On technological mediation | Helma Sawatzky (2013)
51
on technological mediation helma sawatzky
Transcript of On technological mediation | Helma Sawatzky (2013)
on technological mediation
helma sawatzky
3
contents
1. introduction ................................................................................................................................. 7
2. in the beginning ...................................................................................................................... 13
3. camera obscura ....................................................................................................................... 29
4. border crossings ...................................................................................................................... 51
5. body language .......................................................................................................................... 73
postscript ................................................................................................................................... 95
references .................................................................................................................................. 96
image source info ................................................................................................................... 98
This book was created for
CMNS 857 | Philosophy of technology
taught by Andrew Feenberg
in the spring of 2013
at Simon Fraser University,
Vancouver BC, Canada.
DISCLAIMER
All images are used for
academic purposes only.
I do not intend to infringe
on copyright restrictions,
nor do I sell this academic
work for profit.
Hope you enjoy!
7
The primary word I-Thou can be spoken only with the whole being—
I become through my relation to the Thou; as I become I, I say Thou.
All real living is meeting.
Martin Buber (1937)
M e d i a t i o n i s t h e s t u f f o f l i f e—of things entering into relations of (ex)change
and transformation. Whether we look at atoms, cells, organisms, personal
relationships, ecosystems, organizational structures or technologies, everything that is takes
shape as a dynamic relation between entities. Philosopher of technology Peter-Paul Verbeek
(2011, p. 2) argues that mediation should be considered as “the origin of entities, not as an
intermediary between them.” Within this paradigm all human being is, as philosopher Gilbert
Simondon (1992) proposes, a process of individuation—of becoming-in-relation. Our being
unfolds through dynamic relations of mediation with people, places, things, ideas, cultures, and
histories.
introduction
9
This little book on technological mediation is no exception. It came to be through many
such relations—through my active engagement with the ideas of others, through visualizing
some of these ideas, through the process of writing these pages, through the ideas that were
sparked along the way, through webs of personal memories that attached themselves to new
ideas, through associations with images, artworks, and stories.
A wide range of technologies played their part in the process of creating this book. Not only
did many interconnected technological systems come into play in terms of its material produc-
tion—computers, design software, paper and ink cartridge manufactures, printers, distribution
systems, etc.—but the content of its pages came together through many accidental and inten-
tional ‘online encounters’—the images, quotes, stories, sights, and sounds that got entangled
in the nets of my online search queries, that found their way into this project and changed me
along the way.
Through this little book, I hope to unfold a space in which dialogue between images,
quotes, visualizations and narrative sparks ideas and insights that would not happen in the
same way in a ‘text-only’ document. The materiality or ‘objectness’ of a book could give the
impression that the project has taken its final form. However, in the wake of Roland Barthes’
infamous proclamation of the “death of the author,” I now happily launch this project into the
mælstrom of life to see what will become of it...
Prepare to be boarded!
The conception of being that I put forth, then, is the following:
a being does not possess a unity in its identity,
which is that of the stable state within which no transformation is possible;
rather, a being has a transductive unity,
that is, it can pass out of phase with itself,
it can—in any area—break its own bounds in relation to its center.
What one assumes to be a relation or a duality of principles
is in fact the unfolding of the being,
which is more than a unity and more than an identity;
becoming is a dimension of the being,
not something that happens to it
following a succession of events that affect
a being already and originally given and substantial.
(Gilbert Simondon, 1992, p. 311)
13
in the beginning
15
Big things have small beginnings
Prometheus (2012)
All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation
Walter Benjamin
T o t e l l a s t o r y a b o u t t e c h n o l o g y is to tell a story about human beings and their
world. Like no other living creature, humans have unfolded their presence through
things—myriad tools and artifacts invented and constructed to serve a wide range of purposes.
Of course, humans are not the only living beings that make things ‘for a reason.’ Many other
animal species build amazing structures for purposes of shelter, find ingenious ways of securing
access to food, or create artful displays to court a mate. Research with primates has proven
that humans are not the only ones to use tools either. However, the motivation to intentionally
‘technologize’ another species—to introduce our animal ‘others’ to ‘human’ technologies— very
much belongs to the sphere of human activity. Human beings are tool beings. No other living
being has populated its life with—and transformed its existence through—technological
artifacts the way humans have.
Questions concerning the entanglement of humans and technology have been explored
in different ways and on different scales. A brief overview of a few common perspectives on
human-technology relations will help to contextualize this story.
17
ONTOLOGIES
A core consideration in the context of human-technology relations concerns different ideas
about what it is to be human. Answers to this question frequently involve qualitative evalua-
tions of living organisms versus inanimate matter, and human life versus other living beings. For
example, ancient Greek philosophers argued that “technical beings” such as tools and artifacts
lack “ontological depth” and “meaning” (Stiegler, 2004). This evaluative discrimination inherently
places greater value on living being over technical being. Another influential current infusing
Western thought springs from the Judeo-Christian world view in which an ontological divide
qualitatively separates humans from all other living beings. Based on the creation story in the
book of Genesis, Jewish and Christian belief systems claim that humans were made in the
image of the Creator God, who bestowed upon humanity a divine call of stewardship over all
living things. This qualitative difference further ‘materializes’ by contrasting the eternal life of the
human spirit to the temporary and fleeting character of all earthly and bodily existence.
Perspectives that build on an evolutionary paradigm for understanding what it is to be
human tend to take things more serious—artifacts are considered as an integral part of the
evolution of the human species. For example, philosopher of technology Bernard Stiegler
(1998) follows the lead of paleontologist André Leroi-Gourhan and historian Bertrand Gilles to
argue that what makes human beings truly human is precisely their use of tools or ‘technics’:
the profound entanglement with tools constitutes an ontological essence of the human species
(‘originary technicity’). Philosopher and anthropologist Bruno Latour (1994, p. 53) also empha-
sizes the intricate association of humans and artifacts, arguing that “[h]umans, for millions of
years, have extended their social relations to other actants [tools and artifacts] with which, with
whom, they have swapped many properties, and with which, with whom they form collectives
19
The essence of technology is enframing! I disagree!
THe essence of technology is
domination!
actually, the essence
of technology is mediation.
what is the essence oftechnology?
just a sec-let me just
google that...
no way- the essence
of technology is time...
come on guys... there is no single
essence of technology, but There are many technologies!
(p. 53). Within this conception of the human, tools and artifacts are active participants in an
evolution process—human beings and technics co-evolve in a relationship of mutual exchange.
Within such organic and evolutionary paradigms human being is also always becoming.
TECHNOLOGIES
Another important distinction concerning interpretations of human-technology rela-
tions involves a differentiation between the tools and artifacts that find their origins in
the pre-modern context of craft and the types of devices that emerged in the wake of the
Enlightenment era and the Industrial Revolution.
Philosopher of technology Andrew Feenberg
(2010) identifies several important differences
between traditional tools and “modern tech-
nology” in terms of “the scale of their activities,
their “cognitive basis,” and their “cultural role”
(p. 183). New sources of energy—steam, combus-
tion, electricity—made it possible for modern
technology to increasingly detach itself from
the confines of the situated, embodied praxis
of a single craftsman or a village workshop.
The systematic deconstruction of processes
of making into repetitive actions that could
be executed by machines—operated by ‘line
workers’—made it possible for modern tech-
nology to “operate[ ] at huge scales” and have
21
AUTONOMOUSco
mpl
ete s
epar
atio
n of
mea
ns an
d en
ds
means for a way of life that includes ends
TECHNOLOGY
NEU
TRA
L
VALU
E LAD
EN
HUMANLY CONTROLLED
DETERMINISM INSTRUMENTALISM
SUBSTANTIVISM CONSTRUCTIVISM& CRITICAL THEORY
Technology has a singular essencethat constitutes our world; human agency is limited.
Technology creates many systems and logics that unfold possible ‘worlds’ for humans to inhabit; humans have choice.
Technology is a neutral means towardshuman ends. Complete human control in terms of managing means and ends.
Technology is understood as part of a linear trajectory of human civilization. It is understood within a paradigm of ‘progress’ .
“correspondingly huge impacts on nature and society” (p. 183). These new modes of production
were propelled forward by a very different logic—a logic characterized by “the differentiation
of technical activity from other types of social activity” (p. 183), a logic of innovation, progress,
efficiency and, ultimately, profitability—a logic of capitalist production.
Feenberg (1999, p. 9) created an insightful map of several important interpretive directions
within the field of philosophy of technology (see page 20). While acknowledging that people
ultimately are the creators of technology, Feenberg identifies two different axes that unfold
four perspectives on the ‘essence’ of technology. The first axis considers technology as either
a neutral or a value-laden entity; the second axis differentiates between different interpreta-
tions on who or what is in charge, on whether technology is viewed as autonomous or humanly
controlled. Determinist accounts conceive of technology as an autonomous entity that follows
its own logical evolution; a perspective that frequently attaches itself to narratives of technolog-
ical progress. Instrumentalist accounts view technology as a tool or an instrument that is under
complete human control. In both variations technology is mostly situated outside of culture
and political practice. Substantivist accounts tend to interpret technology as a world-making
force that may threaten nature and humanity. Constructivist accounts of technology argue that
technology is a profoundly cultural form that is very much humanly controlled. This paradigm
situates technology and its developments in the political realm—in terms of who gets to be
involved in making decisions about technological developments and which kinds of principles,
values, possibilities, and choices will be encoded in the artifacts through which we live our lives.
DEPTHS OF FIELD
Just like we can look at planet earth from a wide range of perspectives—from satellite
images taken from space all the way to the detail that can be discerned looking at cells and
23
organisms through an electron microscope—human-technology relations can be brought
into focus in different ways and on different scales. We can consider things on a meta level of
technologically mediated global flows of information, power, and wealth, on a macro plane of
societal systems and political networks, or from a micro perspective considering the situated
point of view of a human being unfolding presence in a “technologically textured” world (Ihde,
1990, p. 1)—all of which are intricately enmeshed. Each approach offers valuable perspec-
tives on the myriad beings and doings of technology. My personal interest and concern is for
the up-close and personal, for the ways in which a range of technologies intimately interface
with my embodied being—with the lived experience, or ‘phenomenology,’ of technological
mediation.
