00:00:03:

00:00:04: Welcome

00:00:09: to our third

00:00:17: episode of the English Language Edition on The ZZF Podcast at the Leibniz Center for Contemporary Historical Research and Potsdam Journey.

00:00:26: I'm your host, Lee Holtz ,and today i am speaking with Mario Bianchini.

00:00:31: .Mario is a research associate a lecturer of history at the Berenboim Said Academy in Berlin, Germany and the principal researcher on The German Democratic Republic for the Economic Collectivism.

00:00:48: Old & New lessons from the Communist and Post-Communist Experience Project At the University Of Vienna.

00:00:55: Previously he was a postdoctoral fellow with the Berlin Programme For Advanced German And European Studies Based At The Flight When It Is A Tate.

00:01:03: His work has appeared In the Journal of Energy History German Studies Review, Science Technology and Human Values, Das Yaduv für Historische Kommunismusforschung und Technologies Stories.

00:01:16: Mario has also been a recipient of the Fulbright Research Grant to DEAD or German Academic Exchange Service Grants, a DFD – German Research Foundation grant—and a Linda Hall Library Dissertation research grant.

00:01:31: Welcome, Mario!

00:01:33: So I wanted to start off by asking how did you become interested in contemporary history?

00:01:38: Was there a moment in your life that inspired you to study History, How'd You come up with this?

00:01:42: of course There's no linear trajectory for a lot Of things but if i have To sort of like A fix is starting point.

00:01:50: I think The time where really became interested In history was probably Like in high school when we were going through American history and these Sort-of like grand phases.

00:02:02: What occurred?

00:02:03: And I think once we started to approach, it was essentially the Cold War that...I started thinking like well how can all of this be?

00:02:14: Especially when we were taught about Russia which you know.

00:02:18: Of course we would have fixed the term Russia rather than Soviet Union and they knew the grand Eastern Bloc is just referred to as Russia.

00:02:28: what i was told?

00:02:29: basically nothing happened there.

00:02:31: yet It was horrible, but also nothing happens.

00:02:36: And so I said to get interested in.

00:02:38: well how can that be?

00:02:39: What actually did occur in these places especially when the Cold War was taught as this dialectic opposition between socialism and capitalism... ...and me?

00:02:50: I'm just interested in hearing what the other side was and why it was so important for us to fight this cold

00:02:56: war.

00:02:56: So that led you into studying contemporary history kind of get behind the curtain, so to speak can see what's going on behind these narratives.

00:03:04: Right yeah and I think also...I mean this is now a much maligned book with historians of technology but i think we're also gonna be interested in history of technologies.

00:03:15: In high school or I guess history of science too We read a book called Longitude by Dava Sobel.

00:03:21: It was sort about the invention of longitude.

00:03:25: You know, again the overarching scholarly opinion of it is that it's an oversimplified book.

00:03:30: She gets some things wrong etc.

00:03:32: but for me at the time in high school I remember thinking like how could you take this subject?

00:03:37: That was on a face value so boring.

00:03:40: make it so exciting and actually teach her these thing we don't think much about or are incredibly important really shape our understanding.

00:03:53: When I started to get interested in history of science and technology as well.

00:03:58: So your most recent book project that you're working on right now, I'm finishing out is Real Existing Utopia – Technology, National Potency And Work In The GDR.

00:04:11: What You Just Said About How You Came To History Speaks about discourse and ideas and imagination.

00:04:20: Things interact between the world of fact and mobile that they imagined.

00:04:24: What.

00:04:24: how would you describe a utopia in East Germany?

00:04:29: Right.

00:04:29: I mean, I don't think we have time to get into all these and as what are Utopia is but i think it's sort of narrowed down To what i'm talking about.

00:04:37: in east germany Is then book project on arguing.

00:04:41: there was this idea That was circulated through either textbooks or newspaper articles, or TV programs and radio programs in the GBR that pitch to future technological utopia.

00:04:57: And then I mean there would be a time where essentially infinite nuclear power could it be used to power automated factories?

00:05:08: That will then eliminate the need for what they call gultina by or drudgery so that the end goal of the GDR would be this actual transference from socialism to communism by way of technological advancement.

00:05:22: That once you could create a system, essentially take over in the means production entirely through machinery there will no reason for work anymore and it'll free humans right poetry or play sports...or anything your mind can desire.

