User:Tisa/research log

The structure of this research log is yet to be figured out. Rather than a taxonomization by date, tax. by reference is more suitable. Interconnections between texts have to be somehow established. This is the backend. The front end, I imagine, will be a web interface and the final written thesis (as a summary and a static articulation of the research process).

Ursula Franklin: The Real World of Technology

5 lectures from 1989 available here

Lecture #1

• "Technology has built a house where we all live" - knowing about its secret passages and doors.
• "Technology changes social and individual relationships between us and forces us to look and redefine our notions of power an responsibility."
• "Technology is a system. ... It involves organization, procedure, symbols, equations, and most importantly mindset!"
• Technology > ways of doing something, as formalized practice. Dennis Balding says: There is tech for prayer, as well as for plowing, for controlling fear, as well as controlling flood.
• (example of the magnifying glass) development that leads to the right of the practitioners to exclusive practice practice of technnology > professions are born. exclusifying the right to the tools, technology.
• practice defines content. technology of prayer. "laying down the practice precisely", otherwise the practice cannot be considered as prayer (even if felt).

• 2 ways of destinguishing:
  • work-related technology. making work easier.
  • control-related technology. more control over an operation. (prevalent)

• 2 forms of technological development (technology as practice) > they have very different specializations and divisions of labor, consequently: social and political implications. Interested not in what is being done, but HOW it is being done.
  • holistic technologies (craft, artisan controlling own process of work, real-time decisions while working, experience applied to unique situations, one-of-a-kind products. pottery for everyday use, pottery for religious rites = specialization by product = holistic tech, the doer is in the total control of the process)
  • prescriptive technologies = specialization by process. the making/doing is broken down in identifiable steps done by separate workers. division of labor (industrial revolution, large scale ... also romans and chinese - casting bronze).

• "Understanding the real meaning - the social and political meaning of the division of labor and prescriptive tech is the most important step to understanding the real world of technology."

Donna Haraway: Cyborg manifesto

21-9-20

"relation between Organism and machine has been a border war" pg. 2

"boundary between human and animal is breached" pg. 4

ghost machine, inner power + link to Dolar, thinking machines pg. 4

Mazuir Rafal: The dao of improvisation

22-9-20

• (mentions Henri Bergson "bergsonian intuition/intuitive cognition" & Stockhausen "intuitive music" and Cardew "free improvisation")

"You cannot see improvised music through 'what' to play, but rather through 'how' to play."

"... free and intuitive improvisation is a kind of action strategy and as many artists presumed over the centuries, is in fact an exceptionally effective strategy, allowing extraordinary creative actions, results of which can exceed our expectations (or even go far beyond our ability to understand)."

"... it should be considered a way of action, and a way of action that is not related to any specific stylistic (this particular feature was called 'non-idiomatic' by Derek Bailey)."

"... The changes, related to the processual thinking of the world and to the belief in non – existence of static objects together with the belief in constant movement in the subatomic world. Acceptance (or, at least, not radical rejection) of Bergson’s thesis on the change being the basis of reality and exploring the experiences of culture, for which Yiqing -The Book of changes- is an essential writing, seems just natural in the attempt to formulate a philosophical strategy of free improvisation."

• state of the "transparent mind"

• weiwuwei action without action

..."When one's wisdom does not think of the right or the wrong (of a question under discussion), that shows the suitability of the mind (for the question)."