This story about human-technology relations takes as its starting point that technology is
not neutral and yet underdetermined (cf. Ihde, Feenberg, Verbeek, Latour), that there is no single
essence of technology, but that there are many technologies that are put to different uses in
different contexts (Ihde, 1990, 2010). It also acknowledges that what technologies become and
how they are able to function in society is to a large extent “socially constructed” (cf. Pinch &
Bijker, Pinch & Collins, Feenberg). It embraces the notion that “human beings and their world
are the products of mediation, not its starting point” (Verbeek, 2011, p. 4), and considers tech-
nologies as influential participants in life as we know it.
I will discuss two different perspectives on technological mediation—Bruno Latour’s ideas
on technological mediation as processes of inscription and delegation and Don Ihde’s phenom-
enological analysis of human-technology relations. I also consider Peter-Paul Verbeek’s critique
and extension of each perspective. I conclude with a reflection on embodiment and the senses
in the context of technological mediation.
technology, n. †1. A discourse or treatise on an art or arts; esp. (in later use) a
treatise on a practical art or craft. Obs. In quot. 1612 perh.: academic discussion or disputation generally.
†2. The terminology of a particular art or subject; technical language or nomenclature. Obs.
†3. The systematic treatment of grammar. Obs. rare
4 a. The branch of knowledge dealing with the mechanical arts and applied sciences; the study of this.
b. The application of such knowledge for practical purposes, esp. in industry, manufacturing, etc.; the sphere of activity concerned with this; the mechanical arts and applied sciences collectively. Freq. with modifying word, as alternative tech-nology, applied technology, food technology, information technology, space technology: see the first element.
c. The product of such application; technological knowledge or know-how; a technological process, method, or technique. Also: machinery, equipment, etc., developed from the practical application of scientific and technical knowledge; an example of this. Also in extended use.
5. A particular practical or industrial art; a branch of the mechan-ical arts or applied sciences; a technological discipline.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, March 2013
24 25
1612
tr
. I. C
asau
bon
Ans
wer
e Ep
ist.
Per
on s
ig. A
3v, M
en, v
oid
of
God
s sp
irit
, com
mon
ly a
nd
pro
mis
cuou
sly
did
dis
put
e of
sp
irit
uall
thin
gs,
an
d c
onue
rt T
heo
log
ie in
to t
ech
nol
ogy,
th
at is
, mak
e n
o ot
her
vse
of
Diu
init
y b
ut a
s a
mat
ter
of le
arn
ed, o
r ar
tifi
cial
l dis
cour
se,
as t
hey
tal
ke o
f ot
her
art
s an
d s
cien
ces
out
of h
uman
e re
ason
.16
15
G. B
uck
Thir
d U
niv.
Eng
. xlv
iii, i
n E.
How
es S
tow
’s A
nnal
es (n
ew e
d.) 9
88/2
An
ap
t cl
ose
of
this
gen
eral
Tec
hn
olog
ie.
1628
T.
Ven
ner B
aths
of B
athe
9 H
eere
I ca
nn
ot b
ut la
y op
en B
ath
s Te
chn
olog
ie.
1658
Si
r T. B
row
ne G
arde
n of
Cyr
us in
Hyd
riot
aphi
a v.
192
Th
e m
oth
er o
f Li
fe a
nd
Fou
nta
in o
f so
uls
in C
abal
isti
call
Tech
nol
ogy
[pri
nted
Tec
huo
log
y] is
cal
led
Bin
ah.
1683
J.
Tw
ells
Gra
m. R
efor
mat
a Pr
ef. 1
7 Th
ere
wer
e n
ot a
ny f
urth
er E
ssay
s m
ade
in T
ech
nol
ogy,
fo
r ab
ove
Four
scor
e ye
ars;
but
all
men
acq
uies
ced
in t
he
Com
mon
Gra
mm
ar.
1706
Ph
illip
s’s N
ew W
orld
of W
ords
(ed.
6) ,
Tec
hn
olog
y, a
Des
crip
tion
of
Art
s, e
spec
ially
th
e M
ech
anic
al.
1787
E.
A. W
. von
Zim
mer
man
n Po
lit. S
urv.
Eur
ope
Pref
. iii
A n
ew b
ran
ch o
f sc
ien
tifi
c kn
owle
dg
e,
viz.
tec
hn
olog
y, o
r th
e th
eory
an
d a
ccur
ate
des
crip
tion
of
usef
ul a
rts
and
man
ufac
ture
s,
was
muc
h c
ulti
vate
d in
Ger
man
y.17
93
W. T
aylo
r in
Mon
thly
Rev
. 11
563
The
por
t-cu
stom
s, t
he
tech
nol
ogy,
an
d t
he
mar
itim
e la
ws,
all
wea
r m
arks
of
this
ori
gin
al c
har
acte
r17
96
J. M
orse
Am
er. U
nive
rsal
Geo
gr. (
new
ed.
) II.
228
(Ger
man
y) A
cad
emic
al s
cien
ces.
.un
der
th
e n
ame
of T
ech
nol
ogy,
Eco
nom
y, S
cien
ce o
f Fi
nan
ces,
an
d S
tati
stic
.18
25
T. H
. Hor
ne O
utl.
Cla
ssif.
Lib
r. 5
Ab
bé
Gir
ard
..div
ides
hum
an k
now
led
ge
into
six
cla
sses
, vi
z. T
heo
log
y, N
omol
ogy.
.an
d T
ech
nol
ogy.
1827
J.
Ben
tham
Rat
iona
le J
udic
ial E
vid.
IV. v
iii. x
v. 2
52 A
n e
ng
ine,
cal
led
, in
th
e te
chn
olog
y of
th
at d
ay, f
ork.
1829
J.
Big
elow
Ele
m. o
f Tec
hnol
. p. i
v, T
he
imp
orta
nce
of
the
sub
ject
, an
d t
he
pre
vaili
ng
inte
rest
, wh
ich
exi
sts
in r
egar
d t
o th
e ar
ts a
nd
th
eir
pra
ctic
al in
flue
nce
s, a
pp
ear
to m
e to
hav
e cr
eate
d a
wan
t..in
our
cou
rses
of
elem
enta
ry e
dic
atio
n...
To
emb
ody,
as
far
as
pos
sib
le, t
he
vari
ous
top
ics
wh
ich
bel
ong
to
such
an
un
der
taki
ng,
I h
ave
adop
ted
th
e g
ener
al n
ame
of T
ech
nol
ogy,
a w
ord
suf
fici
entl
y ex
pre
ssiv
e, w
hic
h is
foun
d in
som
e of
th
e ol
der
dic
tion
arie
s, a
nd
is b
egin
nin
g t
o b
e re
vive
d in
th
e lit
erat
ure
of p
ract
ical
men
at
th
e p
rese
nt d
ay.
1858
T.
Car
lyle
His
t. F
ried
rich
II o
f Pru
ssia
II. i
x. ii
. 403
Not
th
e ex
pre
ss S
cien
ces
or
Tech
nol
ogie
s...
Thes
e h
e n
ever
car
ed fo
r, or
reg
ard
ed a
s th
e n
oble
kn
owle
dg
es fo
r a
kin
g o
r m
an.
1859
R.
F. B
urto
n Ce
ntra
l Afr
. in
Jrnl
. Roy
al G
eogr
. Soc
. 29
437
Litt
le v
alue
d in
Eur
opea
n te
chn
olog
y it
[sc.
th
e ch
akaz
i, or
‘jac
kass
’ cop
al] i
s ex
por
ted
to
Bom
bay
, wh
ere
it is
co
nver
ted
into
an
infe
rior
var
nis
h.
1860
Va
nity
Fai
r (N
.Y.)
7 A
pr. 2
35/1
We
hav
e C
lass
ical
Dic
tion
arie
s, D
icti
onar
ies
of S
cien
ce,..
Cyc
lop
æd
ias
and
Tec
hn
olog
ies
wit
hou
t N
umb
er.
1864
R.
F. B
urto
n M
issi
on to
Gel
ele
II. 2
02 H
is t
ech
nol
ogy
con
sist
s of
wea
vin
g, c
utti
ng
can
oes,
m
akin
g r
ude
wea
pon
s, a
nd
in s
ome
pla
ces
pra
ctis
ing
a r
ude
met
allu
rgy.
1862
M
orni
ng S
tar 2
1 M
ay, A
lum
iniu
m, a
nd
its
allo
y w
ith
cop
per
—w
hic
h t
he
man
ufac
ture
rs,
wit
h a
slig
ht la
xity
of
tech
nol
ogy,
den
omin
ate
bro
nze
.
1881
P.
Ged
des
in N
atur
e 29
Sep
t. 5
24/2
Of
econ
omic
phy
sics
, geo
log
y, b
otan
y, a
nd
zoo
log
y, o
f te
chn
olog
y an
d t
he
fin
e ar
ts.
1898
Pr
oc. A
mer
. Phi
los.
Soc
. 37
119
A n
umb
er o
f p
aten
ts w
ere
gra
nte
d fo
r im
pro
vem
ents
in
this
tec
hn
olog
y.18
99
F. T
hilly
tr. F
. Pau
lsen
Sys
t. E
thic
s In
trod
., 2
Un
iver
sal d
iete
tics
, to
wh
ich
med
icin
e an
d a
ll th
e ot
her
tec
hn
olog
ies,
like
ped
agog
y, p
olit
ics,
etc
., ar
e re
late
d a
s sp
ecia
l par
ts, o
r as
au
xilia
ry s
cien
ces.
1929
H
. E. B
liss
Org
aniz
atio
n Kn
owl.
& S
yst.
Sci
. xv.
295
Wh
ere
man
y te
chn
olog
ies
app
lyin
g se
vera
l sci
ence
s ar
e st
udie
d t
oget
her
th
e te
rm p
olyt
ech
nic
s is
ap
pro
pri
ate.
1930
M
issi
ssip
pi V
alle
y H
ist.
Rev
. 16
539
To h
er, a
nd
to
her
son
,..ch
ief
of t
he
tech
nol
ogy
dep
artm
ent
of t
he
Det
roit
Pub
lic L
ibra
ry, t
he
Edit
or is
ind
ebte
d.
1935
A
mer
. Jrn
l. A
rcha
eol.
