#Postphenomenology

[omegaphilosophia]

Exploring the Philosophical Landscape of Technology: Theories and Perspectives

The philosophy of technology is a rich and evolving field that explores the nature, impact, and ethical dimensions of technology. Here are some key theories and approaches within this field:

Technological Determinism: This theory suggests that technology shapes society and human behavior more than individuals or society shape technology. It proposes that technological developments have a predetermined, often inevitable, impact on social, cultural, and economic structures.

Social Construction of Technology (SCOT): SCOT theory argues that technologies are not inherently good or bad but are socially constructed. It focuses on the process by which technologies are developed, adopted, and adapted based on the values and interests of different social groups.

Postphenomenology: Drawing from phenomenology, this approach explores how technology mediates our interactions with the world. It examines the ways in which technology influences our perception, embodiment, and experiences.

Actor-Network Theory (ANT): ANT considers both human and non-human actors (like technology) as equal participants in shaping social networks and processes. It emphasizes the role of technology in mediating human interactions and agency.

Ethics of Technology: This area of philosophy explores the ethical dimensions of technological development and use. It delves into topics such as privacy, surveillance, artificial intelligence ethics, and the moral responsibilities of technologists.

Philosophy of Information: This branch investigates the fundamental nature of information and its role in technology. It examines concepts like data, knowledge, and information ethics in the digital age.

Critical Theory of Technology: Rooted in critical theory, this approach critiques the social and political implications of technology. It seeks to uncover power structures and inequalities embedded in technological systems.

Feminist Philosophy of Technology: This perspective focuses on the intersection of gender and technology. It examines how technology can reinforce or challenge gender norms and inequalities.

Environmental Philosophy of Technology: This theory explores the environmental impact of technology, including topics like sustainability, resource depletion, and the ethics of technological solutions to environmental challenges.

Existentialist Philosophy of Technology: Drawing from existentialism, this approach considers the impact of technology on human existence and individuality. It explores questions of alienation, authenticity, and freedom in a technological world.

Human Enhancement Ethics: With the advancement of biotechnology, this theory addresses the ethical dilemmas surrounding human enhancement technologies, including genetic engineering and cognitive enhancement.

Pragmatism and Technology: Pragmatist philosophy examines how technology influences our practical, everyday experiences and shapes our interactions with the world.

These theories and approaches within the philosophy of technology provide valuable insights into how technology influences and is influenced by society, as well as the ethical considerations that arise in our increasingly technologically driven world.

[linguistlist-blog]

TOC: Digital Translation Vol. 10, No. 1 (2023)

2023. iii, 132 pp. Table of Contents EDITORIAL Introduction to Digital Translation: International Journal of Translation and Localization . Positioning translation and localization in a changing digital world Minako O’Hagan & Julie McDonough Dolmaya pp. 1–15 ARTICLES The many guises of machine translation: A postphenomenology perspective Lucas Nunes Vieira pp. 16–36 The localization of food- and drink-related items in video games: The case of The Witcher 3 in Arabic Mohammed Al-Batineh pp http://dlvr.it/T3Wm3W

[is71076acs]

Week 5 Computational Art and Postphenomenology

Phenomenology is the “philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness.” I had first encountered this term with the writing of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and his seminal work the Phenomenology of Perception. I found his account of the body (simultaneously existing as both subject and object) to be fascinating and worth revisiting when analysing ourselves in relation to the world. 

So, this week we looked at postphenomenology which is defined as a “revised form of phenomenology that aims to overcome the limitations of subjectivism.” Within the context of Computational Art Theory, this tool can investigate technology in terms of the relations between human beings and technological artefacts by focusing on the various ways in which technologies help to shape relations between human beings and the world. Like Heidegger’s less romantic view of technology, postphenomenology combines philosophical analysis with empirical investigation which is a useful framework within the field of computing.

Our key philosopher within this area is Don Idhe who came up with four mediating roles within human/world/ technology relations that he believes deserve philosophical attention.

