infrastructures and networks

I am very pleased to share the news of the recent publication of a wonderful collection of essays on infrastructure, of which I am part of, with an essay on pneumatic tubes.

The book is called Historicizing Infrastructure and is edited by Andreas Marklund and Mogens Ruediger. Andreas and Mogens organised the history of infrastructure conference at the Post and Tele Museum in Copenhagen that I wrote about in July and then October 2014. The presentations were so interesting they felt they had to compile a book.

Here is a short description of the contents of what they produced:

How does one handle a concept like ‘infrastructure’, which seems, simultaneously, so vague and yet heavily technical? In this international research volume, nine historians and cultural researchers from different academic institutions delve into the historical dimensions of infrastructural development. The interplay of infrastructures with society and its dominant political ideas and cultural beliefs is at the core of the analyses. A wide range of topics and historical contexts are covered by the book, from nineteenth-century railroads and territorial identities, and the sonic features of pneumatic tube systems, to privacy and security issues in relation to modern telecommunications, and the materiality of satellite television at the end of the Cold War.

I am so happy to be sharing the pages with these fascinating contributions and contributors! And Andreas and Mogens made working on this such a pleasure. My chapter is called "Sounds like infrastructure: Examining the materiality of pneumatic tube systems through their sonic traces". Here is my abstract for the chapter:

In the last few decades infrastructures have become increasingly visible in the social sciences, following a much longer engagement by historians. Recent anthropological work on infrastructure often adopts a practice-orientated approach, which focuses on the ways in which they are shaped through entangled material and social relations. In this paper I argue that such an approach can be strengthened by attention to the sensory and imaginative dimensions of infrastructure, which helps to articulate the vibrancy and fragility of such sociomaterial assemblages. I do so in order to suggest new methodological directions for the history of infrastructure. In order to illustrate my argument I use the case study of an infrastructure which once existed through large technical systems under city streets, and now is constructed on much smaller scales in buildings such as hospitals; pneumatic tube systems. Pneumatic tube systems highlight the durability of infrastructures over time. They are used nowadays to move materials which cannot be uploaded, scanned or printed; materials which come with traces of the personal, whether this is a piece of human tissue or trash. Following the practices of pneumatic tube systems ethnographically highlights the multisensory nature of infrastructures, which refuse to stay buried and quiet. Focusing particularly on sound, I look at examples of how sounds and listening practices signal infrastructures working smoothly as well as moments of breakdown and blockage. Working with infrastructures entails sonic skills, which becomes part of professional practice. I suggest that as well as making infrastructures more visible in our historical and anthropological engagements, we should also make them more audible. Often we tend to attribute sensory qualities to nature rather than technologies. Attending to the sensory dimensions of infrastructure however helps to understand more about their temporality and affects, which forwards our understanding of the role of infrastructural technologies in the modernization of society. In making this methodological plea, I suggest that sensory methods have as much relevance for historical studies as for the social sciences where they are more commonly used, and that both anthropology and history can learn from working closely alongside each other in their studies of the infrastructural arrangements of social life.

I would highly encourage you to buy the book, but if you are not able to but want to read the chapter, write to me and I can send you a copy of my piece.

diagnosing by sound

Last week I wrote about how engineers used sound as a way to diagnose problems in pneumatic tube systems. I also wrote a blogpost for another site on this topic, which may interest some readers, about the use of sound in medical diagnosis, which you can read here.

Image of the great listener physician William Osler at the bedside, from Wellcome Images.

pneumatic sounds

Some pneumatic tube sounds from my factory tour:

Sending ...



And receiving ...



For some other wonderful pneumatic tube sounds listen also to the Buispost blog.

le bruit de choc

Paris in the 1890s, and a tubiste working in the Poste Pneumatique pulls a lever, cranks a steel door, exchanges cylinders and closes the door again. Sweat forms on his brow as he turns the wheel to create a vacuum and apply compressed air. He pauses to ring the bell so the next station knows of the coming delivery. A tubiste down the line rings his bell when he hears le bruit de choc as the tube arrives at his station.

This section of text, adapted from Molly Wright Steenson's Cabinet article, is filled with sound. The soundscapes of these brass-age pneumatic systems evoke the work involved in sending pneumatic missives underneath the city. These historic sonic delights are however considered pollution in many modern day hospitals, with an increasing call to 'turn the sound down' in clinical work spaces.
  
Swisslog have responded to this drive with their patent-pending Whisper Receiving System, which minimises noise associated with pneumatic transportation. Recently installed in the positively named Le Bonheur Hospital in America, the system is said to enable employees to concentrate better on the patient care requirements of the hospital. I wonder how the tubistes were ever able to get their work done with all of that cranking, clanging and bell ringing!

