[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> shadowing theory and technology constructing subjects

[josh zeidner <jjzeidner@yahoo.com>]

 does{

   TECHNOLOGY = RESTRUCTURE( HumanLanguage ) ||
   human language restructure technology? ;

 }    //is this eryk?

 

  -josh





> Extensions, Boundaries & Double Crossings
> Or: We don't trust anybody. Shadowing Theory and
> Technology 
> constructing subjects
> 
> M. Bunz
> 
> "Reality Engineering and the Computer" are the words
> that startet 
> this text. It was constructed for an amsterdam
> symposium of the same 
> name. And I have to admit right away that what I
> found most 
> interesting about this title and what will be a kind
> of core of the 
> text is the "and". It will focus on the different
> ways in which the 
> word "and" formats the relation between reality -
> which means us, the 
> humans - and the computer. My ambition is to
> demonstrate that the 
> "and" is the political zone of this constellation. A
> hidden machine, 
> a concealed theoretical protocol which constitutes
> boundaries.
> 
> But it will take several shifts to arrive -
> hopefully - at that 
> conclusion. The first shift: The text will freely
> turn the title 
> upside down - transforming the question "How does
> the computer 
> engineer reality?" into the question "How does
> reality engineer the 
> computer?" although the context of the title seems
> to push its 
> meaning towards a "Computer-assisted construction of
> reality" - as 
> the press text suggests. But "and" arranges the
> relation in "reality 
> engineering and the computer" loosely enough to
> leave some 
> possibilities - like to invert the relation. And why
> should one hand 
> out reality only to one side of the screen,
> especially because there 
> is already an established discourse about how media
> is constructing 
> and changing reality - frightening analyses which
> are most of the 
> time ruled by "Kulturpessimismus" - as we say in
> German. Therefore 
> the text will re-arrange the positions in order to
> demonstrate how 
> these theories of technology themselves are
> constructed, and how they 
> construct the technical discours and with it the
> technical reality.
> 
> By doing so we accept, that there are not only
> technical protocols 
> which set the framework to determine a course. The
> concepts of media 
> theory do set frameworks as well, and they codify
> the discourse and 
> therefore the practices of technology. So the
> following text 
> understands media-theory as a theoretical protocol,
> which does not 
> only produce a certain view on technology, but a
> view that 
> constitutes facts. Armed with the French Sociologist
> Bruno Latour who 
> showed that objects can't be divided from the
> subjects - and we will 
> take those here as our deputies of reality - it will
> analyse how the 
> discours and the practices of the technology of the
> Internet is 
> influenced by theoretical concepts. So on a basic
> layer we are about 
> to ask the following questions. [1] Which concept of
> a human subject 
> is developed by a specific media theory? [2] How is
> the "and" 
> organized and consequently what is the additional
> role that the 
> technology must play?
> 
> 
> I. For many years now
> 
> For many years now it has been common to refer to
> technology as an 
> "extension of man". Indeed, "the extension of man"
> sounds as funky as 
> "planet of the apes" and one wonders why the concept
> did not make it 
> to Hollywood as a movie title. There wouldn't even
> be any copyright 
> problems. Although Marshall McLuhan is the most
> popular name 
> connected with that theoretical concept, the concept
> is quite a lot 
> older. It is dating from before the 19th century
> anthropology all the 
> way to the ancient Greeks and Aristoteles. He
> already outlined 
> technology as a substitute for biological defects
> and technical 
> development and understood it as a cultural
> progression. And with or 
> without Hollywood we still seem to believe in the
> same idea and 
> understand technology as progression and an
> indicator of a nation's 
> status. The only shift might be that we exchanged
> adjectives and 
> replaced "cultural" with "economical".
> 
> So up to now the concept of technology as an
> extension of man gets 
> repeated again and again. While the technical
> inventions and the 
> terms describing technology transformed from techne
> and machina to 
> arts and crafts, "back" to machines again [but did
> it really 
> re-change?] and finally to high-tech, the underlying
> validity and 
> continuation of the theoretical concept "extension
> of man" is very 
> impressive.
> 
> But does it really stay the same? For example we
> could say that today 
> it is a common believe, that we no longer control
> technology. We 
> rather believe, that technology is controlling us.
> Which is why we 
> are here today - to question the reality of
> contemporary technology, 
> to "provide(s) a glimpse of the past and the future
> of the 
> computer-assisted construction of reality" . We
> don't trust anybody - 
> a very sceptical, suspicious and therefore
> post-modern condition, 
> Bruno Latour would say, denying, of course, the so
> called "modern" 
> assumption that with the help of technology as our
> extension we 
> humans control nature. Or travel around the
> universe. Technology and 
> Extension - obviously their relation transforms
> within the validity 
> of the terminology and we have two possibilities to
> read "extension" 
> - a modern and a post-modern one. Hence, in the
> following part of my 
> talk I will take the term "extension of man"
> directly and cross it 
> with the questions of the "and" to analyse it word
> by word in a close 
> reading following the trace of the extension.
> 
> 
> II. Extension seems to be a very clear condition
> 
> Extension seems to be a very clear condition,
> because it functions 
> only in one direction. It introduces a hierarchy
> between two things. 
> Man is extending, technology is being used for it.
> It links an active 
> subject to a passive object that is appropriated. A
> very classical 
> figure of philosophy, which is used all over the
> historical discourse 
> of technology, in order to explain why man invented
> tools. Technology 
> is therefore not only an extension but an intention
> of man too, 
> because our fingers were too clumsy, because our
> power should be 
> enlarged, because our orders should be heard far
> away. This is 
> history of technology driven by the projection of
> organs. And with 
> the communication technology - specifically the
> Internet - this 
> concept is reinforced again, even though it might
> sound a little bit 
> obsolete. Derrick de Kerckhove for instance ­ former
> assistant of 
> McLuhan and now director of the McLuhan-Program at
> the University of 
> Toronto - describes the Internet in analogy to our
> nervous system - 
> which is a topic stemming not only from McLuhan
> himself but from 19th 
> 
=== message truncated ===


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