Leonardo Reviews
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Leonardo reviews Leonardo reviews Shannon, Jim Fisk, Melvin Kelly, Wil- Editor-in-Chief: Michael Punt liam Baker, John Pierce, William Shock- Managing Editor: Bryony Dalefield ley). Overall, The Idea Factory reads more like a narrative documenting Associate Editors: Dene Grigar, the rise and fall of Bell Labs, which I Martha Blassnigg, Hannah Drayson assume was the author’s intention, than A full selection of reviews is pub- a study of how the work at Bell Labs lished monthly on the LR web site: was a part of a larger revolution in the <leonardoreviews.mit.edu>. 20th century. Because Gertner focused on the Labs’ story through looking at “heroes,” rather than adopting a more systemic approach, the Labs’ impact on Books the culture as a whole is underempha- sized. He mentions that at its peak, in the 1960s, Bell Labs employed nearly he dea acTory eLL T i F : B 15,000 people, including some 1,200 LaBs and The GreaT aGe Ph.D.s, but fails to fully capture the oF american innovaTion scope of the projects that these people by Jon Gertner. Penguin Press, New conducted at this intellectual utopia. York, NY, U.S.A. 2012. 432 pp. Trade. Thus, the end result of his study is less ISBN-13: 978-1-5942-0328-2. a definitive history than a narrowly conceived perspective. Given Gertner’s Reviewed by Amy Ione, Director, the extensive use of interviews and primary Diatrope Institute, Berkeley, CA 94704, documents, it seems extraordinary U.S.A. E-mail: <[email protected]>. projects to foreseeably money-making that he missed so much of what I have innovations. always thought was an important part of In the opening sentence of The Idea AT&T’s monopoly, which ended in Bell’s creative legacy. Factory, Jon Gertner states, “This is a 1982, was put in place when the U.S. book about the origins of modern Congress passed the Willis-Graham communication as seen through the Act of 1921. This legislation exempted adventures of several men who spent the company from federal antitrust their careers working at Bell Labs” laws, allowing the company to func- (p. 1). Gertner goes on to explain tion as a government-mandated “natu- that the Bell Labs environment was ral monopoly.” The premise behind Reviews Panel: Allan Graubard, Amy Ione, an incubator of innovation and offers the law was that AT&T inhabited a Anastasia Filippoupoliti, Annick Bureaud, a narrative documenting many of the problem-rich environment because Anna B. Creagh, Anthony Enns, Aparna they needed to invent from scratch Sharma, Boris Jardine, Brian Reffin Smith, transitional technologies of the 20th Catalin Brylla, Chris Cobb, Claudia Wes- century that were created from within everything that we associate with the termann, Claudy Opdenkamp, Craig Har- this culture. Among the best known telephone industry (dial tones, hang-up ris, Craig J. Hilton, Dene Grigar, Eduardo are the transistor, methods to cool and hooks, telephone ringers, etc.). This Miranda, Elizabeth McCardell, Elizabeth trap atoms with laser light, Charge unique set of circumstances allowed Straughan, Ellen Pearlman, Enzo Ferrara, Eugene Thacker, Florence Martellini, Flutor Coupled Device (CCD) semiconduc- the monopoly to develop a manufactur- Troshani, Franc Chamberlain, Fred Andersson, tor imaging sensors and the discovery ing entity, Western Electric—the sole Frieder Nake, George Gessert, George K. of the predicted level of background provider of equipment—and a research Shortess, Giovanna Costantini, Hannah cosmic radiation left over from the Big and development arm, Bell Telephone Drayson, Hannah Rogers, Harriet Hawkins, Bang. It is often stated, and Gertner Laboratories (Bell Labs). Gertner takes Ian Verstegen, Jac Saorsa, Jack Ox, Jacques Mandelbrojt, Jan Baetens, Jennifer Ferng, reiterates, that creativity thrived at us through various inventions and epi- John F. Barber, John Vines, Jon Bedworth, Bell Labs because the leaders of the sodes in the history of the Labs, which Jonathan Zilberg, Jung A. Huh, Jussi Parikka, company set up an arena that encour- still function today. Topics include how K. Blassnigg, Kathleen Quillian, Kieran Lyons, aged employees in different fields to the design of the Murray Hill campus Lara Schrijver, Lisa M. Graham, Martha Blassnigg, Martha Patricia Nino, Martyn work together. Another reason Gertner aided interdisciplinary exchange, the Woodward, Maureen A. Nappi, Michael expounds upon is that the Labs’ suc- laying of the transatlantic cable, Echo Mosher, Michael Punt, Mike Leggett, Ornella cess was due to the way that employees and Telstart, and more. Corazza, Paul Hertz, Richard Kade, Rob enjoyed significant freedom in pursu- The chapters unfold along the lines Harle, Robert A. Mitchell, Roger Malina, ing projects. This was possible because Gertner outlines in his opening sen- Roy Behrens, Sean Cubitt, Simone Osthoff, Sonya Rapoport, Stefaan