I think.
interview from The Buzz Monday 27 May 2002
David Turnbull: Well the precise point in time of course is impossible to identify but the most secure dates for the earliest evidence of it is 26,000BC in impressions on baked balls of clay found in central Europe roughly where Czcchoslovakia is now.
Richard Aedy: It seems like a very kind of mundane idea string but it actually turned out to be quite important didn’t it?
David Turnbull: I think it was more than quite important and apart from mundane I think it was revolutionary. A woman called Elizabeth Barber, wrote a book five years ago called Women’s Work in which she had a throw away line, the string revolution. From my perspective, humble though string may be, it actually provided the possibility of everything that now constitutes the basis of civilisation. It’s humble in the sense that it’s merely fibre but it’s revolutionary in two senses. In the sense that it overthrows the orthodox understanding of the history of technology which is based on the 5% of the remains we’ve found to date, all of which are made of stone, hence the usoe the term lithic as in Neolithic, Paleolithic and so on.
We organise our understanding of the history of technology in terms of how big a stone, how cleverly shaped and formed they were. Whereas no stone was all that useful unless you had the capacity to join things together. And this is what string does for you, string makes baskets, it makes nets, it makes cordage, it enables you to haft things, join things, weave things, make things and in fact 95% of all our original technology was made either of plant fibre or wood. Nearly all of which has entirely evaporated, just gone to dust in the record.
Richard Aedy: So string was the first joining technology basically and from that profound implications?
David Turnbull: From that we were able to make cloth, textiles, from that we were able to make nets, from that we were able to make baskets. And the fundamental characteristic of such technologies is that enables you to move, it enables you to feed yourself, enables you to trap small birds. And the whole history of the origins of technology now needs to be rewritten in the light of what you might call ‘soft technology’ as opposed to what we’re stuck with at the moment which is basically ‘hard technology’ which has also shaped our understandings of how technology works today.
Richard Aedy: And story telling is the thing that provides the information or did in the past, is that what you’re saying?
David Turnbull: Story telling is how a particular piece of technology becomes seamlessly integrated into our cultural practices.
Richard Aedy: So if we tell stories about a piece of technology then we understand it, and we’re comfortable with it, and we can use it?
David Turnbull: That’s right?
Richard Aedy: And if we don’t tell stories about that piece of technology it’s going to bewilder us.
David Turnbull: And it’s also the case it’s how be bring technologies into existence we, as it were, dream them into existence, we tell ourselves stories about how things could be, should be. Much of modern high tech is a form of narrating into existence in a sense – tell a story to see who catches it.
Richard Aedy: So you think this is still happening now David?
David Turnbull: Oh absolutely.
Richard Aedy: We didn’t abandon this along the way?
David Turnbull: No, no, it’s an essential component of all human culture throughout time.
Richard Aedy: Storytelling.
David Turnbull: Storytelling.
Richard Aedy: And a big part of it was because of technology.
David Turnbull: Storytelling and technology go together I think.
interview from The Buzz Monday 27 May 2002
posted by katharine s. willis at 11:29 am
1 Comments:
Your comments on the antiquity, importance, and transience of string reminded me of:
Madame Dieterlen, an old Africa hand, gave me coffee in her caravan on the edge of the Dogon cliff. I asked her what traces the Bororo Peul - cattle herders of the Sahel - would leave for an archeologist once they had moved off a campsite.
She thought for a moment, and answered, ‘They scatter the ashes of their fires. No. Your archeologist would not find those. But the women do weave little chaplets from grass stems, and hang them from the branches of their shade tree,’
The Songlines by Bruce Chatwin, 1987, Picador. p. 206
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