From The Radio of the Future, Vladimir Khlebnikov, 1921
The Radio of the Future–the central tree of our consciousness–will inaugurate new ways to cope with our endless undertakings and will unite all mankind.
The main Radio station, that stronghold of steel, where clouds of wires cluster like strands of hair, will surely be protected by a sign with a skull and crossbones and the familiar word “Danger,” since the least disruption of Radio operations would produce a mental blackout over the entire country, a temporary loss of consciousness.
Radio is becoming the spiritual sun of the country, a great wizard and sorcerer.
Let us try to imagine Radio’s main station: in the air a spider’s web of lines, a storm cloud of lightning bolts, some subsiding, some flaring up anew, crisscrossing the building from one end to the other. A bright blue ball of spherical lightning hanging in midair like a timid bird, guy wires stretched out at a slant.
From this point on Planet Earth, every day, like the flight of birds in springtime, a flock of news departs, news from the life of the spirit.
In this stream of lightning birds the spirit will prevail over force, good counsel over threats.