<nettime> Situating Technologies

[Renee Turner <geuzen@xs4all.nl>]

............................
De Geuzen (a foundation for multi-visual research)
presents:
............................
S I T U A T I N G   T E C H N O L O G I E S
a symposium critically assessing technologies
............................
S A T U R D A Y  1  A P R I L  1 4 : 0 0
De Balie / Grote Zaal
............................
Irina Aristarkhova
The Bureau of Inverse Technology
Karin Spaink
Frank Webster
............................



E N G L I S H  T E X T

"The new media and technologies by which we amplify and extend ourselves
constitute huge collective surgery carried out on the social body with
complete disregard for antiseptics. If the operations are needed, the
inevitability of infecting the whole system during the operation has to be
considered. For in operating on society with a new technology, it is not
the incised area that is most affected. The area of impact and incision is
numb. It is the entire system that is changed." (Marshall McLuhan,
Understanding Media: the extensions of man, 1964) 

............................

As McLuhan writes in Understanding Media, technological developments
affect our entire system of living, from the way we communicate, to the
speed at which we move, to how we understand and relate to our social and
spatial environment. SITUATING TECHNOLOGIES is a symposium critically
assessing these changes by looking at the shifting surface of the
technoscape. Moving away from polemic predictions of utopia or dystopia,
the event will concentrate on technologies in context, localising them in
the way they operate in everyday life. Especially in relation to
information technologies, the conference will look at how these systems
inhabit us and we inhabit them. Overall the day will be devoted to
understanding the social spaces and relations evolving out of today's
communication networks and the impact they have on our culture or cultures
in general. Rather than viewing technology as a natural or inevitable
force, SITUATING TECHNOLOGIES aims to plot strategies for analysis,
critical engagement and appropriation. 

............................

As part of this symposium videos will be screened by a/o. Tran T.
Kim-Trang Joseph Hyde, George Barber and Ciara Finnegan.  During the event
the V2_store (Rotterdam) will be selling related books and publications. 

............................
IRINA ARISTARKHOVA (RUS)

is author of the essay Cyber-Jouissance and Senior Lecturer at the
Department of Art Theory and Art History at Lasalle-Sia College of Arts,
Singapore. She is head of the Centre for Women's Studies in Moscow and an
editorial board member of the art journal, Radek: Art, Theory, Politics. 

............................
THE BUREAU OF INVERSE TECHNOLOGY (BIT) (USA/UK/AU), represented by Kate
Rich.

The Bureau is an information agency servicing the Information Age (formed
Melbourne 1991, incorporated Delaware 1999). BIT agents are involved in
the design, engineering, critical deployment and media documentation of a
series of BIT techno-products. Some of the Bureau's recent technological
developments have been tracking and data devices such as the SUICIDE BOX,
the BIT PLANE and the BANG BANG camera network. 

............................
KARIN SPAINK (NL)

is a media theorist who has written extensively on technology, health and
bodies. As a media activist she has fought for and written about freedom
of speech on the net. She is a regular contributor to the magazine "De
Groene Amsterdammer", and is author of (Passionate imperfections) Aan
hartstocht geen gebrek. To know more about her work see: 
http://www.xs4all.nl/~kspaink/index.html

............................
FRANK WEBSTER (UK)

is Professor of Sociology in the Department of Cultural Studies and
Sociology at the University of Birmingham. He is co-author with Kevin
Robins of Times of the Technoculture: From the information society to
virtual life (Routledge: 1999), a book examining the social implications
of the information age. 



N E D E R L A N D S E  T E K S T
"Nieuwe media en technologieën waarmee we onszelf verlengen vormen de basis
voor een collectieve chirurgische ingreep die op het sociale lichaam wordt
uitgevoerd zonder enige aandacht voor gevaar van besmetting. Als ingrijpen
noodzakelijk is, moet men zich realiseren dat infectie van het gehele
systeem gedurende de operatie niet kan worden vermeden. Want wanneer een
maatschappij met behulp van een nieuwe techniek wordt geopereerd, dan is
het effect op de plek van incisie niet het grootst. De plek waar de
operatie wordt uitgevoerd, waar wordt gesneden is gevoelloos. Het hele
systeem is veranderd". (Marshall McLuhan in: Understanding Media, the
extensions of man, 1964)


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