39 1
66/2
No
Euro
pea
n la
ng
uag
e p
osse
sses
a t
ech
nic
al v
ocab
ular
y co
mp
lete
ly a
deq
uate
to
a fa
cile
des
crip
tion
of
the
adva
nce
d t
ech
nol
ogie
s d
isp
laye
d in
th
ese
fab
rics
.19
49
in W
. A. V
isse
r t’ H
ooft
Fir
st A
ssem
bly
Wor
ld C
ounc
il of
Chu
rche
s 75
Th
ere
is n
o in
esca
pab
le
nec
essi
ty fo
r so
ciet
y to
suc
cum
b t
o un
dir
ecte
d d
evel
opm
ents
of
tech
nol
ogy.
1957
Te
chno
logy
Apr
. 56/
1 It
[sc.
Ch
emic
al E
ng
inee
rin
g] i
s n
ow r
ecog
niz
ed a
s on
e of
th
e fo
ur
pri
mar
y te
chn
olog
ies,
alo
ng
sid
e ci
vil,
mec
han
ical
, an
d e
lect
rica
l en
gin
eeri
ng.
1958
J.
K. G
albr
aith
Aff
luen
t Soc
iety
ix. 9
9 Im
pro
vem
ents
in t
ech
nol
ogy.
.are
th
e re
sult
of
inve
stm
ent
in h
igh
ly o
rgan
ized
sci
enti
fic
and
en
gin
eeri
ng
kn
owle
dg
e an
d s
kills
.19
60
Elec
tron
ic E
ngin
. 32
148/
1 El
ectr
onic
dat
a-p
roce
ssin
g fo
r b
usin
ess
is a
you
ng
tec
hn
olog
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.
29
camera obscura
31
Each artifact has its script, its ‘affordance,’
its potential to take hold of passersby
and force them to play roles in its story.
Bruno Latour (1994, p. 29)
T h e e a r l i e s t i t e ra t i o n s o f t h e p h o t o g ra p h i c ca m e ra started with a simple
black box—a tiny pinhole in one of its walls and a chemically treated surface on the
opposing wall. The light entering the box through the opening—and this only worked on a bright
sunny day—would then be focused on a light sensitive ‘plate’ to produce a photograph (‘photos’
= light, ‘graphos’ = drawing). Camera technology has evolved a lot since then. A wide range of
lenses were developed to serve an even wider range of applications. Metal and glass plates were
replaced with light-sensitive sheets of ‘film.’ Mechanisms were developed for adjusting exposure
time and for transporting roll film. The camera functionality was increasingly integrated with
peripheral devices such as flash units, electronic light meters, or a motor drive. Additional
features such as auto-focus and a wide range of standardized settings for specific subject
matter—landscape, portraiture, panorama, or ‘night time’ photography—were incorporated
into the camera’s functionality to make it more ‘user-friendly.’ In digital cameras, analog film was
replaced with a digital light sensor (a charged-coupled device or CCD) and the ability to store,
view, and organize image files ‘in-camera.’ Today, many digital devices like smartphones and
other portable computers incorporate camera technology as part of their basic functionality.
The development of wireless internet access and greater data streaming capacity have made
Light-tight box with a small hole in one side, sometimes fitted with a lens, through which light from a well-lit scene or object enters to form an inverted image on a screen placed opposite the hole (see fig.). A mirror then re-flects the image, right way up, on to a draw-ing surface where its outlines can be traced. The camera obscura was the direct precursor of the modern camera, and its use by earlier artists can be com-pared to that made of the camera by artists of the 19th and 20th centuries. Moreover, a camera obscura was the device used by Thomas Wedgwood (1771–1801) and Humphry Davy (1778–1829) in the late 18th century in their attempts to project an image on to paper and leather coated with a silver nitrate solution; the image was finally fixed by Nicéphore Niépce (1765–1833) in 1826–7.
The origins of the camera obscura go back at least to Aristotle, who noted the principle on which it works in his Problems. This was also noted by the Arabian philosopher Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen; c.965–1039) who recommended it to astronomers as a means of observing eclipses safely; it was frequently used for this purpose, often in conjunction with an astronomer’s reticle. This appears to have been its main use at least until the 16th century, though the English scholar Roger Bacon (1214–94) appears to have known of the mirror device by which the camera obscura was of interest and value to artists. Gior-gio Vasari (1511–74) mentions an invention of Leon Battista Alberti (1404–72) that sounds as if it may have been a cam-era obscura , but it was not until the publication of the Magia Naturalis (Naples, 1558) by the Neapolitan physician Giovan Battista della Porta (c.1535–1615) that the camera obscura became popularized as a mechanical aid to drawing, and not until the early 1600s that Johannes Kepler (1571–1630) gave it the name by which it is now known.
Following this the camera obscura became increasingly popular and important. Both Johannes Torrentius (1589–1644) and Johannes Vermeer (1632–75) are known to have used it (the former thus laying himself open to a charge of witchcraft); so, notably, did Canaletto (1697–1768), who had a camera obscura made by the Venetian optical-instru-ment maker Domenico Selva (d 1758). Among other paint-ers who enthusiastically adopted it were Francesco Guardi (1712–93), Michele Giovanni Marieschi (1710–43), Luca Carlevaris (1663–1730) and Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723–92). John Harris (?1667–1719) mentions the camera obscura in his Lexicon Technicum (London, 1704) as being on sale
in London; indeed, throughout the 18th century their use became a craze. They were enjoyed equally for the views they made possible, particularly the chiar-oscuro effects produced by looking from or through a darkened area at a well-lit subject (perhaps similar to those cre-ated by the Claude glass and satisfying a similar 18th-century taste). Horace Wal-pole (1717–97) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) are among those known to have owned and used a camera obscura , presumably for this reason. In 1747 the London instrument maker John Cuff (1708–92) published an anonymous contemporary poem praising the camera obscura , which gives some indication of the healthy market there was for these instruments.
It contains much fulsome praise:
Say, rare Machine, who taught thee to design? And mimick Nature with such Skill divine … Exterior objects painting on the scroll True as the Eye presents ’em to the Soul….
The camera obscura came in many sizes, some large enough, though portable, to warrant being covered with a tent; these could easily accommodate a man standing (and drawing) inside. Others, like sedan-chairs, were fitted with bellows, which the artist or viewer worked with his feet to improve ventilation. Sir Joshua Reynolds owned one (Lon-don, Science Museum) that, with great ingenuity, collapsed down to the size and appearance of a book and could be stored as such.
33
it possible for us to take photographs and instantly share them with any or all of our online
networks. The contemporary digital camera (which may be any colour, shape, or size) is more of
a “black box” today than the actual black box of the early pinhole camera ever was.
For Bruno Latour, the enigmatic figure of the black box signifies the ‘opacity’ of technological
mediation. If we consider the example of the photo camera, we see a device that ‘conceals’ more
than a century of decision making about photography and camera design. Some features were
developed more recently; others were passed along with each new iteration of the technology.
For example, even though ‘medium format cameras’ such as the ‘Hasselblad’ feature a square
view finder, almost every other camera is designed with a rectangular frame for image compo-
sition. This ‘familiar’ shape— ‘landscape orientation’—has
both an embodied and cultural history. In terms of the body, we
can argue that our ‘natural’ field of vision is kind of rectangular
or panoramic. In terms of cultural forms and practices, this shape
has been a common orienta- tion in the context of the visual
arts (e.g., landscape painting), which, in turn, was a formative
influence in the early days of photography (e.g., Batchen,
1997). Of course, turning the camera on its side offers us—and here is another reference to the
history of painting—‘portrait orientation.’ The rectangular viewfinder is but one example of an
inscription of design decisions and of cultural-aesthetic histories that affects both the photogra-
pher in the act of doing photography, the formal aesthetics of photography as an artistic genre,
and the myriad forms and applications in the wider sphere of photographic practice (e.g., the
size of picture frames sold in stores, ‘standardized’ photo paper sizes, etc.). For Latour (1994), a
photo camera is nothing less than “a labyrinth concealing multitudes:”
35
Objects that exist simply as objects, finished, not part of a collective life, are unknown,
buried under soil. Real objects are always parts of institutions, trembling in their mixed
status as mediators, mobilizing faraway lands and people, ready to become people or
things, not knowing if they are composed of one or many, of a black box counting for
one or of a labyrinth concealing multitudes. (p. 46)
Latour (1994) theorizes societies as networked relations between “agents” that
in and through their associations set into motion the flow of action-as-it-happens.
An agent can be human or non-human. An agent can be singular (an individual, an artifact),
collective (a social group or technical complex), or subindividual (e.g., unconscious motives). In
the context of such ‘narratives of action,’ Latour distinguishes
between actors and actants. The term “actant” is taken from
the field of semiotics and refers to “any entity that acts in a plot
until the attribution of a figu- rative or nonfigurative role
(“citizen,” “weapon”)” (p. 33). Human-technology relations
unfold as the formation of “hybrids” in which a human
actor—a single person or a group—forms an action network
with a non-human actant—a single technological artifact or a more complex system—to set
into motion a flow of action in which all participants co-shape what comes about and how. The
formation of such human-technology hybrids is another instance of blackboxing—“a process that
makes the joint production of actors and artifacts entirely opaque” (p. 36). In terms of the different
“meanings” of technological mediation, Latour comes up with four different concepts that touch
on the unique power and influence of technological artifacts in terms of mediating action—
translation, composition, reversible blackboxing, and delegation—all of which are different
articulations of processes of inscription and delegation.
n i n t e r m e d i a r y, in my vocabulary, is what trans-
ports meaning or force without transformation:
defining its inputs is enough to define its outputs. For all practical purposes, an intermediary can be taken not only as a black box, but also as a black box counting for one, even if it is internally made of many parts. M e d i a t o r s , on the other hand, cannot be counted as just one; they might count for one, for nothing, for several, or for infinity. Their input is never a good predictor of their output; their specificity has to be taken into account every time. Media-tors transform, translate, distort, and modify the meaning or elements they are supposed to carry. No matter how co m p l i ca t e d an intermediary is, it may, for all practical purposes, count for just one—or even for nothing at all because it can be easily forgotten. No matter how apparently simple a mediator may look, it may become co m p l e x ; it may lead in multiple directions which will modify all the contradictory accounts attributed to its role.
