Writing a Machine:Technical Critical Practice

14 February 2004Under Construction VI: Heart Shaped Black BoxMIT-RPI-Cornell STS Graduate Student ConferenceRensselaer Polytechnic InstituteTroy, NY

Joseph ‘Jofish’ KayeCulturally Embedded Computing

Cornell Science & Technology Studies / Information Sciencejofish@cornell.edu

Plan

I. Reading a MachineII. Writing a MachineIII. Technical Critical Practice

a) definitionsb) Who?c) Example - LAMP, MITd) Example - Shopping carts, Wodiczko

IV.a Why? IV.b Why not?V. Conclusions

I. Reading a Machine

We can read a machine as a text, e.g. the Model T:

“…is cheap only if it is produced in volume. And the only way to produce in volume is to produce by machines. That is an essential meaning of the Model T read as a technological text: it is a machine built by machines. Its design makes sense only if it is built by machines. Hence, to have designed it is to have had in mind a machine-based system of production, in scheme if not in detail.”

Mahoney (2004) Reading a Machine

(machine (noun): Mahoney uses the term machine I

“generically for the products of technology”, a practice I continue.)

II. Writing a Machine

So, by symmetry, we can write a machine.

III.a Technical Critical Practice

Critical practice = what all we doTechnical = build machines, writing

code, etc.

Technical Critical Practice = building machines for critical discourse

(Critical technical practice: Phil Agre (1987) Computation & Human Experience. )

III.b Technical Critical Practice: Who?- Technologists: Josh Mandel & Keith

Winstein: Library Access to Media Project

- Historians: Otto Sibum, Klauss Staubermann

- Artists: Krzysztof Wodiczko - STS: Natalie Jeremijenko, Chris

Csikszentmihályi, Bill Gaver, Anthony Dunne, Michael Mateas, Phoebe Sengers, Simon Penny, Warren Sack, Noah Wardrip-Fruin, Casey O'Donnell, Ken Fleischmann, Joseph 'Jofish' Kaye…

III.c Technical Critical Practice: Who?

- Josh Mandel & Keith Winstein: Library Access to Media Project, MIT

Uses the campus-wide analog cable television network to legally broadcast music on demand that campus residents select over the internet.

If that back-to-the-future solution seems overly complicated, blame copyright law and not M.I.T., said Jonathan Zittrain, who teaches Internet law at Harvard and is a director of the university's Berkman Center for Internet and Society. The most significant thing about the M.I.T. plan, he said, is just how complicated it has to be to fit within the odd boundaries of copyright law.

"It's almost an act of performance art," Mr. Zittrain said. Mr. Winstein, he said, has "arrayed the gerbils under the hood so it appears to meet the statutory requirement" - and has shown how badly the system of copyright needs sensible revamping.

(Schwartz, J. (27/10/03). With Cable TV at MIT, Who Needs Napster? NYT)

Example: Krzysztof Wodiczko

- Shopping carts for the homeless- Extensive participatory design and

ethnography- Final design given to 'Mike' at press

conference- Queers other shopping carts used by

the homeless

Wodiczko, K. (1999). Critical Vehicles: Writings, Projects, Interviews.

Example: Natalie Jeremijenko: Feral Robotic Dogs (for Selma)

- Modify robotic toy dogs with video cameras & volatile organic sensors in workshops by middle school students

- Middle school sites: landfills, toxic waste, etc.

- Cameras under tails- The narrative is the experience of

watching the dogs, not the Discovery-Channel dog-eye-view

IV.a Why write a machine? Why do technical critical practice?

- A power in the built (not theoretical) machine: the agency of the object

- The potential for (naïve/novel) appropriation by the user - agency of the user

- Boundary objects: A way to communicate across disciplines

- Evangelism: STS can't just sit at home and talk to itself.

- Agency: we can have agency in IT!

IV.b Why not write a machine? Why not T.C.P.?

- Learning to read the machine (code, etc)- Inability to participate in the writing- Inherent superiority of text to convey

abstract ideas in the academy?- Our metrics for achievement are text based:

tenure, theses, publishing (but that's discipline-specific)

- Too close to the production; can't be critical- (I'm still bleeding from the Science Wars.

Sounds like sleeping with the enemy to me.)- (We don't need to have this discussion!

We're already doing that here.)

V. Conclusions

Technical Critical Practice is a methodology for discourse in STS, allowing for expanded discussion, interdisciplinary collaboration, and advancing the discipline within and outside traditional boundaries.

jofish@cornell.edu

Talk: http://jofish.com/talks/Paper: http://jofish.com/writing/