Image from Scott Kostolni's Flikrstream.

as thuds and thwacks become mere whispers: more sounds of pneumatic technology

Pneumatic tube systems make wonderful sounds: whooshes, rumbles and clattering tumbles. James Drake describes some of the sounds of this "wheezing, gurgling metal" in his piece about the Prague postal system for BusinessWeek:

Back in the dispatch room, meantime, a blinking red light indicates another incoming missive. As the canister approaches, there's a faint bumblebee drone, then a louder, higher-pitched buzz, then a satisfying thwack as the package drops into its padded receptacle. From the bowels of the earth below comes a drawn-out gurgle, not unlike the flushing of a distant toilet.

It seems however that pneumatic systems can be a little too noisy. Ever since the 1980s, engineers have tried to find ways to stop containers arriving in pathology labs with a thud, by controlling airflow, and slowing down containers for a soft landing at its destination.

More recently, the SwissLog's Whisper Receiving System reportedly "responds to market demands by significantly reducing the noise that occurs when a pneumatic tube carrier arrives at a PTS station". Their re-engineered product includes an energy absorbing landing ramp and cushion, allowing it to be installed in "noise sensitive" areas of hospitals.

As I wrote in an earlier post, pneumatic tube systems are considered by some as contributing to the noise pollution in hospitals. The whispering canister technology certainly ties into the increasing focus of hospital architecture on therapeutic environments which promote healing through quietness, pleasant colours on the walls and green spaces.

The messiness of hospital practice however can't always be reduced to a whisper. One wonders whether we really need to do away with the thuds and thwacks of pneumatic tubes or whether these noises might in fact serve a function?

artists in residence

I've often thought it would be great to work with an artist on project about pneumatic tubes in hospitals. A couple of months ago I started talking to my brother-in-law about a sound project here in Melbourne (and would love to continue the conversation Andy!). Sociologists are increasingly working with artists at their fieldsites (see this blog about ethnography-art collaborations) to explore themes about medicine, science and technology amongst others.

There are arts-based projects in hospital contexts such as Hearing Voices, Seeing Things, the two-year program of residencies with staff and users at North East London Mental Health Trust led by artists Bob and Roberta Smith and Jessica Voorsanger, and Transplant, a collaborative piece of work from Tim Wainwright and John Wynne. Both of these projects explore themes central to many sociological studies of health and illness. Katerina Cizek's filmaker-in-residence project at St Michael's Hospital in Toronto was also incredibly sociological.

Artists such as Barbara Hepworth, Christina Lammers, Bill Viola, Heather Spears and Christine Borland have had residencies in hospitals, akin to hospital ethnographies. Barbara Hepworth produced a wonderful series of fenestration drawings of her time in ENT theatres, whilst Bill Viola's installation Science of the Heart is from his time at Memorial Medical Centre in Long Beach, New York. Heather Spears spends her residencies in neonatal intensive care units whilst Christine Borland spent a week at the University of Alberta Hospital, producing a piece of work presented in the exhibition, Imagining Science, at the Art Gallery of Alberta. Borland worked with two patients having kidney biopsies, taking photographs at the start of the procedure, then accompanied the tissue through its journey through the many processes of the Pathology Laboratory. It is a work which I think has a lot of relevance to the role of pneumatic tube systems in hospitals for the artwork brought the patient into the laboratory and the experience of the laboratory to the patient:

“Throughout the week (of her residency) the artist tread a path between the lab and the wards, building an intense, personal relationship with the patients and staff at each end. For the patients the ‘end product’ was a 10 minute long, self-running PowerPoint presentation of the hundreds of images documenting their journey through the hospital and laboratory system. As the patients watched this for the first time, entirely absorbed while it was presented to them on the artist’s lap-top, they were filmed from a tiny camera embedded in the frame of the laptop screen which captured their reactions and expressions in the most non-mediated way possible”

Artists are also taking up residencies in genetic research institutes and natural history museums, and their work is being shown in hospitals and other medical sites.

Artistic representations explore research topics in more ambiguous and incomplete ways than academia often allows, this work evoking different stories on common subjects. There are many parallels between artist-in-residencies and ethnographic fieldwork which are interesting to think about. No doubt ethnographers can learn from artists and vice versa. Collaborative work between sociologists and artists raises a number of theoretical and methodological issues which are challenging and potentially rewarding to investigate. There is a lot of exciting work happening in this area, and pneumatic tubes is only one topic, amongst many, that could be explored.

The photo was taken by Thomas, as part of a photographic study of overseas doctors' practices in Australian hospitals, in collaboration with my ethnographic work at this site.

pneumatic sounds

In previous posts I have commented on the sounds of pneumatic tubes, and lately I have been having some fantastic conversations with my brother-in-law about the acoustics of these hospital systems. Andy has previously directed me towards great sounds sites such as soundtransit and the soundscape journal.