(Latour, 2005, p. 39)
37
AGENT
1
AGENT
2 AGENT
2
GOAL 1
GOAL 2
GOAL 3
//
detour
interruption
TRAN
SLATION
HYBRID
TR ANSL ATION
The first meaning of technological mediation elaborated by Latour (1994) is that of
translation: technology translates human purposes and intentions into forms or flows of action
that ‘belong’ to the technology in question as much as they belong to the person using the
technology. For Latour, the process of translation involves “displacement, drift, invention,
mediation, the creation of a link that did not exist before and that to some degree modifies two
elements or agents,” as well as a level of “uncertainty about goals” (p. 32). This zone of indeter-
minacy effectively negates both the “myth of the Neutral Tool under complete human control
and the myth of the Autonomous Destiny” (p. 32). For example, I may want to create a record
or representation of something. I have multiple courses of action available to me. As soon as I
decide to ‘team up with’ a photo camera, I am merged into a hybrid entity— iCamera. My inten-
tions and actions are translated by the camera’s programs of action: I will likely begin engaging
the world more ‘visually,’ Iooking through the camera view finder and taking photographs of
things that are of interest to me. Meanwhile, the camera adds its possibilities to the mix and my
actions and goals may change as I see alternate applications for using a camera. iCamera finds
different ways of being and enacting purposes, goals and programs of action.
TRANSLATION (Latour, 1994, p. 32)
39
AGENT
1
AGENT
2
AGENT
3
PROGRAM OF
ACTIONSUBPROGRAM 1
SUBPROGRAM 2
//
//deto
ur
interruption
COMPOSITION (Latour, 1994, p. 34)
COMPOSITION
Latour’s second meaning of technological mediation—composition— involves a concep-
tion of action as “a property of associated entities” (p. 35). An analysis of who or what is
performing the action will lead to the identification of composite entities in which one agent is
effectively “allowed, authorized, enabled by the others” (p. 35). In turn, each participating agent
may connect to other agents that make possible its operations in—and transformations of—
the real-time unfolding of action. Action is a dynamic system in which myriad participants play
multiple roles. Latour (1994) describes the shape shifting abilities of participating agents:
The difference between actor and actant is exactly the same as in a fairy tale where the
sudden performance of a hero may be attributed to a magic wand, or to a horse, or to
a dwarf, or to birth, or to the gods, or to the hero’s inner competence. A single actant
may take many different ‘actantial’ shapes, and conversely the same actor may play
different ‘actorial’ roles. The same is true of goals and functions, the former associated
41
All humans manipulate, pulsating computers.
The non-human folds like an instant processor.
Chips embrace!
Why, i-body!
Instant, fast internets roughly manipulate
a pulsating, constant keyboard.
Hyperlinks unfold!
Non-humans embrace like luminous wires.
online poem generator
2013
with humans, the latter with nonhumans, but both can be described as programs of
action—a neutral term useful when an attribution of human goals or nonhuman func-
tions has been made. (p. 33-34)
For example, iCamera goes to a public concert. As a news reporter, iCamera has a press
pass, which acts as an authority that gives permissions and affords opportunities to go places
and photograph people, things and situations that otherwise would have been off-limits.
Through her education, iCamera was socialized into the program of action of photo journalism,
an actant that actively shapes what iCamera photographs and how. At the event, iCamera meets
a few relatives, strikes up a conversation, and subsequently decides to use the occasion to take
a few family snapshots to later e-mail to her parents. This unplanned event and course of action
was made possible by the presence of a digital camera that allowed a few extra ‘shots’ without
extra expense and that made it possible and convenient to share photos with others. iCamera
gets back to the business of photographing the event (the primary goal) until something else
captures her eye. Someone in the crowd starts to threaten another person. iCamera immedi-
ately accesses the video function in her camera—one of the many programs of action included
in her digital SLR camera—to record the incident as it unfolds and to possibly offer it to the
police as evidence. At this one event, iCamera —a hybrid entity composed of Agent 1 (a human
actor) + Agent 2 (a non-human actant)—has taken on several different roles, all of which were
made possible by Agent 3 (the press pass), Agent 4 (a series of nested practices pertaining to
both photography and photojournalism), Agent 5 (the event itself as a context of practice) and
a series of unanticipated events that temporarily shifted the operations of all the others (e.g.,
meeting relatives or the assault). This is an example of what Latour means with composition.
43
RE VERSIBLE BL ACKBOXING
Latour identifies reversible blackboxing as a third meaning of technological mediation.
Reversible blackboxing is what happens when technological artifacts that appeared ‘stable’
break down. In these instances, technological artifacts reveal themselves as composite entities
where “each of the parts inside the black box is a black box full of parts” (p. 37). Technological
artifacts gather around them myriad networks of people and practices past and present—
people who were responsible for its development over time, people who were involved in their
production, people who make their living repairing certain parts of technological artifacts, the
list goes on.
DELEGATION
Latour’s (1994) final meaning of technological mediation involves the notion of delega-
tion—the “spatial, temporal, and ‘actorial’ shifting” that occurs in artifacts (p. 39). Through the
example of the speed bump, Latour shows that a simple material entity manages to affect
action in many different dimensions. Not only does the speed bump transform the actions of
every driver crossing it, it also transforms the character of a neighborhood by controlling the
speed of the vehicles that cross it (or begin avoiding it because of the inconvenience). The speed
bump enacts an “actorial shift” by functioning like a policeman, forcing drivers to slow down. It
also participates in various temporal shifts. It enacts a particular program of action of which the
decision makers may no longer be alive, thereby carrying the past into the present and beyond.
A speed bump is also able to be ‘on the job’ all the time—it never takes time off. Because of this,
Latour proposes that we think of technology as “congealed labour” (p. 40) in which “a regular
course of action is suspended, a detour is initiated via several types of actants, and the return is
45
a fresh hybrid that carries past acts into the present and permits its many makers to disappear
while also remaining present” (p. 40).
THE QUESTION OF SYMME TRY
A core principle in Latour’s understanding of technological mediation is that of symmetry—
a conception of human-technology relations in which the “responsibility for action” and the
“exchange of competencies” is equally “shared among the various actants” (p. 35). Latour (1994)
emphasizes that “actor-actant symmetry force[s] us to abandon the subject-object dichotomy”
that “prevents understanding of techniques and even societies” (p. 34). Several philosophers
of technology have questioned the reality of such symmetry. Verbeek (2005a) points out that
inscription—the central concept in Latour’s analysis of technological mediation—is ultimately
“reducible to human activities” (p. 132) because “only humans have the ability to inscribe” (p.
133), even though these scripts may live on in artifacts for years or centuries ‘after the (f )act.’
Ihde (2002) points out that full symmetry is unrealistic because “the human actant retains inten-
tions” (p. 94) that direct the course of action, even though the form this action takes is shaped by
the artifact in question. Instead, Ihde emphasizes the importance of teasing out the temporal
and actorial shifting within the human-nonhuman dynamic:
Only by ascending to a much larger context, to too high an altitude, and then with
too much generalization and abstraction, does symmetry emerge. […] Nonetheless,
in the middle ground, interactive description of human-nonhuman relations, one can
discern varieties of interaction and degrees of symmetry or asymmetry. The nonhuman
actant is never fully transparent or pure but displays, albeit indirectly, its own role in
the symbiotic context. (p. 96)
47
Finally, Ihde (2002) takes issue with the apparent ‘fixed’ nature of Latour’s understanding of
technological mediation in terms of scripts and processes of inscription. Instead, Ihde empha-
sizes that “all technologies display ambiguous, multistable possibilities” (Ihde, 2010, p. 106) that “in
both structure and history, technologies simply can’t be reduced to designed functions” (p. 106).
RE: AC TION
Like any other philosophy, theory, or analysis ‘out there,’ Latour’s perspective conceals as it
reveals: certain aspects of technological mediation are brought into clear and compelling focus
whereas others seem to fall by the wayside. Verbeek (2005a) points out that Latour’s theory of
mediation is biased towards action. This bias becomes visible in Latour’s diagrams of techno-
logical mediation: all arrows point towards ‘goals’ or ‘programs of action’ and get there in more
or less direct ways. None of the arrows point the ‘other way’—in the direction of the experience
of the human agent. Verbeek (2005a) writes:
This counterpart to “action” is “experience”. The contact between humans and the
world, therefore, has two modi: action and experience, aggregating into “ways of
existing” (existentially) on the one hand, and “forms of interpretation” (hermeneuti-
cally) on the other. […] [Technology] co-shapes the ways in which humans can be
present in their world and the ways in which reality can be present to humans. (p. 139)
Verbeek proposes to shift our perspective on technological mediation towards a “relational
ontology” (p. 137) that does not “localize mediation in the mediating artifacts themselves, but
in the relationship between people and artifacts, or better such as in the ‘artifactually’ mediated
relation between humans and their environment” (p. 135). By locating processes of mediation
in relations between humans and nonhumans, and between humans and their world, the flows
49
of action can move in multiple directions simultaneously, and affect multiple ‘systems’ in many
different ways.
To briefly return to the example of photography, the human-technology hybrid iCamera
activates existential and hermeneutic dimensions at the same time, within ‘itself’ and in a world.
Not only is it part of a chain of actions towards a goal, iCamera is also a social identity and a
dynamic system that generates its own ‘feedback loops’ of action and reaction—of transforma-
tive interaction. While engaging in photography, I feel ‘more alive’ to the world around me in
ways that reflect the ‘intentionality’ of my nonhuman component: I begin to engage the world
more visually. At the same time, being the one with the camera gives me a public identity— I am
present as ‘The Photographer.’ The presence of the camera eye, in turn, may affect those around
me who may become ‘camera aware’ and either pose for—or seek to escape from—the view
finder. Thinking of a camera only in terms of inscription and a delegation of specific programs of
action is reductive of the multiplicity and dynamism of technological mediation.
Considering technologies as actors in networks is useful and revealing as an analytical tool
on the level of ‘macro systems’ such as “society,” but it conceals or “blackboxes” the experien-
tial dimensions of technological mediation—the (trans)formative role of technologies in what
it is to be human. In the next chapter I consider Don Ihde’s phenomenologically anchored
analysis of human-technology relations, which will offer a point of entry into the ‘micro dimen-
sion’ of technological mediation.
