Technology in Postrevolutionary Mexico: From Cultural Rejection to National Promise

Introduction

By the turn of the 20th C., Mexico underwent one of its most radical political shifts-- liberating itself from the “benevolent” dictatorship of General Don Porfirio Diaz and the infamous era known as el Porfiriato, which imposed order, peace, and progress at all costs. The emancipation from a thirty-five year ruling was brought only after a ten-year bloody and tumultuous civil war. Before and during the Mexican Revolution, intellectuals and artists manifested a disdain of modern technologies perceived as symptomatic of a decadent society that had strayed away from the aesthetics and ideals of modernismo, the dominant artistic current of the 19th century which valued nature, classical antiquity, and desire to maintain the line between high art and low art. The Mexican Revolution, brought not only drastic political, economic, and social changes, it also opened up a new era that would embrace that which modernismo abhorred: technology. Followed by the civil war, a new revolution utilized technology as their main weapon and its soldiers would be artists and intellectuals during the mid-1920s to the 1930s. The “cultural revolution” established a different relationship with technology, from rejection to national promise. As seen in many of Diego Rivera’s murals, technology and democracy went hand in hand, and together they would liberate the subjugated and destitute from oppression and suffering. The new enthusiasm for technological artifacts sparked the imagination and artistic productions of the time, to envision a better future where all men and women, regardless of race or religion, would come together in peace and harmony and build a better world with the advantage of the most modern technological artifacts. And thus, technology not only began to change the way artistic productions were materialized, but most importantly, it became the main subject of this utopian vision. The technological madness which modernized Mexico at a dizzying speed brought hundreds of mechanical artifacts, but for Ruben Gallo, only the camera, typewriter, radio, cement, and stadiums epitomize “the mechanization of cultural production” (24).                           

The Camera, Typewriter and Radio in Postrevolutionary Mexico

Pictorial photographies dominated the photographic scene in Mexico during the 1920’s: a paradox similar to Rivera’s use of fresco paintings to celebrate modernity. The pictorial character was criticized by David Alfaro Siqueiros probably thinking of pictorial photographers such as Silva and Brehme. In 1923 two foreign photographers, Edward Weston and Tina Modotti (American and Italian), used the camera in a radical new way that initiated a “photographic revolution in Mexico” (32). Siqueiros pointed to the work of Weston and Modotti who rejected the use of pictorialism - “they create a TRUE PHOTOGRAPHIC BEAUTY” (44). On one hand, Modotti tried to produce “honest photographs” (45) documenting what represented modernity in Mexico and choosing to be more of a political activist while Weston made a conscious decision not to document technological scenes opting for more traditional landscapes.

In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” Benjamin examines the fundamental shifts in art and representation as a result of the technological advancements in mechanical reproduction. As opposed to other forms of reproduction throughout history, mechanical reproduction is distinct due to its independence from the original. The mechanisms of reproduction, such as the lens and the camera mechanics, can perceive what the human eye does not see and projects a level of objectivity. In addition, the copy transports the original outside of its context in terms of time and space. What is lost is the “aura” of the work of art, which is described as the “unique phenomenon of a distance.” The aura is essential to the idea of the work of art as simultaneously an object of cult value and of exhibition value. The reluctance of Mexican muralists, such as Riviera, to incorporate such technological reproduction techniques into their representations may be affiliated with this loss of aura. Murals, as opposed to other art forms, such as painting and sculpture, are inherently tied to its location in terms of place and context. Thus, mechanical reproduction may be perceived as a threat to the mural’s foundation as a medium of representation.

While the camera was an automated new technology able to capture captions and modern scenes, the typewriter became a mechanized procedure that would revolutionize writing in postrevolutionary Mexico. Three very different kinds of typewriters were in play: the Olivers, the Remingtons, and the Underwoods but ultimately they would serve almost the same function - to revolutionize writing. This did not happen initially though. The first mention of a typewriter (Oliver) in Mexican literature lacked function (Los de abajo by Mariano Azuela). Textual, visual and auditory signs were able to be reproduced mechanically by typewriters, cameras or phonographs but literature could no longer be a practice isolated from the technologization of these mediums. Mário de Andrade’s “mechanogenic writing” and photographer Tina Modotti  were able to understand the prediction of Trotsky that technology would become “an inspiration for artistic work” (114). La técnica (1928) by Modotti is able to capture this radical effect of mechanization through literature.