In hospitals, I remember reading on a hospital ethnography mailing list about Lindsey Messervy's Masters of Design Ethnography topic on the sonic environment of hospitals (I have looked but cannot find any further information about the project, and any links would be greatly appreciated). Anthropologist Tom Rice has published work on the acoustics of cardiac auscultation and the stethoscope, whilst hospital artist-in-residence John Wynne discusses the auditory dimensions of his collaborative work with photographer Tim Wainwright on a transplant ward at Harefield Hospital (both of the hyperlinks in this paragraph have audiofiles included).

The sound of pneumatic tubes was mentioned in an article in the New England Journal of Medicine (February 11 1993, 328 (6): 433 - 437) entitled "Pandemonium in the modern hospital". Author Gerald Grumet notes that "a pneumatic-tube carrier arrives with a 88-dB(A) thud". I can't help but include a longer quote from this article:

"The modern hospital, where the previously serene milieu is gradually being debased by a sonic assault on the ears and psyche. The hospital atmosphere of the 1940s and 1950s was one of austere silence, as in a library reading room. Hallways displayed a ubiquitous picture of a uniformed nurse, finger to the lips, sometimes accompanied by the words, "Quiet Please." Signs on the street read, "Hospital Zone - Quiet." The occasional overheard page for a physician signaled a true emergency. But that subdued setting has gradually been replaced by one of turbulence and frenzied activity. People not dart about in a race against time; telephones ring loudly; intercom systems blare out abrupt, high-decibel messages that startle the unsuspecting listener. These sounds are superimposed on a collection of beeps and whines from an assortment of electronic gadgets - pocket pagers, call buttons, telemetric monitoring systems, electronic intravenous machines, ventilator alarms, patient-activity monitors, and computer printers. The hospital, designed as a places of healing and tranquility for patients and of scholarly exchanges among physicians, has become a place of beeping, buzzing, banging, clanging, and shouting" (Grumet 1993, p433).

I wonder if there are any recordings of the austere silence of serene days gone by? This seems rather romantically nostalgic to me. Or have advances in technology meant that there are more sounds in the hospital? Has the pneumatic tube been a rumbling constant through the years, or has that also changed? Do these sounds detract from hospitals as places of healing as Grumet suggests, or are they part of the therapeutic soundscape?

chiming tones from the basement

I'm starting to explore pneumatic networks in hospitals around the world. So far I have come across systems mainly in American hospitals ...

Sara Wykes writes that Stanford Hospital has four miles of pipes, 124 stations, 141 transfer units, 99 inter-zone connectors and 29 blowers. This is a network that makes up to 7,000 transactions a day! Some locations such as the operating theatres have direct lines that "guarantee them a straight shot to the lab". My interest in the sounds of the system was piqued when I read that the system had three dozen different types of chiming tones to alert employees to the arrival of containers.


Sam Samuels explores the pneumatic tubes at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics where he visits the thunderously loud diverter room, deep in the lower level of the hospital. This is a place where few people visit, the system being designed to run by itself. He describes how the canisters can be watched on a computer, as they "wend their way across a schematic diagram of the whole system" (a fantastic typo!).

Photo by Rex Bavousett via Faculty and Staff News, University of Iowa

pneumatics on the tube

It was only last year that I realised what pneumatic tube systems were. Throughout my fieldwork in 2007, in a hospital in outer-metropolitan Melbourne, I had been fascinated by these capsules and stations built into the ward walls. I made numerous comments about the system throughout my fieldnotes but didn't ever really ask anyone too much about them. The tubes were in my periphery. It wasn't until I was watching Baiser Voles (Stolen Kisses), that I made sense of the capsules and their transportation. This YouTube video from the movie, of the pneumatic system in Paris is lovely to watch on its own.

Pneumatics appear elsewhere on the tube. Alongside a number of promotional videos, there is Molly Wright Steenson's exhaustingly speedy presentation on pneumatic tube systems (her slogan is from Ted Stevens, "it really is a series of tubes"), for the Ignite channel (which seems to be a quick version of TED).

As I was searching YouTube, the video I was most looking forward to was the tour of the pneumatic system under construction at St Elizabeth East Hospital (Lafayette, Indiana) by foreman Brent Clark. Whilst there are few shots of the tube system, it is a nice glimpse of a hospital network under construction. It would be fantastic to similarly enter a hospital under construction, and talk to those who build the tubes into place.

My favourite video was called Pneumatic Tube Transfer eller Rörpost which shows the four minute journey of a camera through a pneumatic network. This 'inner space' voyage takes us on a bumpy ride with some wonderful blurry images and sounds and a delightful pause mid-way. It is a fantastic way to capture some of the life of the pneumatic tube. Are there any great videos that I have missed?