Podcast Summary: Carlotta Daro, "The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication" (MIT Press, 2025)

Podcast: New Books Network
Host: Matthew Wells
Guest: Carlotta Daro
Date: October 5, 2025

Episode Overview

This episode of the New Books Network features an in-depth interview with Carlotta Daro about her new book, The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication (MIT Press, 2025). The conversation explores the material, social, artistic, and historical dimensions of telecommunication infrastructure—from the physical installation of wires and telephone poles to the broader cultural imaginaries these technologies have inspired. Daro and host Matthew Wells discuss the book’s thematic structure, its interdisciplinary approach, and the wider implications for understanding modernity, society, and art in both Europe and North America.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Motivations Behind the Book

(02:05–05:45)

• Carlotta Daro traces the genesis of the book to her educational experiences in Rome, Paris, and a formative postdoctoral fellowship at McGill University in Montreal.
• She credits her immersion in the Sound Studies community (notably Jonathan Sterne) as pivotal, calling the book "a kind of homage" (03:00).
• Extensive archival research in North America (e.g., AT&T, Bell Labs) provided a wealth of heterogeneous materials—photographs, advertisements, administrative documents—which were foundational for the book’s visual and thematic organization.
• The work balances European and North American perspectives, offering what Daro calls "sections… through this huge story of the installation of telecommunications systems in the Western world" (05:27).

2. Book Structure and Thematic Threads

(05:45–12:47)

• Daro emphasizes the challenge of structuring such a vast topic and credits scholarly mentors (notably Tom Weaver) for encouraging focus and thematic clarity.
• The book is organized around key words and concepts, each serving as a "section" through which the story is viewed:
  • Matter: The sensory and material anatomy of early infrastructure.
  • Aesthetics: The visual and cultural dimensions, central throughout.
  • Techniques: How technical developments shaped urban settlement and planning.
  • Imaginary: Reciprocal influences between technological utopias and concrete developments.
  • Wireless vs. Wired: The political and ideological implications of "wireless" technology.
  • Law: The shifting line between public and private spheres within telecommunication systems.
  • Planning: The integration of telecommunications into domestic and architectural planning.
  • Public: The concept of audience, discussed through case studies like the Parisian theatrophone.
  • Booth: The micro-architecture of the telephone booth as both historical artifact and symbol.
  • Ubiquity & Art: Opening and closing with reflections on how artistic production encapsulates and critiques infrastructural developments.
• Notable Quote (on method):
  “I really tried to simplify. The book, I think, really aims to a kind of simplification also of the topic as much as is possible. And so choosing one word, one keyword that would really accompany this idea of going through… making a kind of crossing section of different realities.” — Carlotta Daro (06:27)

3. Intersection of Art and Infrastructure

(12:47–15:36)

• Daro highlights her decision to weave visual art—from landscape paintings of telegraph lines to avant-garde and conceptual works—directly into the story of telecommunication.
• She deliberately avoids strict hierarchies: “The works of art… are almost treated at the same level of a propaganda document from a film of telecommunication” (14:40).
• This approach illuminates how both high art and popular media mirrored and shaped society’s reception of new technologies.

4. Beyond Architects: Multiplicity of Actors

(15:36–20:37)

• Daro’s narrative intentionally decentralizes the “heroic inventors” to foreground the roles of anonymous engineers, entrepreneurs, and users.
• She cites historian David Edgerton’s The Shock of the Old as inspiration for this complex, networked view of technological change.
• Significant attention is given to figures such as Louis Mumford, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Le Corbusier—not just for their visionary enthusiasm, but for their nuanced critiques and explorations of telecommunication’s social implications.
• “You don’t use only one network to develop your new invention. The transportation network was always connected to the telecommunication network.” — Carlotta Daro (17:32)

5. Materiality, Labor, and Technological Detail

(20:37–27:01)

• The book bridges grand cultural theories with close readings of manuals and technical diagrams—for instance, the detailed instructions from the Hopkins manual on building and maintaining telephone lines.
• Daro stresses the enduring materiality and labor involved in infrastructural networks, noting that North American telecom still relies on aspects of its original design.
• She critiques the tendency in media studies to focus on the “immaterial” nature of communication, arguing for a return to the tangible: "…to be back to the materiality of these objects.” (26:46)
• Notable Quote:
  “I try to also demonstrate how this was related also to the idea of unifying the nation during the late 19th century… this infrastructure is very old and it really relates us every day to something, to another epoch, the epoch of the Industrial Revolution.” — Carlotta Daro (25:55)

6. Art as Endpoint: Ubiquity and Creativity

(27:01–31:57)

• The book concludes with case studies of artworks that use telecommunication technologies, notably:
  • László Moholy-Nagy’s "Telephone Pictures": Paintings generated via instructions communicated over the phone, embodying issues of delegation, standardization, and technological mediation.
    • “There is the fact of delegating the work of art to someone else. There is the line, just the transmission of your own message through these lines…” — Carlotta Daro (28:17)
  • John Cage and Experiments in Art & Technology (EAT): Artistic performances using telecommunication to question ideas of ubiquity, presence, and technological misuse.
• These reflections illustrate how artistic practice interrogates and creatively misuses the technologies that shape collective experience.

7. Current and Future Research

(31:57–36:14)

• Daro discusses her current work at ETH Zurich, focusing on the intersection of architectural acoustics, digital fabrication, and immersive technologies (e.g., augmented and virtual reality).
• She expresses a growing interest in the 19th-century merging of scientific experimentation with entertainment and illusion—a lineage running from panoramas and dioramas to modern simulation.
• The new project investigates how architectural environments were designed for immersive, multisensory experiences, often blurring boundaries between science, spectacle, and public education.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On archival discovery:
  “A lot of heterogeneity in terms of what I couldn’t found and a lot of incredibly astonishing iconographic materials. So I really started as… gathering these powerful images without really knowing where I was going.” — Carlotta Daro (04:04)

• On bridging theoretical and material scales:
  “I like actually to jump from one scale to another as a physical scale, but also in terms of the object itself… these kind of infrastructure are present in the interior of an apartment, but we know that they are extended to the old territory.” — Carlotta Daro (23:28)

• On the recurring tension in media studies:
  “There is a tendency also to speak about communication as something that is immaterial… I wanted to bring this back… to be back to the materiality of these objects.” — Carlotta Daro (26:46)

• On art’s role in technological critique:
  “To me was a way to… focus and conclude the book with the use of the telephone to produce art.” — Carlotta Daro (28:17)

Key Timestamps

• [02:05] – Daro discusses her intellectual journey and archival work.
• [05:45] – How the book’s thematic structure emerged.
• [12:47] – Integration of diverse artworks into the narrative.
• [15:36] – Broadening the scope to include engineers, entrepreneurs, and users.
• [20:37] – The importance of studying technology’s materiality.
• [27:35] – Book’s conclusion: case studies of telecommunication art.
• [32:12] – Daro’s current research directions.

Conclusion

This episode showcases Carlotta Daro’s innovative approach to the telecommunication infrastructure––melding architecture, art history, media studies, and the study of material culture. The conversation highlights the book’s rich interdisciplinarity, its attention to both the grand narratives and overlooked stories of technological development, and its commitment to bridging theory, materiality, and art. For listeners, the episode offers both a compelling overview of The Architecture of the Wire and insight into the future directions of research in architecture, technology, and culture.