51
border crossings
53
…our existence is technologically textured…
with respect to the rhythms and spaces of daily life.
Ihde (1990, p. 1)
A l a r m c l o c k — n i g h t l i g h t — b e d r o o m f a n — light switches — toilet — toilet
paper dispenser — tap — soap dispenser — toothbrush — toothpaste — floss —
age-defying day cream — make-up — towel holder — gas fireplace remote control — water
kettle — microwave — camping stove (don’t ask) — coffee grinder — espresso pot — cling
wrap — aluminum foil — storage containers — tea strainer — fridge — milk jug — mug —
plate — bowl — spoon — dish brush — shoulder bag — keys — car — GPS — telephone —
bus — Sky train — intercom system — escalator — air conditioning — credit card — staircase
— door handle — washing machine — dryer — fabric softener — vacuum — mop — window
cleaner — pruning shears — garbage bin — clock — computer — computer applications
[Windows, Outlook, Word, OneNote, EndNote, Explorer, Firefox, Flash, Silverlight, Bridge,
Indesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Skype, Acrobat, iTunes, TweetDeck, Task manager] — keyboard
— mouse — webcam — Wacom tablet — office chair — desk — glasses — pencil — eraser
— stapler — tape dispenser — sticky notes — scissors — flamenco shoes — metronome —
flute — running shoes — iPod — headphones — sports clothing — convection cooking plate
— knives — blender — frying pan — wok — barbeque — dish soap — dish brush — anti-
bacterial hand lotion — vitamins — medications — chair — table — couch — television —
55
human technology world
amplifier — tv remote control — flashlight — batteries — umbrella — shower — memory foam
mattress — hypo-allergenic duvet — ergonomic pillow — bedside table — alarm clock — nasal
decongestant — water bottle — nightlight — an ordinary day.
To say that I live in a “technologically textured world” would be an understatement.
My being in time, my movement in space, my daily activities, my experiences, my relation to
myself, others and my environment on any given day—all are deeply entangled with tech-
nology. What also comes into clear focus is that I have different types of relations with different
kinds of technologies. Some technologies mostly ‘merge’ with my being-body (e.g., my medi-
cations, eye glasses, running shoes) whereas others seem to remain ‘at a distance’—as part of
the technologically textured world that surrounds me (e.g., electrical lights, the fireplace, the
fridge). In Technology and the lifeworld: From garden to earth, Don Ihde offers a phenomeno-
logical analysis of these different kinds of human-technology relations. Starting with the consti-
tutive components of human being-in-the-world (human—technology—world), Ihde situates
technology in a position of mediation between a person and the world that constitutes the
‘ground’ for action and context for meaning making. With the concepts of embodiment rela-
tions, hermeneutic relations, alterity relations and background relations, Ihde identifies different
a ‘world’ exists in its technological mediation only
e.g., virtual worlds & environments
COMPOSITEINTENTIONALITY
the technology appears as an ‘Other’ to which we direct our attention and action. The life world moves into the background
e.g., an ATM machine
ALTERITYRELATIONS
the technology textures our environment. It operates in the background
e.g., central heating, fridge, air conditioning
BACKGROUNDRELATIONS
VERBEEK’SRADICALIZATION
the technology is fully incorporated into the body
e.g., pace maker, anti-depressant medication
HYBRIDINTENTIONALITY
VERBEEK’SRADICALIZATION
EMBODIMENTRELATIONS
the technology interfaces directly with bodily being-in-the-world
e.g., glasses, hammer, bicycle
the world, or an aspect of it, is ‘read’ and interpreted through the technology
e.g., a geographical map, thermometer
HERMENEUTICRELATIONS
a ‘world’ exists in its technological mediation only
e.g., virtual worlds & environments
COMPOSITEINTENTIONALITY
the technology appears as an ‘Other’ to which we direct our attention and action. The life world moves into the background
e.g., an ATM machine
ALTERITYRELATIONS
the technology textures our environment. It operates in the background
e.g., central heating, fridge, air conditioning
BACKGROUNDRELATIONS
VERBEEK’SRADICALIZATION
the technology is fully incorporated into the body
e.g., pace maker, anti-depressant medication
HYBRIDINTENTIONALITY
VERBEEK’SRADICALIZATION
EMBODIMENTRELATIONS
the technology interfaces directly with bodily being-in-the-world
e.g., glasses, hammer, bicycle
the world, or an aspect of it, is ‘read’ and interpreted through the technology
e.g., a geographical map, thermometer
HERMENEUTICRELATIONS
Don Ihde's human — technology relationsVerbeek’s radicalization Verbeek’s radicalization
59
‘levels of remove’ on a continuum of possible relations between humans and their world. On
one end of the continuum, technologies becomes part of the lived body, and on the other end
of the scale, technologies texture the world (see page 56-57).
EMBODIMENT REL ATIONS
Embodiment relations involve those human-technology relations in which technological
artifacts facilitate and mediate the lived body in a very direct way. They generally involve those
technologies that are able to take on a level of transparency in use; they extend our bodily
being—perception and action—in ways that come to feel ‘natural’ to us. For example, after a
brief time of getting used to a pair of corrective lenses, we generally stop noticing their pres-
ence. The technology disappears from the field of immediate experience—the awareness of
the rims of the glasses, of their weight on the nose—and shifts to its role as a mediator of vision
that unfolds the relation between a human and the world. Similarly, once we are comfortable
driving a car, we tend to experience the vehicle as an extension—and simultaneous amplifica-
tion and transformation—of our bodies in motion. Ihde (1990) emphasizes this inherent ambi-
guity in many embodiment relations:
[On] the one side, is a wish for total transparency, total embodiment, for the tech-
nology to truly ‘become me’ […] The other side is the desire to have the power, the
transformation that the technology makes available. Only by using the technology
is my bodily power enhanced and magnified by speed, through distance, or by any
of the other ways in which technologies change my capacities. These capacities are
always different from my naked capacities. (p. 75)
he trend in the development of computers is towards their invisibility:
the large humming machines with mysterious blinking lights will be
more and more replaced by tiny bits fitting imperceptibly into our
“normal” environs, enabling it to function more smoothly. Computers
will become so small that they will be invisible, everywhere and
nowhere—so powerful that they will disappear from view. One
should only recall today’s car, in which many functions run smoothly because of small
computers we are mostly unaware of (opening windows, heating...). In the near future,
we will have computerized kitchens or even dresses, glasses, and shoes. Far from being
a matter for the distant future, this invisibility is already here: Philips soon plans to offer
on the market a phone and music player which will be interwoven into the texture of a
jacket to such an extent that it will be possible not only to wear the jacket in an ordinary
way (without worrying what will happen to the digital machinery), but even to launder
it without damaging the electronic hardware. This disappearance from the field of our
sensual (visual) experience is not as innocent as it may appear: the very feature which
will make the Philips jacket easy to deal with (as no longer a cumbersome and fragile
machine, but a quasi-organic prosthesis to our body) will confer on it the phantom-like
character of an all-powerful, invisible Master. The machinic prosthesis will be less an
external apparatus with whom we interact, and more part of our direct self-experience as
a living organism—thus decentering us from within. For this reason, the parallel between
computers’ growing invisibility and the well- known fact that, when people learn some-
thing sufficiently well, they cease to be aware of it, is misleading.
(Žižek, 2008)
61
HERMENEUTIC REL ATIONS
Hermeneutic relations unfold the human-world relation through technological artifacts
that ‘overlay’ our world with a ‘data grid’ of some kind. This ‘data grid’ can be read and inter-
preted and offers us specific ways to ‘know the world’ and phenomena in it. For example, a clock
mediates a sense of time and makes it possible for people to synchronize actions and events.
A thermometer affords us a way to gain information about what is happening inside a roast or
outside our door. A GPS unit allows us to relate to space and our place in it by tracking our ‘coor-
dinates’ on a geographical map. A weather forecast app on a mobile phone helps us read the
day in terms of weather patterns and affords us an opportunity to plan accordingly. Ultrasound
technology translates sound waves into visual representations that make it possible to ‘see’
what is otherwise hidden. The central feature of hermeneutic relations is that they involve an
acts of reading and interpretation; they involve an “extension of my hermeneutic and ‘linguistic’
capacities through the instruments, while the reading itself retains its bodily perceptual
location as a relation with or towards the technology” (Ihde, 1990, p. 88). Both embodiment
relations and hermeneutic relations function as ‘channels’ through which humans act in and
make sense of their world.
ALTERIT Y REL ATIONS
Alterity relations concern those human-technology relations in which the technology
itself becomes the focal point; it is a relation “to or with a technology”(Ihde, 1990, p. 97). In
these configurations, the technological ‘individual’ appears as a type of “Other” with which we
interact directly. Ihde emphasizes that there is an essential qualitative difference between the
relations we have with a technological Other and an animal Other. A comparison between a
horse and a car—both have served humans as means of transportation—shows that techno-
63
logical artifacts either function or malfunction whereas our animal other is a living being with
its own character, will and agency to act in accordance with, or counter to, our wishes. In spite
of our tendency to ‘anthropomorphize’ our technologies—the desire to name them and relate
to them as persons—a relation with the technological other is a relation of ‘operation’ rather
than one of negotiation and partnership. Because of this difference, Ihde (1990) argues that
“[t]echnological otherness is a quasi-otherness” that is “stronger than mere objectness but
weaker than the otherness found within the animal kingdom or the human one” (p. 107,
emphasis added). Alterity relations are a common occurrence in contemporary ‘techno-culture,’
where machines frequently figure as quasi-humans with ever-expanding capacities:
In addition to these dimensions, however, there is the sense of interacting with some-
thing other than me, the technological competitor. In competition there is a kind of
dialogue or exchange. It is the quasi- animation, the quasi-otherness of the technology
that fascinates and challenges. I must beat the machine or it will beat me. (p. 100-101)
BACKGROUND REL ATIONS
A power outage is perhaps the most effective way of discovering the extent of techno-
logical mediation that functions in the background of our everyday lives. I live in an area with
many tall trees, and a wind storm tends to guarantee us a power outage that may last for a
few hours, but that has on occasion lasted several days before the problem was remedied. In a
house without a backup generator, the effects of a power outage immediately transform our
way and pace of life—no heating, no electrical lights, no stove, no working fridge or freezer, no
hot water, no computer, no radio or television, no amplified music (unless battery operated), the
list goes on. In all our activities we switch to what I refer to as ‘camping mode’—we light candles
in key areas of the house, we cook on a camping stove, we hook up an ‘old-fashioned’ telephone
SPHERES THEORY: TALKING TO MYSELF
ABOUT THE POETICS OF SPACE by PETER SLOTERDIJK
April 4, 2010
Here I am developing an idea that Walter Benjamin addressed in his
Arcades Project. He starts from the anthro-pological assumption that people in all epochs
dedicate themselves to creating interiors, and at the same time he seeks to emancipate this motif from its apparent timelessness. He therefore
asks the question: How does capitalist man in the 19th century express his
need for an interior?
