FASHION-able

According to Serres, thought regarding conceptual understanding at different pe-

riods in history is linked to the modus operandi of everyday technologies (Serres

1982). For example clockwork mechanisms were closely linked to the conception

of the world during the Enlightenment, used by physicists like Newton and phi-

losophers like Descartes. Similarly, the steam engine or motor came to be the engi-

neering diagram for understanding the world of industrialism. In the deployment

of Serres ideas, DeLanda sees how the transition between abstract technical models

of the world changes the conceptual models of how we organize our understand-

ing of theory and society (DeLanda 1991). As Josúe Harari and David Bell propose

in their introduction to Serres’ Hermes, the motor diagram appeared as

the universal model of knowledge in the nineteenth century, a construct that always

functions in the same way in all the cultural domains – from Marx to Freud, from

Nietzsche to Bergson, or from Zola to Turner. (Serres 1982: xix)

This means that the ”mindset” of the steam engine made thermodynamic heat mo-

tors, based on the dynamics of mechanical movement produced under pressure,

seem to be the driving force behind both personal change, such as the suppressed

subconscious of Freud, or the changes in historical materialism, such as Marx’ sub-

jugated revolutionary working class. Thus the abstract machine, the engineering

diagram of becoming, came to be a model of thought, that mixed metaphor with

technology. Indeed, following this diagram the ”class struggle is the motor of his-

tory” came to build on the same structure-generating process as ”a hurricane is a

steam motor” (DeLanda 1997: 58) At the modernist peak of this motor perspective

physicians saw the body as a ”vehicle for the soul”, a motor-driven mechanical ap-

paratus. Constructivist designers saw clothing as strictly utilitarian and optimized

working garments and architects such as Le Corbusier saw the house as “a machine

for living in”. There was even a concurrence between the car and the ear, a motor

The clockwork metaphor was the
dominant image of the world during the En-
lightenment period. The mechanical clockwork
or automata came to be the technical device that
both explained the heliocentric world view and
also manifested an utopian image of the inner
workings of the cosmos as Newton showed
how it was the same forces that affected both
the heavens and the Earth. The Orrery was a
tool to visualize this. It is a mechanical clock
device that illustrates this by showing the rela-
tive positions and motions of the planets and
moons. These instruments are typically driven
by a large clockwork mechanism with a globe
representing the Sun at the centre, and with a
planet at the end of each of the arms.