1. Embodiment relations: (human - technology) —> world. 2. Hermeneutic relations: human —> (technology - world). 3. Alterity relations: human —> technology (world). 4. Background relations: human (technology / world).

So far, I have personally found Embodiment and Hermeneutic relations to be most relevant to my creative practice. Virtual reality is interesting to look at through the lens of postphenomenology as embodiment is useful for investigating the human body in relation to technological artefacts. But also, how technology can alienate us by shaping our relations to the world itself. Helen shared a great example of these indirect relationships with Aquaphobia by Jakob Steensen which seeks to reconfigure our relations to technology and nature through embodiment in the VR experience. 

Another great example of Hermeneutic relations she shared was Pierre Huyghe’s installation at the Serpentine gallery earlier this year entitled UUmwelt. This piece analyses brain activity from a fMRI scanner against a deep neural network of images presented with a community of flies and sanded walls as a commentary on the flexibly of human, animal and machine relationships.

Ultimately this has been a fascinating week which has gifted me with many ideas for the research report. Admittedly I have neglected the virtual reality aspect of the project but now feel more inclined to consider the human within this technoscientific loop as ultimately there needs to be someone to experience it. 

References • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_(philosophy) • Merleau-Ponty, M. & Landes, D.A., 2012. Phenomenology of perception, • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenomenology_of_Perception • https://www.yourdictionary.com/postphenomenology • https://vimeo.com/67744883 • https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/philosophy-of-technology/0/steps/26324?fbclid=IwAR1MiQElHcNJ-O7GkoUZJFLDbGX2-YqdnQZYCQhiddxXOJQaVj8gf9Xnw2c • https://vimeo.com/244699310 • https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/pierre-huyghe-uumwelt

Image of AQUAPHOBIA by: Jakob Kudsk Steensen https://vimeo.com/244699310

Image of UUmwelt by: Pierre Huyghe https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/exhibitions-events/pierre-huyghe-uumwelt 

[carvalhais]

The ambition to think from the “things themselves” suggests the existence of an unmediated access to them.

But this suggestion is false. The facts that technological artifacts can be conceived as constructions, always exist in a context, and are interpreted by human beings in terms of their specific frameworks of reference fo not erase the fact that systematic reflation can be undertaken of the role that these contextual and interpreted constructions play concretely in the experience and behavior of human beings. That “the things themselves” are accessible only in mediated ways does not interfere with our ability to say something about the roles that they play, thanks to their mediated identities, in their environment. And it is precisely the postphenomenological perspective that offers a new way of doing so. Verbeek, Peter-Paul. 2005. What Things Do: Philosophical Reflections on Technology, Agency, and Design. University Part, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

[foolishmeowing]

(Cassandra voice): If you want to curtail materialism in rationalist culture maybe you should make the analysis of nonformal ontological properties central to rationalist fashion. It’s only sensible, considering phenomenological properties are, you know, real and all. Your philosophy professors are actually highly unlikely to know how to find and apply the Levinas-era nondualistic postphenomenological pluralistic analysis essential to progressing the qualia discourse beyond the state of modern analytic philosophy, and we can totally do better than nihilistic evasiveness.

[panjapop]

The relations of technological mediations

Ten years ago a video did the rounds that explored the spatial qualities of RFID. It was called ‘The Ghost of the Field’ and was made by Timo Arnall and Jack Schulze. With stop frame animation they recorded an RFID reader triggering an LED every time it was reading something and through this process created a collection of green clouds surrounding the RFID object, thereby revealing the radio fields that are not normally visible.

“It is not the radio field produced by the reader itself we are looking at. That is much, much larger. The images show the volume in which the energy in the space surrounding the reader is inducing a current large enough to wake and run the RFID chip at the end of the antenna in the tag. The readable volume can be mapped around a tag or inside the field produced by a reader component, but it only exists between the two.” (Jack Schulze, 2009)

The resulting green point cloud visualisation highlights the otherwise invisible and inaudible interaction between the user and the device. Looking at this video ten years later brings to the surface how many of these green point clouds we would have around us if we could always see them.