The answer is: He uses the most cutting-edge
technology in order to orchestrate the most archaic of all needs, the need to
immunize existence by constructing protective islands. In the case of the arcade, modern man opts for glass, wrought iron, and assembly of prefabricated parts in order to build
the largest possible interior.
For this reason, Paxton Crystal Palace, erected in London in 1851, is
the paradigmatic building. It forms the first hyperinterior that offers a perfect expression of
the spatial idea of psychedelic capitalism. It is the prototype of all later theme-park interiors and event
architectures. The arcade heralds the abolition of the outside world. It abolishes outdoor markets
and brings them indoors, into a closed sphere. The antagonistic spatial types of salon and
market meld here to form a hybrid.
This is what Benjamin found so theoretically exciting: The
19th-century citizen seeks to expand his living room into a cosmos and at the same
time impress the dogmatic form of a room on the universe. This sparks a trend that is perfected
in 20th-century apartment design as well as in shopping-mall and stadium design‚ these are the
three paradigms of modern construction, that is, the construction of micro-interiors and
macro-interiors.
In your
exploration of the “Architectures of Foam”
you write that modernity renders the issue of residence
explicit. What do you mean by that?
65
T H I S I S J U S T TO S AY
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so coldwilliam carlos williams
1934
(the wireless units no longer work), we go to bed earlier because the absence of electricity
eliminates those evening activities that are ‘power-dependent’ (hobbies requiring artificial light
or activities like working on the computer or watching TV). The world literally goes quiet. In
turn, this deep sense of quiet tends to motivate me to get out the acoustic musical instruments
and appreciate anew how people used to play music together in the evenings after dark. When
the power comes back on, I feel both relieved and sad—relieved that I can ‘get on with life,’ and
sad about leaving behind a way of life with affordances all its own, affordances that only really
surface when life as we know is literally rendered power-less. Ihde (1990) emphasizes this non-
neutrality of the ways in which different technologies texture our world:
Different technologies texture environments differently. They exhibit unique forms
of non-neutrality through the different ways in which they are interlinked with the
human lifeworld. Background technologies, no less than focal ones, transform the
gestalts of human experience and, precisely because they are absent presences, may
exert more subtle indirect effects upon the way a world is experienced. (p. 112)
Both multiplicity and dynamism are important dimensions of human technology relations.
Ihde emphasizes that human-technology relations exist in a continuum in which all relations
appear as dynamic articulations shifting in time. What is an embodiment relation in one moment
can flip into an alterity relation the next. For example when a car breaks down while driving on
the highway, it ceases to be an extension of our bodily motility (an embodiment relation), it
loses its transparency and becomes a technological ‘other’ that needs specialized attention and
intervention (an alterity relation). The example of the power outage illustrates how a techno-
logically textured environment can suddenly collapse and transform all “absent presences” into
noticeably present absences.
67
BORDER CROSSINGS
Ihde’s analysis of human-technology relations offers useful points of entry into considering
how technological artifacts can mediate the lived body and texture a lifeworld. However, his
analysis stops short of exploring those human-technology relations that involve actual ‘border
crossings’—relations in which technological intentionality infolds human embodiment and
relations in which the technology itself unfolds a world for humans to ‘inhabit.’ Verbeek (2008)
proposes a radicalization of Ihde’s analysis to acknowledge such hybrid forms of human-tech-
nology relations:
I would like to introduce the concept of hybrid intentionality, indicating the intention-
ality of human–technology hybrids, in which the human and the technological are
merged into a new entity, rather than interrelated, as in Ihde’s human–technology rela-
tions. And second, I will develop the notion of composite intentionality to indicate situ-
ations in which not only human beings have intentionality, but also the technological
artifacts they are using. These additional forms of cyborg intentionality should be seen
as radicalizations of two of Ihde’s human–technology relations, which become visible
when these relations are explicitly approached from the point of view of intentionality.
Because Ihde’s primary focus is on the relations between humans and technologies
rather than the intentionalities involved, his analysis tends to blackbox the various
forms of intentionality involved in these relations. Drawing attention to these inten-
tionalities makes it possible to substantially augment his analysis (p. 390)
Rather than occupying an in-between place of mediation and interrelation, we now see
technology merge with the ‘actors’ on either end of the continuum (see figure on page 56-57).
On one end of the spectrum, the technology itself merges completely with the body, as is the
he figure of the cyborg has been functioning as a key to understanding
what it means to be a human being in a technological culture, ranging from
Donna Haraway’s farewell to naturalist accounts of the human (Haraway
1991) to Nick Bostrom’s utopian plea for transhumanism (Bostrom 2004).
A cyborg is a borderblurring entity, uniting both human and
nonhuman elements. Humans and nonhumans are often
considered to be separated by a deep ontological
abyss, the one active and intentional, the second
passive and mute (Latour 1993; Heidegger
1977). Conceptualizing entities which merge
the human and the technological therefore
requires a radical metaphysical step
and a thorough recalibration of central
philosophical notions. Yet, we have
become such entities, as many authors
have argued in more or less radical
degrees (Ihde 1990; Haraway 1991;
Latour 1993; Hayles 1999; De Mul 2002;
Irrgang 2005). What is more, authors
like Bernard Stiegler argue that we have
always been cyborgs in a sense, since
technology can be seen as constitutive
for humanity. For Stiegler, humanity is an
invention of technology, rather than the other
way round; human beings exist by realizing
themselves technologically (cf. Stiegler 1998). We would
not have been the “human” beings we are, had we not used
the technologies we use – and this goes far beyond the physical
interactions we have with technologies. Without writing, for instance, our
cultural frameworks of interpretation would have been radically different. (Verbeek, 2008, p. 387-8)
69
case with a pacemaker, prescription drugs (e.g., anti-depressants or anti-psychotics), brain
implants, or the use recreational drugs. In all cases, the technology has become an integral part
of the human and can no longer really be separated from it. On the other end of the spectrum,
technology can unfold a world for humans to meaningfully ‘inhabit,’ a world that can only exist
in its technological mediation—as is the case in many online virtual worlds or game worlds. In
these situations the technology unfolds a world for us.
In combining Ihde’s and Latour’s perspectives, a multi-dimensional understanding of
technological mediation begins to emerge, one that includes a societal and personal dimen-
sion. The non-neutrality of technology becomes visible in several ways—through the scripts
and delegations that are encoded into the functionality of specific artifacts, and through the
different ways in which technologies mediate a relation between humans and their world. The
multi-stability of technology becomes visible in the ability of technological artifacts to take their
place in many different actor networks, and through the many different uses and ways of being
and doing that a single technology affords us.
Both perspectives seems to be ‘biased’ towards action and activity (cf. Verbeek, Feen-
berg). Verbeek’s radicalization of Ihde’s human-technology relations sets the stage for an
interactional—or relational—understanding of technological mediation, a model in which
technological intentionality can move ‘both’ (or more) ways—not merely being an extension of
human being and doing in the world, but also infolding the lived body and transforming expe-
rience from within. In the final chapter, I consider this micro-level of technological mediation,
the dimension of modulating bodily being through structures of amplification and reduction.
73
body language
The body-object
as perceived by the self
THE DEPENDENT BODY
Inside our dependent body, we attend to unexpected sensations we have solicited. Our time horizon shrinks as we no longer
control or plan the next sensation, yet we remain exquisitely alert.
(Feenberg, 2003, p. 1-2)
THE
ABSENT BODY
[T]he body tends to disappear when functioning unproblematically; it often
seizes our attention most strongly at times of dysfunction; we then experience the body as the very absence of a desired or ordinary state, and as a force that stands opposed to the self. I will
discuss examples such as pain, disease, and social breakdown to illustrate this principle.
(Leder, 1990, p. 4)
THE
BODY AS MEDIUM
Brain and skin form a resonating vessel. Stimulation turns inward, is folded into the body,
except that there is no inside for it to be in, because the body is radically open, absorbing impulses
quicker than they can be perceived, and because the entire vibratory event is unconscious, out of mind.[...] The body doesn’t just absorb pulses or discrete stimulations; it infolds contexts, it infolds volitions
and cognitions that are nothing if not situated.
(Massumi, 2002, p. 28-29, 30)
The body-object for the other
BODY ONE
We are our body in the sense in which phenomenology understands our motile, perceptual, and emotive
being-in-the-world.
(Ihde, 2002, p. xi)
THE
LIVED BODYFor Merleau-Ponty, the lived-body is not
merely an object in the world, the flesh of its flesh; the body is also a subject in the world. It is both agent and agency of an engagement
with the world that is lived in its subjective modality as perception and in its objective
modality as expression, both modes constituting the unity of
meaningful experience.
(Sobchack, 1992, p. 40)
BODY TWO
We are also bodies in a social and cultural sense,
and we experience that, too.
(Ihde, 2002, p. xi)
merleau-ponty sartre
ihde
feenberg
massumi
lederThe body-subject
THE EXTENDED BODY
The extended body, then, is not only the body that acts through
a technical mediation, but also a body that signifies itself through
that mediation.
(Feenberg, 2003, p. 3)
77
We are our bodies—
but in that very basic notion one also discovers that
our bodies have amazing plasticity and polymorphism
that is often brought out precisely in relations with technologies.
We are bodies in technologies.
