The paper will initially establish theoretical contexts of the relationship between humanity, technology, and monstrosity. These examples will be analysed to identify how the computer aligned with broader cultural representations of technology, through engagement with themes including monstrosity, technophobia, and cyborgism.
AFRAID OF MONSTERS DC SERIES
The UNIVAC computer, meanwhile, not only had a starring role in CBS’s election night coverage in 1952 (Alfred, 2010 Henn, 2012), but also featured in popular cartoons such as the Looney Tunes series Merrie Melodies (Warner Bros., 1952). For example, the ENIAC computer received a public launch in 1946 (Martin, 1993), while the US Navy machine WHIRLWIND appeared on a primetime television broadcast of See It Now in 1951 (CBS, 1951). Although these computers were predominantly reserved for military, scientific, or industrial purposes, they also became known to a wider popular audience through cultural representations. It will focus specifically on the US as an example at the forefront of digital computing, although it should be acknowledged that computing developments occurred globally in a multitude of ways and often simultaneously.
The paper explores the development of the computer as a cultural object through analysing public responses to the first digital computers in the 1950s United States (US). It will also suggest that this perception of the computer was more significant in shaping cultural attitudes towards it than its practical applications. This paper will argue that while technologies have historically shared properties of the monstrous, the interactivity and potential hybridity of the computer cast it as a uniquely mechanical monster in its early years. Furthermore, the computer adopted a position in the public consciousness as a new, unknown, and largely incomprehensible technological marvel. Traditionally the job description of humans operating calculating machines, the twentieth century saw the term shift into a new concept: a descriptor of the machines themselves (Evans, 2018, p. The concept of hybridity between human and machine is even encapsulated in the etymology of the term ‘computer’. In particular, the development of the digital computer in the twentieth century created a conflict in cultural attitudes due to its enormous potential as a scientific tool that might be capable of ‘thinking’ on its own. On the contrary, new technologies have historically triggered similar dichotomous reactions, positioned delicately between the excitement of possibility, the mystique of the unknown, and the fear of usurpation. However, the concept of the mechanical-human hybrid has not been restricted solely to worlds of fiction and fantasy. From Shelley’s Frankenstein to Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the blurring of lines between humanity and mechanisation has been a trope for engendering intrigue and horror in readers of fiction. The notion of hybridity lies at the heart of many fictional monsters. As a result, the fears of scientific creation encapsulated by Shelley’s depiction of Frankenstein’s monster can be seen to play out over a century later through the ‘mechanical monsters’ of the 1950s United States. Images of monstrosity are also shown to be consistent in these public representations, with rhetoric focusing in particular on anthropomorphic machines and human-mechanical hybridity. This dichotomy is identified particularly through examination of contemporaneous popular cultural representations. The public representation of and responses to each of these machines demonstrates a fundamental division between admiration at their technical application and concern over their apparently unlimited potential. Specific examples of early computers that are considered include ENIAC, WHIRLWIND, and UNIVAC. In particular, the example of the computer epitomises a dichotomy of fear and fascination, which is frequently seen in response to new technologies. Through this analysis, the development of the computer appears as simultaneously following its own unique trajectory while also coinciding with broader trends in the cultural histories of new technologies. Deconstructing the development and application of this metaphor provides valuable insight into cultural attitudes about computers during this period.
Discourse analysis of public representations of early digital computers reveals a consistent appropriation of monstrosity as a metaphor to capture cultural fears of human-mechanical hybridity and technological autonomy. This article explores the concept of monstrosity in relation to the development of digital computers during the 1950s in the United States.