What Makes a Visual Presentation Historical?

Abstract

The traditional presentation about historical time-passing consists in a linear succession of facts in which some aspects of the lifeworld evolve from others in an irreversible manner. The presentation of change is connected to the presentation of gradual or revolutionary linear changes that are irrevocable. I believe that this presentation could be considered correct for living organisms, but does not take account of some important aspects of demonstrative presentations about artifacts and technologies. For example, we can ontologically assume that 'hammer-beating' evolved from 'stone-beating'. In this sense, the 'hammer-beating-time' could be considered contemporary-time and the 'stone-beating-time' could be considered past-time. However, we still beat things with stones and stone-like artifacts. The technology of the stone-beating is still been used. That means that relation-ship between the stone and the hammer cannot be seen as 'evolutive' in the same sense that organisms 'evolve' from each other. We must assume then, that the stone and the hammer must be interchangeable technologies which do not overshadow each other. This family of technologies and artifacts are contemporary to each other. Time-passing metaphors must then be substituted with metaphors of a 'technological instability' that can be associated to a foundational cultural explosion.

Keywords: history, phenomenology, technology, meaning