In what sense can technology be said to transform culture? Discuss with reference to Vertov’s 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera.
Movie cameras were once not transportable; therefore everything had to be filmed on one area and one location. Vertov’s Man with a movie camera was released in the early times [1929] when movie cameras were transportable. Vertov was able to films different people in different areas.
Vertov transforms culture, by transforming lifestyles. Vertov is not celebrating technology; he uses the camera as a critical tool and talks about politics. He does this through various juxtaposing quick shots following each other, hence achieving social critique, e.g. a couple getting married followed by a couple getting divorced.
He illustrates social division, by showing a miner in the mines, followed by middle-class women on outings, being pampered at a salon and through tramps on benches waking up same as middle class women in their rooms. Vertov also illustrates the division of labour within the working class, we see a woman working in a factory making cigarettes boxes, a rather dehumanising activity.
He also shows us various fast ways of travel, made possible through technology, such as through cars, trams, trains, ships and planes. Technology provides the flow or movement of goods, money and people. According to Vertov not everyone can travel, hence there is a differentiation, between the rich and the poor. In the film we observe middle-class people travel to a beach, often known to be an area of pleasure. According to Vertov there is a movement of some and not everyone, technology chooses whom it makes a difference to, not everyone can have the pleasure of being at the beach.
He transforms culture by providing a critical position, permitting a critical view on culture in ways, which wouldn’t have been seen before.