(Ihde, 2002, p. 138)
COMPLIC ATION
The first thing to say about being-body—technologically mediated or not—is that it
is complicated. The etymology of the word “complicated” combines two Latin words: COM =
together + PLICĀRE = to fold. It gives expression to phenomena that are folded, wrapped or
twisted together, intimately intertwined, intricately entangled. The lived body is simultane-
ously active and passive, sensing and sense-making, perceiving and perceived, matter and
mattering in a world of people, places, things, languages, cultures, and histories. Those who
have grappled with capturing something of what being-body is like have faced the inherent
multiplicity of embodiment. Phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1968) touched on the
multi-dimensional and entangled complexities of bodily being through concepts like thickness
and flesh:
To speak of leaves or of layers is still to flatten and to juxtapose, under the reflective
gaze, what coexists in the living and upright body. If one wants metaphors, it would
be better to say that the body sensed and the body sentient are as the obverse and
complicate, v. Etymology: < Latin COMPLICĀT- participial stem of COMPLICĀRE, < COM- together + PLICĀRE to fold.
†1. trans. To fold, wrap, or twist together; to intertwine; to entangle one with another. Obs.
†2. To intertwine, unite, or combine intimately.
3. To combine or mix up with in a complex, intricate, or involved way.
†4. To form by complication; to compound. Obs.
5. To make complex or intricate (as by the introduction of other matter); to render involved or complex.
6. intr. (for refl.) To become complicated. rare.
Oxford English Dictionary Online, March 2013
79
the reverse, or again, as two segments of one sole circular course which goes above
from left to right and below from right to left, but which is but one sole movement in
its two phases. And everything said about the sensed body pertains to the whole of
the sensible of which it is a part, and to the world. […] Where are we to put the limit
between the body and the world since the world is flesh? (p. 138)
For Merleau-Ponty, ‘flesh’ does not refer to any concrete substance or spirit, but to a general
mode or order of being that enfolds body and world, that coheres in ways that elude clean-
cut categorizations. Attempts to ‘disentangle the entangled’ generate abstractions that may
be useful as tools for specific critical and analytical ends, and yet remain abstractions from the
‘thickness’ of the ‘flesh of the world.’
MULTIPLIC ATION
A common strategy when faced with the entangled complexities of embodiment is to
separate “the body sensed” from “the body sentient” (Merleau-Ponty, 1968, p. 138), the exis-
tential from the hermeneutic dimensions of being, to distinguish between perception/action
and interpretation/meaning-making. For example, in the context of his phenomenologically
anchored analysis of human-technology relations, Ihde (2002) divides human embodiment
into two ‘bodies’—body one refers to “the sense in which phenomenology understands our
motile, perceptual, and emotive being-in-the-world,” and body two—the “social and cultural
sense” in which we are bodies (p. xi). Ihde envisions “the technological” as a “third dimension
[…] traversing both body one and body two” (p. xi). Arguing that Ihde’s interpretation of bodies
in technology seems significantly biased towards activity, Feenberg (2006) proposes an addi-
tional ‘body multiplication’ by adding two forms of being-body that emphasize a passive dimen-
sion: the “dependent body”—which is the body that awaits and anticipates being acted upon
81
(e.g., in the context of medical examinations or in the context of sexual behaviour)—and the
“extended body”—the body that both “acts through a technical mediation, but also a body that
signifies itself through that mediation” (p. 3).
This “multiplication of bodies” (Feenberg, 2006, p. 1) offers some critical agency in terms
of giving visibility to certain aspects of being-body-in-technology. However, naming a body
according to a specific role—a type of ‘subject position’ as in “the dependent body” or an ‘object
position’ as in “the extended body”—fixes or immobilizes the complex temporal and spatial
‘modulations’ or ‘fluctuations’ that are ‘essential’ to the technologically mediated body. A simple
case study of a technologically mediated human-world relation shows that the proposed multi-
plication of bodies leads to a ‘disjointed’ picture of being-body-in-technology.
For example, when I am doing photography, my body one—the perceiving and acting
body—becomes the “extended body” by entering into a relation of mediation with the camera—
a technological artifact that extends my bodily being in particular, technologically mediated
ways. However, I immediately shift into a blended mode of being —if there was a separation
and a transition at all—that can be described as a body one/dependent body hybrid: I wait—
”exquisitely alert” (Feenberg, 2006, p. 2)—to be acted upon by the life-world, by something
that moves me, that touches me, that I perceive as a moment or encounter worth capturing.
The dependent body, which is also body one—the perceiving body—perceives through the
cultural frames of reference of body two (e.g., formal-aesthetic considerations, compelling
subject matter), and becomes visible in the world as photographer—the ‘extended body’ that
signifies itself through the mediation of being present through a camera. Thinking through the
process of technological mediation from the perspective of multiple interacting makes for a
rather perplexing picture.
nterpretation takes the sensory experience of the work of art for granted and proceeds from there. This cannot be taken for granted now. Think of the sheer multiplication of works of art available to every one of us, superadded to the conflicting
tastes and odors and sights of the urban environment that bombard our senses. Ours is a culture based on excess, on overproduction; the result is a steady loss of sharpness in our sensory experience. All the conditions of modern life—its material plenitude, its sheer crowdedness—conjoin to dull our sensory faculties. And it is in the light of the condition of our senses, our capacities (rather than those of another age), that the task of the critic must be assessed.
What is more important now is to recover our senses. We must learn to see more, to hear more, to feel more.
Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in the work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already there. Our task is to cut back content so that we can see the thing at all.
The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.
In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art
Susan Sontag, Against interpretation, p. 13-14
83
iBody
MEDIATION
An approach that allows for human-technology relations to emerge as a becoming-in-
time through relations of mediation may be better suited to the complexity and multiplicity
of embodiment . Peter-Paul Verbeek’s “post-phenomenological perspective” proposes such a
“relational ontology” (Verbeek, 2005a, p. 137). Building on the distinction between existential
and hermeneutic dimensions, Verbeek shifts his focus from separate entities (e.g., the artifact)
to the process of mediation, which, Verbeek (2011) argues, “should […] be seen as the origin of
entities, not as an intermediary between them” (p. 2, emphasis added). Mediation captures the
real-time unfolding of a “relation between humans and their world, amongst human beings, and
between humans and technology itself” (Verbeek, 2005b, p. 11):
On the one hand, the concept of mediation helps to show that technologies actively
shape the character of human-world relations. Human contact with reality is always
mediated, and technologies offer one possible form of mediation. On the other hand,
it means that any particular mediation can only arise within specific contexts of use
and interpretation. (p. 11)
Verbeek (2005b) elaborates the non-neutrality and technological intentionality of artifacts in
terms of structures of amplification/reduction and invitation/inhibition:
From a hermeneutical perspective, artifacts mediate human experience by
transforming perception and interpretive frameworks, helping to shape the way in
which human beings encounter reality. The structure of this kind of mediation involves
amplification and reduction; some interpretive possibilities are strengthened while
others are weakened. From an existential perspective, artifacts mediate human exis-Brian Massumi | Parables for the virtual : Movement, affect, sensation, p. 30
“The body doesn’t just absorb pulses or discrete stimulations;
it infolds contexts, it infolds volitions and cognitions”
85
tence by giving concrete shape to their behaviour and the social context of their exis-
tence. This kind of mediation can be described in terms of translation, whose structure
involves invitation and inhibition; some forms of involvement are fostered while others
are discouraged. Both kinds of mediation, taken together, describe how artifacts help
shape how humans can be present in the world and how the world can be present for
them. (p. 195, emphasis added).
This understanding of technological mediation acknowledges the complex ‘force field’ in
which our lives take shape, while still identifying technological artifacts as influential cultur-
ally embedded actors that open up a particular range of possibilities—uses and contexts of
use—for a ‘becoming of being.’ Verbeek’s emphasis on mediation resonates with philoso-
pher of technology Gilbert Simondon’s theory of individuation and transduction, and shares
common ground with certain perspectives from within the field of media studies in which
contemporary ‘techno-cultures’ have been theorized as dynamic ‘transductive’ systems—
as “media ecologies” (cf. media theorists like Marshall McLuhan and Neil Postman) or as
“environments for living” (cf. Hansen, 2004; 2006).
AMPLIFIC ATION
Although not made explicit in Verbeek’s postphenomenological perspective, the ampli-
fication/reduction structure also applies to the dimension of being-body—the realm of the
senses. The intimate connections we as humans have with many of our technologies are often
‘entangled’ with their specific affordances: technological mediation affords us ‘amplifications’ of
modes of being and experiencing that we enjoy, that make us feel more alive, or that allow us
different ways of self-expression. Technological mediation opens up different ways of being in
We have many senses beside the basic five:
Hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting and touching.
we all have insights, we pick up feelings
like shortwave radio signals, from:
places, people, dreams and atmospheric energy.
sometimes places give us a sense of foreboding,
whilst some people make us feel happy and relaxed.
we pick up these yet to be named feelings
and with them we fine-tune our “picture of reality”
and even sometimes intuitively
we catch glimpses of the future.
Stansfield/Hooykaas, Personal Observatory,
Contemporary Art Foundation, Amsterdam, 1989, np. ; p. 81 in
Revealing the Invisible: The art of Stansfield/Hooykaas
from different perspectives.
87
time, being in space, and being body that would not be possible or accessible in the same way
without it.
For example, riding a bicycle can amplify our sense of being-in-motion, of soaring down-
hill, of feeling weightless, or, conversely, of fighting the elements, of testing our strength, of
pushing our boundaries, of being-body, of being alive. Not only is the body extended through
a technological artifact in the sense that a bicycle makes it possible to move faster, to cover
greater distances, to haul more luggage with less effort, but the elemental sense of being-in-
motion is amplified, is lived more deeply and intensely. For me, doing photography is a way of
awakening and focusing my visual awareness of —and engagement with—the world around
me. When I carry a camera I tend to experience the visual dimension of things more deeply—
shapes, colours, forms, a quality of light, unexpected encounters. Of course, photo cameras are
used in myriad contexts and for different reasons. I also have different ways of going about
doing photography, depending on the context of use. But there is something about looking
through a viewfinder and framing a picture—something intimate , something magical, some-
thing through which I experience a deeper connection with the world around me, something
that is pleasurable and meaningful, something that draws me out and draws me into a different
way of being. This experiential dimension of technological mediation is about more than ‘inter-
pretation’ and ‘action.’ It is about the affordances of technology in terms of modulating “the
sense of the here-body,” the lived experience of being-in-time, being-in-space, and amplifying
the ‘affective intensities’ that animate bodily being-in-the-world.
