Uploaded December 2019 | Updated September 2026, 22 minutes ago
A Brief History of Imaginal Machines - Erik Davis, PhD
Even the most cursory look at the history of modern visual and electronic media (printed broadsheets, camera obscura, phantasmagoria, magic lantern, radio) makes it clear that media technologies have always been bound up with the imagination in its archetypal as well as cognitive senses. Media technologies not only mimic and extend the capacities of creative fantasy, but stir up the mythic figures and deep visionary aspirations of the mind. How should we conceive this relationship, and how is it changing today? While many have argued for the corrosive and parasitic effects of modern media on the soul, we may have no choice but to engage today’s imaginal machinescape directly in terms of archetypal and particularly shadow work.
A Brief History of Imaginal Machines - Erik Davis, PhD
Even the most cursory look at the history of modern visual and electronic media (printed broadsheets, camera obscura, phantasmagoria, magic lantern, radio) makes it clear that media technologies have always been bound up with the imagination in its archetypal as well as cognitive senses. Media technologies not only mimic and extend the capacities of creative fantasy, but stir up the mythic figures and deep visionary aspirations of the mind. How should we conceive this relationship, and how is it changing today? While many have argued for the corrosive and parasitic effects of modern media on the soul, we may have no choice but to engage today’s imaginal machinescape directly in terms of archetypal and particularly shadow work.
