December 9-11 2015 at KTH Stockholm
Philosophies Course Module Three – Technologies
Though it is habitually confused with the specificity of technical objects and associated infrastructures, technology concerns the logic (-ology) of technical instruments and how they operate toward various ends. Technology is concerned with developing an understanding of all manner of tools, and how tools are related to machines, and machines to not only technical and scientific infrastructures but also to social networks. This has been made vividly evident with the wholesale uptake of Web 2.0 communications technologies, where users of the internet have simultaneously become producers of content, and where the data we produce has meanwhile become a valuable source of information for the purposes of marketing, as well as for the control and monitoring of the behaviour of populations. Technology, or rather its instruments, infrastructures and logics, extends from material to immaterial things and relations, from bits and pieces of stuff to bytes and the speed and storage of data. While an emphasis tends to be laid on the latest most advanced technological systems, any technological device is composed of a specific history of advances and retreats in terms of its development: the wheel on the latest sports car has a logic that arcs back millennia. Technology can also be etymologically defined in its relation to the ancient Greek word techne, which designates less the tool or machine itself than the craftspersonship and art of the one who manages the materials that are formed into instruments for use; it is about making and doing. Finally, there can be identified a gender bias when it comes to the ‘question concerning technology’ whereby technology is often associated with speed, and projectiles (rockets, cars, etc), and tools most often associated with masculine identity and capacity. This bias overlooks what can be called ‘container technologies’ such as the simple yet fundamental technology of the bowl, the jar (for preserves), the container that enables the storage of food and water over distance and time, technological containers that probably contributed to the becoming-sedentary of erstwhile nomadic populations. These are the kinds of technologies that at least historically and conventionally have been associated with women’s labour, and even the corporeal capacity of women.
December 9-11, School of Architecture, KTH Stockholm
Guest Lecturers: Dr Katie Lloyd Thomas; Dr Åsa Ståhl and Kristina Lindström; Dr Sabine Höhler; Vera Bühlman from ETH.
SCHEDULE PHILOSOPHIES MODULE THREE
Wednesday 9 December Technologies-Subjectivities
Rinman Seminar Room KTH Library
10.00-12.00 Introduction and General Discussion
Lecture: Dr Sabine Höhler, Associate Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Division of History of Science, Technology and Environment, KTH
13.00-15.00 Lecture/Workshop: Dr Åsa Stahl, Senior Lecturer, School of Arts and Communication, Mälmo University and Kristina Lindström
15.30-17.00 Seminar 01: Technologies Subjectivities
Donna Haraway, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’ in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature, New York: Routledge, 1991
Donna Haraway, Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective. Feminist Studies Vol 14, No 3, 1988, pp. 575-599. Retrieved from: https://faculty.washington.edu/pembina/all_articles/Haraway1988.pdf
Lindström, K. and Ståhl, Å. 2014. Patchworking Publics-in-the-Making. Design, media and public engagement. Chapter 3. Retrieved from: muep.mah.se/handle/2043/16093
Suchman, L. 2002. Located accountabilities in technology production, Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems: Vol. 14: Iss. 2, Article 7. Retrieved from: http://aisel.aisnet.org/sjis/vol14/iss2/7/
N. Katherine Hayles, ‘Unfinished Work: From Cyborg to Cognisphere’ in Theory Culture Society 23; 159, 2006.
Linda L. Layne, ‘Introduction’ in Linda L. Layne, Sharra L. Vostral, Kate Boyer, eds. Feminist Technology, Urbana, Chicago, Springfield: University of Illinois Press, 2010.
Thursday 10 December Technologies-Socialities
A108 Lecture Room KTH Architecture entry level
10.00-12.00 Lecture: Dr Vera Bühlman, CAAD, ETH
Optional preparation for lecture: http://www.laboriacuboniks.net/es/index.html
Level 6 Meeting Room KTH Architecture
13.00-17.00 Seminar-Workshop Technologies -Socialities
18.00 Philosophies Dinner
Steven J. Jackson, ‘Rethinking Repair’ in Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo Boczkowski, Kristen Foot, eds. Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Technology and Society, MIT Press, 2014.
Sven-Olov Wallenstein, ‘Noopolitics, Life and Architecture’ in Deborah Hauptman and Warren Neidlich, eds, Cognitive Architecture. From Biopolitics to Noopolitics. Architecture & Mind in the Age of Communication and Information, Rotterdam: 010 Publishers, 2010
Maurizio Lazzarato, ‘The Concepts of Life and the Living in the Societies of Control’ in Martin Fuglsang and Bent Meier Sorensen, eds. Deleuze and the Social, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006
Gilles Deleuze, ‘Societies of Control’ in Negotiations: 1972-1990, New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
Friday 11 December Technologies-Environmentalities
Level 6 Meeting Room KTH Architecture
9.30-10.00 Introduction and Conclusion of Module 3
10.00-12.00 Lecture Dr Katie Lloyd Thomas, Co-Director of Architecture Research Collaborative (ARC) and Lecturer in Architecture, School of Architecture, Planning, and Landscape, University of Newcastle, UK
14.00 Higher Seminar: Ulrika Karlsson, with Katie Lloyd Thomas and Daniel Norell as opponents
Katie Lloyd Thomas , ‘Going into the Mould’ in Radical Philosophy, vol. 144, July/August 2007, pp. 16-25.
Gilbert Simondon, ‘The Genesis of the Individual’ in Jonathan Crary and Sanford Kwinter, eds. Incorporations, New York: Zone, 1992.
Zoe Sofia, ‘Container technologies’ in Hypatia vol. 15, no. 2, 2000.
Lieven de Cauter, ‘The Capsule and the Network: Notes for a General Theory’ in Capsular Civilisation: On the City in the Age of Fear, Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2004.
Further readings of interest:
Leah A. Lierouw (2014) Materiality and Media in Communication and Technology Studies. In Media Technologies, ed. T. Gillespie, P. Boczkowski & A. Foot. MIT Press. (Historical overview of STS / MTS etc.)
Jonathan Sterne (2014) “What do We Want?” “Materiality!” “When Do We Want It?” “Now!”. In Media Technologies, ed. T. Gillespie, P. Boczkowski & A. Foot. MIT Press. (Reflections on ‘why was constructivism needed’).
All References from: Media Technologies, ed. T. Gillespie, P. Boczkowski & A. Foot. MIT Press, 2014.