00:05:40: But what ends up happening in a lot of ways is this becomes as sort of way Of managing the present by way of the future that you know, of course In order for that feature to come about You need to build me to build the technologies to do that.

00:05:54: And so this becomes a sort of justification For continuing to work in factories in the meantime That you have to work on these factors because eventually are going to build The systems of free yourselves and That of course never comes to pass, but it acts as a way of legitimating the system in the meantime that you know these problems are always already on their way to being solved and so These goalposts keep moving all the time.

00:06:21: And The utopian technologies that will be the thing that frees us Changes.

00:06:27: because as these things come about and they don't activate utopia You need to reframe what we'll do today?

00:06:33: So for example you know, early on nuclear power was the thing that would free everyone.

00:06:39: But this comes about and it doesn't actually... It's not as limitless people thought it'd be.

00:06:46: Then things move to space travel but space travel doesn't end up ending a cold war or freeing anyone from animosity between humans.

00:06:57: then there is a movement towards cybernetics.

00:06:59: Cybernetics is sort of undefined and amorphous.

00:07:03: And then finally, the idea moves towards a computer.

00:07:06: But because of the GDR is so blockaded from the rest computer technology they don't really have the manpower to create their own computer infrastructure that could actually run automated factories etc.

00:07:21: and this ends up culminating in the collapse a collapse of hold in these technologies, because each time you promise one that these things will free you and it does not.

00:07:36: You lose some amount of

00:07:37: hope.".

00:07:40: So what I hear is there's on one side the promises of technological liberation but if we build this technology to create world-free of drudgery.

00:07:50: at the same time though wasn't their an emphasis?

00:07:58: And was there friction between these utopian leanings toward ethnological liberation and the ennobled worker?

00:08:06: Yeah, absolutely.

00:08:06: I don't think that their ennoblement of work went away.

00:08:11: it just changed right.

00:08:13: you can look at some paintings of Yosik Renau who painted like a famous painting called The Future Worker Rather than, you know the ideas that we associate maybe with Soviet worker art or Eastern work of art where there's a strong man with hammers.

00:08:29: Or people working in factories.

00:08:32: and this painting involves A lab coated man looking over essentially like The universe and atoms And so forth holding up pro chapter In his hand and sort Of having This distance between what's being worked on itself?

00:08:50: everything having now completely turned into mental labor.

00:08:53: And so, again the future of work for humanity would be that of engineers... That people wouldn't have to do the drudgery of actual physical labour anymore!

00:09:05: That will be entirely the providence.

00:09:07: and machines but rather whatever work humans did do it'd a mental category whether they become machine minders or machine designers working the creative field or some combination of both.

00:09:22: And how did this integration have hope on these technologies proceed?

00:09:26: Were there milestones along with a way in the sixties, seventies and eighties when people said oh... These technologies aren't bringing us to liberation mode Or they're not even coalescing.

00:09:37: I

00:09:38: think something like that is hard to define necessarily because it would require you know interviews of people in the moment, because any interview you do with this boy has the distance at the collapsible GER.

00:09:50: So it's kind of a difficult thing to actually measure but there are some ways I think you can get at that.

00:09:55: and i think one of the most interesting things that I found was The Eugen via textbooks.

00:10:00: And if you aren't familiar what that is It's essentially A youths coming of age ceremony That is secular and stands-in for Christian confirmation.

00:10:09: But rather than a firm or belief in God Pledge your allegiance to science and so forth.

00:10:16: And you're at the end.

00:10:17: You know, you're not only addressed it with Z rather than do So you're an adult.

00:10:22: now We are also given a textbook that's supposed to guide you in your life as an adult and those textbooks change every time.

00:10:30: there is Vetzal, Edda, Mench There's... So their socialism was died on vets

00:10:34: etc.,

00:10:35: etc.. The earlier versions of these text books are extremely clear on what the future would look like.

00:10:43: In earliest textbooks you see drawings of automated factors, diagrams about how exactly energy inputs will go... How all trains can be moved underground to save on noise for your future homes etc.

00:11:00: But by late eighties or early eighties even The textbooks have changed, they've become really thin.

00:11:08: There's very few mentions of what the future will look like.

