JULIA KLEINHEIDER
POSITION PAPER
Wolfgang Schivelbusch. The
Railway Journey: the Industrialization of Time and space in the 19th
Century.
In his
chapter on “Panoramic Travel,” Schivelbusch explores
the effects of the new intensity of railway travel in the 19th
century and the ensuing changes in sensory, especially visual, perception. For
travelers accustomed to experiencing a “close relationship” with the passing
landscape, the projectile-like quality of railway travel caused the distortion
of pre-industrial visual perception and spatial experience. The velocity of
railway travel and the consequent sensory effects provoked both positive and
negative reaction. On one hand, the rapidity and “greater number of visual
impressions” to be processed meant a diminished quality of perception. For
example, Schivelbusch quotes RuskinÂ’s assertion that
“all traveling becomes dull in exact proportion to its rapidity” (58). On the
other hand, however, the assimilation of the sensory effects was seen as
creating a new landscape—one that could only be appreciated by traveling at the
new velocities and from the new perspectives of the railway carriage.
In this
“tendency to see the discrete indiscriminately,” (61) resulting from the
“intrinsically monotonous” landscape as viewed by the railway traveler, we are
presented with the idea of ‘panoramic’ perception. Schivelbusch
asserts that:
Panoramic perception, in contrast to traditional perception,
no longer belonged to the same space as the perceived object: the traveler saw
the objects, landscapes, etc. through the apparatus which moved him through the
world. That machine and the motion it created became integrated into his visual
perception: thus he could only see things in motion. That mobility of
vision—for a traditionally orientated sensorium, such
as Ruskin’s, an agent fro the dissolution of reality—became a prerequisite for
the ‘normality of panoramic vision. This vision no longer experienced
evanescence: evanescent reality had become the new reality” (64)
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For Schivelbusch, as well as reconfiguring the relationship
between travelers and landscape, railway travel contributed to the development
of conceptions of “equality” and redefined communication between passengers
themselves. In his fifth chapter, Schivelbusch
outlines arguments that portrayed the railroad as the “technical guarantor of
democracy” through both technological equality and the realization that every
traveler equally became an “object of an industrial process”—whether lower
class or bourgeoisie (73).
The spatial
organization of the railway carriage is explored as the locus of changing
interpersonal communication and self-perception. Georg
Simmel is cited as recognizing the increased reliance
on visual perception as transforming the way humans interacted. For Schivelbusch, the train compartment fostered this idea of
relationships based on “mere sight,” which “forced the travelers into a relationship
based no longer on living need but an embarrassment” (74). The compartment
produced isolation for the passenger on both the level of interpersonal
communication and spatial situation. “The compartment’s total
optical and acoustical isolation from the rest of the train and its
inaccessibility during the journey caused the travelersÂ’ interrelationships to
change from mere embarrassment at silence to fear of potential mutual threat”
(79). The increasing occurrence of crime necessitated the rethinking of
the compartmentÂ’s design in order to allow communication.
In these
chapters, Schivelbusch provides an interesting
analysis that can be integrated into our discussion regarding flânerie and the reaction to and assimilation of new
visual/sensory experience. In what way is the change
in sensory perception experienced by the railway passenger comparable to that
of the flâneur? Schivelbusch
and Benjamin both discuss, to some extent, the shock associated with a new kind
of sensory experience. In what way are the coping strategies of the flâneur and the coping strategies of the railway traveler
(note SchivelbuschÂ’s special focus on reading, for
example) significant, and in what way might these strategies help us better
understand the assimilation (or lack thereof?) of a new visuality?
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