Aesthetics Over Time
Sunday Edition #25: Also, Churches, Trains, and White Lies
Welcome to the Sunday Edition where I share interesting articles and links alongside what I’ve been up to!
Life is a Room with a TV
This is my favourite genre of
writing: when he pays attention to the detail in how media has changed and what it means. In this article, he looks at Star Trek’s change over the years in how they approach the “viewscreen”, seeing it as a reflection of the times.The evolution of the viewscreen in Star Trek through the decades follows our changing relationship with screens over the decades. In the newer iteration, the viewscreen envelopes the entire bridge of the ship, which eerily reminds me of the Las Vegas sphere. But even though it has much more real estate, the viewscreen is much less central to the plots of Strange New Worlds. In earlier iterations of Star Trek, the viewscreen was something through which you observed and engaged the world at a cool distance, in the new episodes, the viewscreen is just one of many screens through which members of Starfleet access the world. In addition, now there are a plethora of AR screens and continuous data feeds surrounding the crew at all times — mirroring TVs status as just one screen among many in our lives.
Great read.
It made me think about the aesthetics of Star Wars too. It’s stuck in some sense, in a retro-future-junk aesthetic. George Lucas tried to play around with it with the prequels, but since Disney bought it, it’s stayed in the original trilogy aesthetics.
I feel the most interesting place where Star Wars is actually experimenting with aesthetics, is in Visions, where some of the aesthetic cues actually feel quite modern.
The second episode in season 3 has incredible sound and music design that doesn’t feel like it’s the cinematic orchestral energy of John Williams, but more recent inspiration (feels techno). Which, funnily reminded me of a guy who has been layering techno over Star Wars aesthetics (and it actually being a vibe).
Man, sci-fi is so badly in need of entirely new aesthetic overhaul!
American Church Aesthetics
Speaking of aesthetics of its time.
dives into the aesthetic of low strip mall American Churches. (ht Jay)
I often see people post pictures of cheap looking church buildings online in a hostile or derogatory way, and it’s easy to frame it in terms of a denomination’s apathy or ignorance. It’s harder to grapple with it in terms of interlocking ideological, social, and historical factors that, like anything, are a result of their time.
What’s interesting in this essay is also how certain aesthetics simply get stuck in a certain time and later on become seen in a different light to their original designs. For example, the Amish might have originally designed their clothes for modesty and simplicity, but now that fashion has moved on, it’s taken on a new tone that indicates traditionalism and religious conservatism.
It’s an interesting idea… that there are examples of things that stayed the same, but because things changed around it, it attracted *new* connotations without any change done by the thing itself. I tried finding more potential examples:
Church Bells? Still used to tell time and mark occasions. But, hearing it now feels “heritage”.
Shipping Containers? Still used as containers, but it attracted a minimalist aesthetic canvas (like, making homes out of it, or having raves in a shipyard).
Farm windmills? Still used today, but attracted additional solarpunk and bucolic aesthetics.
Barcodes? Still used to day, and now also attracting aesthetics of excessive corporatism.
Tech Core Industrialism? Exposed piping is still there and sometimes not covered, but took on new meaning in tech-core aesthetic (everything remains unfinished, keep iterating, move fast and break things).
Safety Vests? Still used, but came to be also seen as representative of working class protests.
Neon lighting? Not *really* used that much anymore, but beyond its intention for noticeable signage, it’s irrevocably attached to futuristic visions.
Was a fun exercise to think about. Got any more of examples?
Trains Are Innovations In Timetables
I’ve written before on the interesting relationship between timekeeping and trains, especially the result of which was the eventual day of two noons in the US. It was the day that times were synchronised across the US in order to have more consistent timekeeping for cross-continental trains.
Resharing the lovely quote from the New York Times about when time stopped for a few minutes across the US.
At just 9 o’clock, local time, yesterday morning Mr. James Hamblet, General Superintendent of the Time Telegraph Company, and manager of the time service of Western Union Telegraph Company, stopped the pendulum of his standard clock in Room No. 48 in the Western Union Telegraph Building. The long glistening rod and its heavy cylindrical pendulum ball was at rest for 3 minutes and 58.38 seconds. The delicate machinery of the clock rested for the first time in many months. The clicking of the electric instrument on a shelf at the side of the clock ceased and with it ceased the corresponding ticks on similar instruments in many jewelry and watch stores throughout the City. When, as nearly as it could be ascertained, the time stated above had elapsed, the heavy pendulum was again set in motion and swung backward and forward in its never varying trips of one second each from one end of its swing to the other. With the starting of the pendulum the clicking of the little instruments all over the City at intervals of two seconds between each click was resumed. Mr Hamblet had changed the time of New York City and State.
Benedict argues that timetables are the primary innovation and product of trains. (ht Jay).
It’s interesting that he mentions Swiss trains, because when I visited last year, I was really surprised at how tight connections were!
Railways should be optimising for speeds from any station to any other station, not just for speed between the small subset of pairs of stations that happen to be served by the same train. This is an insight that Switzerland recognises.1 Switzerland has developed a unique way of running its trains, known as the integraler Taktfahrplan, which optimises the timetable for connections between different train services. Obviously not every connection can work perfectly, but Switzerland makes as many of them as possible as quick as possible.
It works!
The reliability point may seem risible, but it is true: the possibility of an hour’s delay is just accepted as a fact of life on a road trip or a flight, whereas with railways, we start tutting as soon as the train is merely five minutes late. We become irritated because we hold the railways to a high standard of reliability, and we hold them to that standard because they generally fulfil it.
I’m sure there’s a lot of examples where an infrastructure innovation is actually an accompanying information innovation. But, the most interesting ones are a bit more hidden. Like, being able to see AutoCAD templates in real world construction.
What I’m Up To
🏃♂️ Running - UTCT 35km
I ran the Ultra Trail Cape Town 35km race this morning. Unfortunately, 6km in, it got cancelled due to the high wind and we were turned around. Definitely a disappointment after months of work and life planning, but not much you can do about it. Having seen videos of what the conditions were on top of Table Mountain, would’ve definitely been awful. Regardless, I still enjoyed the short trot out on Table Mountain and still happy that I got to the starting line (with both my brothers)! Hope to one day complete a race like this, and this foundation of fitness I’ll carry into 2026.
📺 Watching - Pluribus
🕹️ Gaming - Smash Bros Ultimate
Hanging with my twin, we always try to fit in a few games of Smash Bros. Still enjoying it after so many years. I really hope we’ll see a new Smash Bros game for the Switch 2. Hopefully soon!
🎶 Listening - White Lies - I Just Wanna Win One Time
Been listening to more of the new White Lies album (Night Light). I’ve been a lifelong White Lies fan and all their albums are an easy 8 out of 10 for me. At first, this album didn’t strike me as much as the previous ones. But, I gave it more time, and it definitely grew on me. Its highs aren’t as high as previous albums, but still a super solid outing from them.
That’s it for this week, folks. Hope you get to enjoy a lovely sunset.
Simon