Discuss speed planes trains and automobiles in relation to spaces and Essay

Discuss speed planes trains and automobiles in relation to spaces and subjects of modernity - Essay Example While humans can sense speed when riding on a train, at the same time there is the danger of losing the sensual experience of nature. Riding on a train, it is possible only to catch a glimpse of the landscape and imagine its beauty; to benefit fully from it requires coming back on foot. According to a popular anecdote, the Emperor Franz Joseph I stopped the train to enjoy a particularly beautiful view during his first ride up to the Semmering. This indicates that the history of newly opened landscapes is also a history of sight. Typical train travelers could not stop the train like a royal; with the opportunity only for fleeting glances, they had to be attentive in order to perceive the passing landscape. The dynamics of sight is a concept that was first acknowledged as a special phenomenon during a train ride but later came to have an effect on modern-day perceptions as a whole. Speed moved pieces of scenery closer to one another, even though they had belonged to distant and distinctly different areas. Panoramic perception, in contrast to traditional perception, no longer belongs to the same space as the perceived objects: the traveler saw the objects, landscapes, etc., through the apparatus which moved him through the world. That machine and the motion it created became integrated into his visual perception.