MBTV: Immaculate Telegraphy: Building a Stone Age Electronic Network

This week is host to the 173rd anniversary of the first test of the telegraph, which was one of the biggest communications breakthroughs in human history. On January 6, 1938, Samuel Morse first successfully sent out some bleeps and bloops in Morristown, New Jersey, and officially ushered in the era of instant electronic messaging.

As impressive as Morse’s accomplishment was, the sheer brilliance of it has been tempered by nearly two centuries of us communicating through wires and electric pulses. What would it be like to actually be Morse and usher in a new chatting paradigm? In today’s world, when even the idea of sending data through wires seems outdated, would it even be possible to replicate Morse’s work?

Back in 2009, artist Jamie O’Shea of the organization Substitute Materials decided to find out for himself. In a project titled “Immaculate Telegraphy,” O’Shea set out to test whether electronic communication could have been developed at any point in human history with just the materials available for scavenging in the wilderness of New Jersey.

Motherboard producer Kelly Loudenberg joined O’Shea as he set out to develop his own Stone Age network. Enjoy the video above to follow along with one of the ultimate salvagepunk experiments, and think of this: using the techniques utilized by O’Shea, a telegraph-like communications network could theoretically have been developed at an infinite number of points in human history. What is the confluence of intelligence, events, and sheer luck that led to Morse creating the telegraph first? – By Derek Mead

• ‘What hath God wrought’: Not Quite the First Telegraph
• The First Wired President: Obama Has His Blackberry, Lincoln Had ‘T-Mail’
• ‘Telegram for America,’ A 1956 Documentary About Life Before Email

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