Like Andrade and Modotti, the radio also inspired the development of two new types of literature, “radiophonic,” which treats the radio like a subject, yet structure and language are to remain intact, and “radiogenic,” written for broadcasts, where style and structure are shaped by the possibilities and parameters of the radio. In Mexico, “radiophonic” literature inspired very interesting and avant-garde writings, such as Maples Arces’ “TSH,” Salvador Novos’ “Radio Lecture,” Appollinaire’s “Lettre-Ocean,” and Kyn Taniya’s “IU IIIUUU IU.” These texts share the evocation of the most salient features of the radio, cosmopolitanism, susceptibility to interference, and heterogeneity of radio programming. Mexican radiogenic literature came to perfectly exemplify what Italian F.T. Marinetti, the first poet to suggest that radio could function as a poetic model, called the “telegraphic style”: “a truncated form that of writing that does away with syntax in favor of speed” (165). The radio waves brought to Mexico not only two new forms of literature, but most importantly, they brought the whole world to a country striving for modernization and world visibility amongst developed and modern nations.             

Cement and Stadiums

The introduction of concrete building construction represents a significant cultural shift in Mexican Modernity. As cameras, typewriters, and the radio fundamentally altered the medium and content of visual, textual, and audio representation into mechanized forms, cement equally impacted the medium and content of architecture from a handcrafted trade into a mechanized process. Gallo references Kittler’s statement that “media determine our situation” to describe how the new concrete cityscape of buildings, roadways, and public projects introduced “completely different spatial logic” in which “citizens had to learn to exist in the new spaces of modernity.” The proliferation of concrete structures that pervaded Mexico City was perhaps the most visible of the technological artifacts in the 1920s. The new public buildings not only housed the newly reformed governmental organizations but visually communicated to the masses “the new ideology, at once nationalist, revolutionary, and modern.”

The use of concrete in public architecture presented new building construction capacities and, thus, new forms of architecture. While stadiums are not a new invention of the 20th century, Gallo argues that both its resurgence since the Olympic Games of 1896 in Athens and its new cultural and political function has established stadiums of the Modern era as a truly technological artifact. The stadiums following the Olympic Games of 1896 exhibited an exploration of avant-garde architectural designs and techniques, utilized the most contemporary technologies in building and construction, and aggregated large unprecedented masses of people around the spectacle. In the same way that the newspaper and radio disseminated content to the masses, the stadium was utilized as a medium for “mass events choreographed for a mass spectatorship.” Gallo associates the choreographed sequences of human movement with assembly line production where, when “seen from above by spectators in the stands, [they] form geometrical figures and even words.” He asserts that the human becomes an ornament, a single component within a larger communication machine, to feed the masses. The loss of individuality reflects the capitalist production of Modernity.

Following the revolution, José Vasconcelos, Minister of Education from 1921 to 1924, led the construction of the National Stadium built in Mexico City in 1924. As many other cities were constructing stadiums of unprecedented size and grandeur, Mexico constructed its own stadium as a symbol for Mexico’s postrevolutionary progress in both technology and educational reforms. The inaugural ceremony was used as a vehicle to communicate and reinforce these ideologies to the masses, including a global audience. However, the National Stadium had a short life due to issues with the building structure. The Jalapa Stadium built one year later by Heriberto Jara continues to stand today. One key difference between the two stadiums were their architectural ideologies. Vasconcelos’s National Stadium sought after a nostalgic utopia of the past emulating Roman and Greek architecture from antiquity. Jara’s stadium in Jalapa endeavored to form a new modern aesthetic representing a utopian future.

Tepito today: The Age of Commodity

Today Tepito is a “labyrinth of commodities” (228). A countless list of merchandise from technology gadgets to street food fill this open air market. The technological utopia of Mexico’s golden future that inspired artists and writers such as Vasconcelos in the first couple of decades of the 20th century no longer exists. For good or bad, the aesthetic revolution and its utopian vision proved more successful in the imaginary than in real life. The technological artifacts found in Tepito are ubiquitous and have long lost their symbolic meaning of progress. Poverty and political corruption prevail in Mexico turning technology into a “dystopia: a dysfunctional society haunted by many of same spectators of the postrevolutionary years” (234). The symbolic power of cameras, typewriters, radios, cement and stadiums were a source of inspiration for artists and intellectuals during the 20’s and 30’s, however Gallo concludes that “technology has ceased to spark the imagination not only of artist and writers but of ordinary people” (235).