Ether

[Dave Monroe]

Milutis, Joe.  Ether: The Nothing that Connects
   Everything.  Minnespolis: U of Minnesota P, 2006.

Diagrams the interconnections among cosmic
consciousness, hermetic avant-gardes, and
technological progress.

Every culture has its own word for this nothing.
Synonymous with the idea of absolute space and time,
the ether is an ancient concept that has continually
determined our definition of environment, our
relations to each other, and our ideas about
technology. It has also instigated our desire to know
something irrepressibly beyond all that.

In Ether, the histories of mysticism and the unseen
merge with discussions of the technology and science
of electromagnetism. Joe Milutis explores how the
ideas of Anton Mesmer and Isaac Newton have manifested
themselves as the inspiration for occult theories and
artistic practices from Edgar Allan Poe’s works to
today. In doing so, he demonstrates that fading in and
out of scientific favor has not prevented the ether, a
uniquely immaterial concept, from being a powerful
force for material progress.

Milutis deftly weaves the origins of electrical
science with alchemical lore, nineteenth-century
industrialism with yogic science, and network space
with dreams of the absolute. Linking the ether to
phenomena such as radio noise, space travel,
avant-garde film, and the rise of the Internet, he
lends it an almost physical presence and currency.
>From Federico Fellini to Gilles Deleuze, Japanese
anime to Italian Futurism, Jean Cocteau to NASA,
Shirley Temple to Wilhelm Reich, Ether traverses
geographical boundaries, spiritual planes, and the
divide between popular and high culture.

Navigating more than three hundred years of the
ether’s cultural and artistic history, Milutis reveals
its continuous reinvention and tangible impact without
ever losing sight of its ephemeral, elusive nature.
The true meaning of ether, Milutis suggests, may be
that it can never be fully grasped.

http://www.upress.umn.edu/Books/M/milutis_ether.html

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