Walter Benjamin in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936) quoting Paul Valéry (La conquête de l'Ubiquité, 1928):
Just as water, gas, and electricity are brought into our houses from far off to satisfy our needs in response to a minimal effort, so we shall be supplied with visual or auditory images, which will appear and disappear at a simple movement of the hand, hardly more than a sign.What amazing insight into the future this is, and so poetically phrased. The astonishing image of a future in which the tiniest flick of the wrist will bring flooding into our room a visual and auditory avalanche. And that is the state we are in now - we are those future gods! But we have totally taken that power for granted. 'Where's the bloody remote control gone?'
oh boy... did Valery foresee that too?
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