00:11:10: there are very few specific technologies mentioned.

00:11:15: They still had this same can rhetoric Of you know being on the verge of activating something great But it becomes much more amorphous and less defined.

00:11:26: And that change at a time is sort of eluding to the fact That okay maybe if we do name Something then It doesn't happen.

00:11:34: that's a problem for us.

00:11:36: And I think in that way, you can see this degeneration of wanting to name the specific thing that will be the thing that activates what they call the scientific technological

00:11:46: revolution.".

00:11:47: So

00:11:48: when you're looking at these books as you can try out books it makes me wonder if are there other texts and other

00:11:56: genres

00:11:56: perhaps?

00:11:57: That help populate this utopian imaginary with technology.

00:12:00: Yeah, of course.

00:12:01: There's science fiction which I think is a general venue for utopian thinking.

00:12:08: but you know GDR Science Fiction and like by extension some soviet science fiction or Polish science fiction was the sort of space to think through thought experiments on how the future would look.

00:12:20: um there's also The Children's Show Onza Sananshin Which has him traveling in spacecrafts during its hiring when space travel was like the main utopian venue and showing children that not only is this possible, but it's something we're doing now.

00:12:38: And I'm like... The idea of one could have this infinite energy to power these crafts

00:12:43: etc.,

00:12:44: so there are definitely other ways of seeing how the future is depicted.

00:12:50: We've also puzzles board games toys as a physical culture for Let's say, bringing this enthusiasm for technology to younger generations.

00:13:01: Absolutely and that is one of the chapters in a book as well about how they use toys etc.

00:13:06: There are few examples.

00:13:07: I will just stick with One.

00:13:09: I think it was interesting.

00:13:11: these computer toys produced by Pico which were the main model train company from the GDR.

00:13:18: there is a pico-tron and a picot dot Essentially, Boolean logic for early coding where you could You'd get a box with a bunch of wires and we connect them though it act as either zeros or ones And he can set up logic gates etc.

00:13:34: For the Pico dot.

00:13:36: this could then be used to program your model trains.

00:13:39: So you can say okay go to this station?

00:13:41: Okay stop when this occurs Etc Whereas if the Tico Tron you could build your own radio Or you could built your own whiz machine et cetera.

00:13:50: but the point was more experimentation and sort of learning how one could actually program a computer.

00:13:59: And in the, um... The instruction booklets-the rhetoric was very clear that this is going to be the thing that helps you activate the scientific technological revolution which there essentially turn for turning point towards this technological utopia.

00:14:17: They are careful not use the term utopia because if it's complicated notion of being a non-place, etc.

00:14:24: But the notions of perfect society are all hidden behind them and it's sort point of activation is called the scientific technological revolution.

00:14:34: So when we're thinking about East Germany And how they envisioning this scientific technological Revolution but there similar constructs in West Germany at the same time

00:14:45: I think that one of the main differentiations with the West on a grander scale, not just in Western Germany but nearly United States etc.

00:14:53: is that... ...I was always hard pressed to find really specifying what some scholars have called a socio-technological imaginary this idea which society in and of itself believes an articulated version of the future, that society tries to move towards them.

00:15:16: In the US for example what would it be?

00:15:19: I think they specified utopia before United States.

00:15:25: It's hard press defines this.

00:15:29: The goals of technological advancement especially during Cold War are a lot more ambiguous.

00:15:38: You know, sometimes it's articulate is that your work will get easier or workouts will be reduced.

00:15:43: but because you Know capitalism has built something concept of work That like workers need to go to work in order to get money and then the money needs To be returned into the system.

00:15:53: In order for this system to continue The elimination of work Is an elimination?

00:15:57: This system itself on some level.

00:15:59: so you can't ever fully articulate that see a left of those bizarre logical space where You're not really sure how to articulate that future, and you aren't really sure what the abolition would work.

00:16:11: Whereas with GDRs... That was always the express goal right?

00:16:15: The point of communism.

00:16:17: Whether or not the state actually ever wanted to move towards it.

00:16:21: because if the GDR does move into full communism and eliminates itself well then State power holders lose their powers so they've also a vested interest in working against their own future.

00:16:35: So let's turn briefly from the human world toward the natural world.