89
A QUESTION OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Beyond a consideration of individual technologies in terms of their specific “affordances-
for-me,” it is also important to keep in mind the bigger picture of particular tendencies within
a “media ecology.” At the risk of sounding “determinist,” I think it is fair to say that for all the
different relations we can choose to have with and through technologies, and for all the modes
of being and doing they make available to us, there is evidence of a significant technological
climate change. In terms of the lived experience of space and time, we are dealing with a type
of ‘global warming’—things have ‘heated up’ significantly and societal pressures to follow suit
are significant.
The development of the internet and a wireless digital infrastructure have transformed the
world as we know it. Sociologist Manuel Castells (1996) describes the contemporary globalized
world as a “network society” characterized by “timeless time” and a “space of flows.” Many of the
former ‘limits of embodiment’ are challenged by the possibilities of digital technologies. We
no longer need to physically be somewhere to ‘be somewhere.’ A spatial bias inherent in wire-
less culture is towards tele-presence—towards being present at a distance through e-mail, text
messaging, online chat, video conferencing, or cellphone conversations. In the contemporary
context, many of us are part of multiple global networks and are able to access those networks
from small portable devices that we can carry with us everywhere.
Today’s temporal ‘climate’ is marked by immediacy, instantaneity and speed. For example,
the sweeping cultural uptake of smartphones in the context of a wireless infrastructure make
it possible—and increasingly an expectation, personally, and professionally—for people to be
available anytime anywhere. Media theorist Vivian Sobchack (2004) argues that once a “new
technologic becomes culturally pervasive and normative, it can come to inform and affect
echnology is never merely used, never simply instrumental. It is always incorporated and lived by the human beings who create and engage it within a structure of meanings
and metaphors in which subject-object relations are not only cooperative and co-constitutive but are also dynamic and reversible.
It is no accident, for example, that in our now dominantly electronic [...] culture, many people describe and understand their minds and bodies in terms of computer systems and programs (even as they still describe and understand their lives in terms of movies). Nor is it trivial that computer systems and programs are often described and understood in terms of human minds and bodies (for example, as intelligent or susceptible to viral infection).
Thus, even in the few examples above we can see how a qualitatively new techno-logic begins to alter our perceptual orientation in and toward the world, ourselves, and others. Furthermore, as this new techno-logic becomes culturally pervasive and normative, it can come to inform and affect profoundly the socio-logic, psycho-logic, axio-logic, and even the bio-logic by which we live our daily lives.
(Sobchack, 2004, p. 137)
91
profoundly the socio-logic, psycho-logic, axio-logic, and even the bio-logic by which we live our
daily lives” (p. 137). Current research into cognitive functioning and brain plasticity suggests a
shift in the dominant cognitive mode among young people. Katherine Hayles (2012) describes
how the contemporary “information intensive environment” seems to foster “hyper atten-
tion,” a mode of cognitive functioning that “has a low threshold for boredom, alternates flex-
ibly between different information streams, and prefers a high level of stimulation” (p. 12). This
cognitive mode stands in opposition to that of “deep attention,” a mode of engagement that
“prefers a single information stream, focuses on a single cultural object for a relatively long time,
and has a high tolerance for boredom” (p. 12).
Ihde (2002) emphasizes the non-neutrality of technologies by pointing out that “for every
revealing transformation there is a simultaneous concealing transformation of the world, which
is given through a technological mediation” (p. 49). If the “revealing transformation” of contem-
porary culture is one of connectivity on a global scale, towards modes of being that emphasize
speed and multiplicity, a possible “concealing transformation” could be the reduction of modes
of being that unfold slowness and depth. A critical constructivist response to this issue would
be that we have a choice in terms of what kind of world we want, and how we want to be with
ourselves, others and our environment. The ultimate issue: who gets to decide...
It’s not just where we’re going to or how we get there.
Our tools for navigation matter too. They define our culture.
They impose limitations or afford liberations.
Choose wisely.
(Geez Magazine, Winter 2010, p. 63)
“After a few minutes of rendering, the new plot appeared, and I was a bit taken aback by what I saw. The blob had turned into a surprisingly detailed map of the world. Not only were continents visible, certain international borders were apparent as well. What really struck me, though, was knowing that the lines didn’t represent coasts or rivers or political borders, but real human rela-tionships. Each line might represent a friendship made while travel-ling, a family member abroad, or an old college friend pulled away by the various forces of life.”
Visualizing Friendships | Paul Butler (Notes) on Monday, December 13, 2010 at 4:16pm
Paul is an intern on Facebook’s data infrastructure engineering team.
95
THE SOUND OF SILENCE
An eagle calling overhead — the quacking of ducks — the hum of the highway— a barking
dog — the sound of children playing— water sloshing around my paddle — a few honking
geese — the differently pitched sounds of boat engines — the swishing fabric of my rain jacket
— the drone and whistle of an approaching cargo train — the creaking of the rudder — the
splashing sounds of playing seals — the rumbling of airplanes big and small — the whining
of nearby lawnmowers, hedge trimmers and power washers — bird song drifting in from the
shoreline.
postscript
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Feenberg, A. (1999). Questioning technology. London ; New York: Routledge.
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PAGE 4-5 Lukas Roth | Untitled, 2007 (Lan Party)
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PAGE 8 Sea anemone
http://freewalls.org/wallpapers/2012/11/Digital-Sea-Plant-Wide-1536x2048.jpg
PAGE 10-11 Composite map of the world assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012.
Credit: NASA Earth Observatory/NOAA NGDC
http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/712130main_8246931247_e60f3c09fb_o.jpg
PAGE 12 City lights Africa | 2012
http://eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/imagerecords/79000/79793/city_lights_africa_8k.jpg
PAGE 14 Yayoi Kusama | Infinity room | Tate Modern, London, February 2012
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zWx69l5Zyk/T5ARbzL8FmI/AAAAAAAAGkw/hv9g8rsJhD8/s1600/120408%2BYayoi%2BKusama%2Binfinity%2Bdots%2B5.jpg
PAGE 16 Motion capture | Laurel Vail | May 2010
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PAGE 18 Pet brain scan of 17 year-old female with seizure disorder
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PAGE 20 Andrew Feenberg | Questioning technology (1999)
Graphic design: Helma Sawatzky
PAGE 24-25 Timeline of the word “technology, n.”, Oxford English Dictionary Online | March 2013
PAGE 26-27 Camera obscura | Image editing: Helma Sawatzky
http://www.representart.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/camera-obscura.jpeg
PAGE 30 IMAGE: 18th century camera obscura box | ca. 1850
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Camera_Obscura_box18thCentury.jpg
TEXT: Ward, G. W. R. (2008). The Grove encyclopedia of materials and techniques in art. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
PAGE 32 Charlie Chaplin | Modern times (1936) screenshot
http://www.chaplin.pl/films/moderntimes/foto2big.jpg
PAGE 36 The friendship algorithm by Dr. Sheldon Cooper, PhD | Image edits: Helma Sawatzky
http://images.esellerpro.com/2367/I/207/69/lrgscaleBig%20Bang%20Theory%20Friendship2.jpg
PAGE 38 Plate spinning | Shanghai acrobatic show
http://dm-asset.s3-ap-southeast-1.amazonaws.com/Img/Deals/1529/69_Shanghai_AcrobaticShow_03.JPG
PAGE 40 Poem generated by the online poem generater | http://thinkzone.wlonk.com/PoemGen/PoemGen.htm
Word input & photograph: Helma Sawatzky
PAGE 42 Image of speed bump sign
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_U_poa5ggOPs/TSdUcuQ4YJI/AAAAAAAAFgw/nDnUe-SEBIs/s1600/IMG_3085.JPG
PAGE 44 Image of spider web | Image edits: Helma Sawatzky
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zzQgqacqhjI/TOqdiV7ouAI/AAAAAAAAFwo/wB7X6FEAEBE/s1600/Spider+web.jpg
PAGE 46 Moshpit at Endfest
http://www.konbini.com/fr/files/2013/02/Mosh-Pit-at-Endfest.jpg
PAGE 48 Moshpit at Endfest (p. 46) | Camera View Finder | Image edits: Helma Sawatzky
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PAGE 52 Richard Hamilton | Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing? (1956)
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PAGE 54 Power outlet | http://www.valueprop.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/outlet.jpg
Cord | Photo: Helma Sawatzky
PAGE 56-57 Source: Ihde (1990), Verbeek (2008)
Graphic design: Helma Sawatzky
PAGE 58 DNA gel
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PAGE 60 Unicycle
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PAGE 62 Source: http://beyondentropy.aaschool.ac.uk/?p=689
PAGE 64 Icebox
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PAGE 66 Bionic man stock photo image
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PAGE 68 Helma Sawatzky | Screen captures (2009) - triptych detail
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PAGE 70-71 Objects in mirror are closer than they appear
http://fc03.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/026/2/6/objects_in_mirror_are_closer_than_they_appear_by_aznfin-d4npltd.jpg
PAGE 76 Oxford English Dictionary Online | “complicate, v.”, March 2013
Onion image | http://wynmaker.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/onionimage_013.jpg
PAGE 78 Royal Ballet | Scènes de Ballet | Covent Garden, May 2011 | Photo: Dee Conway
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PAGE 80 Goose bumps
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PAGE 82 Bill Viola | Ocean without a shore (screenshot) | Venice Biennale 2007
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PAGE 84 Bill Viola | Tempest (Study for the Raft) | 2004
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PAGE 86 Uynkoo Lee, Altering Facial Features with WH5, 2010 | Madeline Schwartzman | See yourself sensing: Redefining human perception (book cover image)
http://amt.parsons.edu/files/2012/04/schwartzman_bookcover.jpg
PAGE 88 Code FC | Camera guys | October 7, 2009
http://www.flickr.com/photos/unusual_image/4110745018/in/pool-streetartn1
PAGE 90 Apple System 7 system error message
http://www.tobyrush.com/software/imob/articles/200109/images/0001/01.gif
PAGE 92-93 Facebook relational map
http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/visualizing-friendships/469716398919
PAGE 92 Desolation Sound kayak trip, August 2012
Photo: Helma Sawatzky
COVER Word cloud created by inputting the text of this book into the online Wordle interface
http://www.wordle.net/
image source info