van Ryssen, Stephen Ma Bell’s monopoly and the guaran- tence, with the focus centered on a Petersen, Valérie Lamontagne, Wilfred Arnold, teed income it generated meant that few especially significant people who Yvonne Spielmann, Zainub Verjee there was little pressure to restrict the thrived within Bell Labs (e.g. Claude © 2013 ISAST LEONARDO, Vol. 46, No. 1, pp. 93–106, 2013 93 Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/LEON_r_00508 by guest on 25 September 2021 For example, development of the was the early computer art exhibi- looked at the struggles of those who transistor is one achievement of Bell tion in New York City in 1965, called fought slavery and racism, labor unions, Labs that is detailed extensively. (It Computer-Generated Pictures, which and war makers, some critics pegged is clear that Gertner has read Crystal featured work by Julesz and Noll as the book as leftist, multicultural, anti- Fire: The Birth of the Information Age by mentioned above. In this case, the imperialist historiography. Although Michael Riordan and Lillian Hoddeson name of the exposition did not include the omissions I noted in this book were [1].) Gertner explains that John Bar- the word art, because these “generated not political, they were nonetheless deen and Walter Brattain, who worked pictures” were not yet seen as such. apparent. in a Shockley-led research group, dem- Shortly before the book came out, Gertner notes that Arthur C. Clarke onstrated the “point-contact” transistor Christopher Tyler, who did his post- observed (in the late 1950s), on 23 December 1947. They built their doctorate work at Bell Labs under Julesz transistor with little help from him. and had an office next to Mathews At first sight, when one comes upon it in its surprisingly rural setting, the Bell Shockley, who throughout does not and across the corridor from Lillian Telephone Laboratories’ main New Jer- come off as a “team player,” then broke Schwartz, mentioned the excitement sey site looks like a large and up-to-date with the Labs’s collaboration policy by surrounding a visit to the Lab by Stevie factory, which in a sense it is. But it is a separately inventing a second, more Wonder to see the state-of-the art sound factory for ideas, and so its production lines are invisible (pp. 4–5). reliable, “junction” transistor in secret. studio developed by Mathews. Schwartz, This created some tensions, as Gert- who is often characterized as a creator The art, science and technology ner outlines. Finally, in 1954, Morris of 20th-century computer-developed community benefitted immensely Tanenbaum invented the third, “sili- art, wrote a book that includes a sam- from this “creative factory,” and, ironi- con” transistor (the previous designs pling of the work at Bell Labs. cally, this research arm of the AT&T were germanium) that is the basis for Another key figure of this time was monopoly funded the research that the vast majority of today’s transistors. Billy Klüver, the founder of Experi- helped develop a new set of tools for One point the book reiterates is that ments in Art and Technology (E.A.T.), artists. This book does convey some Shockley left Bell Labs in 1955 and that who began his work in this area as an of the interdisciplinarity that thrived his Shockley Labs in Mountain View, electrical engineer at Bell Labs. His first at the Labs; thus, although not defini- California laid the foundation for what project, in the early 1960s, was collabo- tive, it is quite informative. Gertner’s would become Silicon Valley. In this ration with kinetic art sculptor Jean knack for telling stories makes the sense, the legacy of Bell remains evi- Tinguely on the latter’s Homage to New book easy to read. Some segments of dent in the technology environment of York (1960), a machine that destroyed the story come through well, such as today. itself and was presented in the MOMA why many people say Marvin Kelly, who On the other hand, it seems strange garden. Klüver also collaborated with was the head of Bell Labs when Brat- to me that, although Gertner inter- Jasper Johns, Yvonne Rainer, Robert tain, Bardeen and Shockley developed viewed A. Michael Noll and Max Rauschenberg, John Cage and Andy transistors, deserved to be the fourth Mathews, the book does not convey Warhol. recipient of their 1947 Nobel Prize in the convergence of art, science and One of Klüver’s best-known projects Physics (because of his way of bringing technology at the Lab. Some of what is (in 1966) was with Fred Waldhauer and talent together and encouraging missing is evident on Noll’s Bell Labs artists Robert Rauschenberg and Rob- creativity). page, where he notes: ert Whitman. They organized 9 Eve- There is some discussion of the nings: Theatre and Engineering, a series venture capital model and how it com- There were often interesting diversions of performances that united artists and from daily research.