00:16:38: You mentioned earlier that part of visions in the future on a GDR included underground trains, or there was an notion that technology could liberate human beings and perhaps also enable them to spend more time integrated outdoors?

00:16:58: But what effects did this scientific technological revolution idea have on the environment in a GDR.

00:17:06: Right, well I mean this is also something that really moves me as my next project of energy where you know any energy production it's going to have significant environmental impacts.

00:17:19: but before really talking about energy i think in these imaginaries there was this idea actually like merge nature and technology.

00:17:28: There were these ideas of the what we're called a ghost hugo voice-up that would never actually built The giant hill houses, but they essentially looked like you know ziggurots where there alternate their space That it will take up.

00:17:41: so then neither They wouldn't block each other's son And they are sort of built in a triangular pattern That would then have as many gardens as possible on the outside.

00:17:51: So did they keep?

00:17:51: You know melds uh housing and green space because this was considered something that was important for humans to have as much green space as possible.

00:18:00: Again, moving the trains underground would help reduce noise so you'd actually feel like they're more in nature but also not disturb plant life or animal might etc.

00:18:11: And East Germany is one of the first states on the planet to actually have an environmental protection law.

00:18:17: So a lot of these things were things that the Easterlings did think about you know, because of industrial production.

00:18:24: Because of energy reduction.

00:18:26: environmental damage was something that occurred despite all these considerations out of nature and the environment.

00:18:34: This leads me to ask if nature is being damaged in an environment which

00:18:38: has been

00:18:39: destroyed

00:18:40: by

00:18:41: technological progress would a technological dystopia be used?

00:18:46: Yeah I mean again it's harder articulate the anti of something, right?

00:18:54: But there's you know some of these dissident eco Marxists.

00:19:00: There was a book by someone named hamburger that really gets into a lot of these people where they're You know Some of these Dissident thinkers are some of the first degrowth theorist might say okay Maybe actually we don't need to constantly grow industrial production.

00:19:17: maybe we can be happy with what we have.

00:19:20: We don't actually need to live in essentially a consumerist society if we're going to say that we are socialists, so there is more of this move towards technology doesn't need to always go toward production rather than you know keeping with nature or trying to preserve things as much possible and like medicine can still advance etc.

00:19:43: but maybe we don't mean the constantly produced more toasters or something like that.

00:19:49: And so in that way, they're articulating industrialization and consumerism as technological dystopias... ...and the GDR is actually copying the Westin that way in producing a dystopia.

00:20:02: So part of producing this dystopio's caused by advances in energy and The harvesting and processing with coal and of the construction, nuclear power plants etc.

00:20:14: across terrain.

00:20:15: I wanted to ask you about your work on energy?

00:20:19: And how do you transition from technology in utopia into this new project that does with

00:20:24: energy?".

00:20:25: Yeah so i think one thing is that I learned from The Eastern Project was... One of the main promises again Was this move towards automated factories That could incidentally produce for you know, whatever needs the future each urban would have.

00:20:43: But if any production is infinite that assumes an incident input of energy and That's impossible right?

00:20:51: I mean You can't infinitely produce energy.

00:20:55: So there's a fundamental ill logic holding all this together.

00:20:58: And this is you know The new project is considering East and West Germany.

00:21:02: but I'm arguing they both are undergirded by a fundamental illogic that you know, you can infinitely grow and also infinitely have energy.

00:21:13: And so for the East German this illogics was basically to be solved by nuclear energy because eventually someone will figure out of technology.

00:21:25: they could reuse weights or eventually we'll figure how to do nuclear fusion rather than nuclear fission et cetera, we hold the power to create infinite energy.

00:21:37: But that's never happened and it may not ever be possible.

00:21:41: so... To make a promise based on possibility.

00:21:44: this sort of technological fix in the future really again allows one to continue the status quo unquestioned for as long as possible right?

00:21:55: That if anyone was going Hey, wait why are we doing this?

00:22:00: This doesn't make a lot of sense.

00:22:02: The answer can always be well within the future.

00:22:04: We'll figure it out in the future.

00:22:05: It's a deferment Of one of these problems and this is you know the same logic of climbing.

00:22:11: change right but But actually don't need to worry so much about burning fossil fuels etc.

00:22:17: Because someday will big build some sort of technology Be at carding capture beat You know again nuclear fusion Etc.

00:22:27: that will absolve us of the things we're doing now.

00:22:29: And, you know progress must go on.

00:22:32: so where are we to stop what were going?

00:22:34: Now because it will be figured out in a future.

00:22:37: but again I think the GDR is great sample for danger about logic that GDR collapsed and destroyed its environment in process all at back with this promise some day technology would fix those and didn't occur the same thing on a global scale, so I think it's much more pressing to think through these things.

00:23:00: When you say we're doing this at a global-scale now are you referring to building data centers?

00:23:06: That is one thing for sure... The usage of energy by data center is just astronomical!

00:23:16: you double the state's energy usage.

00:23:19: Just though data center alone would use as much energy, that is the state itself already uses.

00:23:26: and I mean not only does it need energy inputs in these water inputs too.

00:23:31: so your kind of this double environmental degradation-not only burning fossil fuels to power these things but also using potable to then cool all of these systems.

00:23:46: So yeah, I mean it's not just data setting but that is another example like cars and anything.

00:23:54: what having you know industrial production at any time as well still chasing GDP growth through increased production

00:24:03: etc.,

00:24:04: this logic ever growing your business or have fundamental capitalism?

00:24:12: all of these logics of growth mean growth in energy usage as well.

00:24:17: Where does the energy project stand right now?

00:24:20: Say, I would estimate them about halfway through new book.

00:24:24: you know there's still more archival research to be done especially on western Germany like how energy knowledge was articulated and specially presented to publics because this is sort fundamental question What is public energy knowledge?

00:24:41: If you want to plan for energy usage, and after the oil price used in the seventies it became increasingly important for governments to think okay well if an energy input was suddenly interrupted then what we do.

00:24:56: If everything of modern life requires energy how can be planned for disturbances in that energy?

00:25:04: How don't we plan for regularities on energy?

00:25:08: One of the main question marks for energy buying is people.

00:25:12: I mean, when you go home You know your Fred essentially free reign to use as much energy as you want and you can plug everything in your house it.

00:25:21: but then you Know how would every a Howard?

00:25:25: Energy company plan for people who do that?

00:25:28: What if he will don't do that, you know People are hard just sort of account.

00:25:32: four So in order to try to make something so unplanable plan able there is an attempt to create a public energy knowledge, way of knowing about energy.

00:25:44: There's this sort of hegemonic play so that hopefully people will act in the predictable way.

00:25:49: So then you can plan for their energy usage.

00:25:52: and I think what was interesting Is That What Public Energy Knowledge Ends Up Being?

00:26:00: Question of conservation versus use.

00:26:03: Sometimes, let's say if you're an energy company who makes their money through selling energy You want people to use as much energy is possible.

00:26:12: If for example you are a nuclear power plant and you have to offload A certain amount of energy so that the plants itself doesn't explode because it can't Offload its energy production...you want People to use more energy.

00:26:25: But there are moments also like the aforementioned oil crisis where You want people to use less energy, where energy is suddenly a very precious thing.

00:26:33: And so the way that energy's predicted in media and news and politics changes based on these grander world relationships with energy.

00:26:46: So during times of more energy usage oftentimes you'll see imageries of oil production or gas etc.

00:26:58: depicted as something that's important for your life, as a modernist citizen.

00:27:02: That these are not oil companies necessary they're energy companies They are producers of modernity...that you were living a modern life because of this.

00:27:12: But then during the time of scarcity A lot of these infrastructures made invisible and that energy is suddenly very precious.

00:27:20: It is not infinite.

00:27:22: That it's a material good, that we need to take this out of the earth and be wasteful for us.

00:27:28: ever think otherwise.

00:27:30: but these are fundamentally conflicting ideas.

00:27:36: thinking about energy Sometimes its infinite sometimes its extreme material some times its abstracted so public energy knowledge acts as sort of paradox.

00:27:45: in a lot ways it was both material immaterial uh, incident and precious.

00:27:50: So I think it's really interesting to see how that changes over time in how politics really plays into the depiction of energy any understanding of energy.

00:28:02: Thank you Mario for joining us today And thank you this very interesting discussion about not only utopia technology national identity work but also The way the energy is discussed in these hegemonic narratives That created a paradox between scarcity and supply.

00:28:21: Thank you!