The tapping of contactless cards has now become common place. One could even say since their ubiquity we would associate the gesture of ‘tapping’ with ‘payment’ rather than the gesture of ‘fingering through a purse’. It is also worth noting that purses changed shape into card holders to reflect this uptake. Now the mobile phones entered the tapping game too with digital wallet systems extending their core use. What does it mean though when a technological thing changes the relation we have with the world?

Postphenemonologists are analysing the ways in which technology helps shape relations between human beings and the world. When we look at the visualisation in Ghost of the Field we learn to read what is happening when we tap our oyster card. Don Idhe proposed four different forms in which technology mediates our lives. A pair of glasses for example would be described as an embodiment relation. We are not aware of wearing them, they mediate our vision, but unless they steam up or are too heavy on our nose we are not constantly perceiving them. They fade into the background of our awareness. A wristwatch or fitness tracker meanwhile needs us to provide an extra action to interpret the information displayed on such devices. This is called a hermeneutic relation. Rather than experiencing the world through a device as in an embodiment a hermeneutic relation presents a transformed notion of the world. Human robot interactions ie. an interface that mimics the interaction of another human are classified as alterity relations. Alexa, Siri and other personal assistants in applications are the most contemporary examples here but this also relates to ATM machines, GPS systems that read out directions or chatbots. When technology forms the context to human experiences and actions they are called background relations. Notification beeps on phones as well as the sound of an air conditioning systems or fridge would count as one.  They are very rarely experienced on their own but mostly as another layer to a primary event.

These four relations co-shape our experiences with technologies and the effect these have on us in various degrees. We are the products of this technical mediation and changed by it rather than isolated subjects with the relations happening between us. What the Ghost of the Field brought to the surface are the previously invisible interaction mechanisms and relations visualised by the point clouds. Maybe by focusing on these “immaterials” we can understand how far reaching some of these systems have become and how we might want to reconfigure some of them.

References

https://vimeo.com/7022707

http://berglondon.com/blog/2009/10/12/the-ghost-in-the-field/

Rosenberger, Verbeek. Postphenomenological Investigations: Essays on Human–Technology Relations. Lexington Books, 2017

https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/philosophy-of-technology/0/steps/26324

[spiritlyy-blog]

Week 5: Computational Art and Postphenomenology

When it comes to technology, VR is all about virtual reality. To me, VR is like a controlled dream, where you can set up what you want to see and experience in advance and present it to you in the form of Vr. In interpersonal interactions, it's like controlling your brain to show you what you want to see. Except one is in the brain, and VR is through vision. It's a promising technology for the future. It allows a lot of people to experience a lot of things without leaving their homes. It even gives paralyzed people hope to travel. But in my opinion, VR is not good. It's addictive. If so many things can be seen at home through VR without going out, then why do I exercise and go out? The above link is a video I've seen with my VR glasses on. I once went to a tech fair where I used to generate electricity from exercise and ride my bike while wearing my VR glasses, which made me feel like my idol was really there He and I have a very "close" relationship, let me feel a lot of things that are not possible at ordinary times seems to have a virtual possibility. When combined with head-mounted displays, the VR experience was particularly immersive, and participants felt as if they were actually in a virtual world. The immersion of the experience can be further enhanced by adding other sensory functions such as spatial audio and tactile stimulation. Therefore, the virtual environment can replace the original physical environment, and become a new "real" world. The intersection of intimacy research and virtual reality holds great promise for progress in both areas. In Social Science Research Laboratories and mainstream society, virtual reality is becoming an increasingly popular and viable tool and method not only to help study intimate relationships such as romance and friendship but also to enhance the understanding of relationships At the same time can be used for the formation and maintenance of relations. In addition to using virtual reality as a means or tool to research theoretical interests, such as adult attachment theory, virtual reality can also be seen as a platform for forming and maintaining relationships. With the influx of new VR home users and the growing popularity of VR, Facebook Spaces, Sansar (the developer of second life) and Altspacevr are on the shelves It's easy to imagine a world where people meet and form relationships in virtual space, all without leaving the comfort of the bedroom. There are potentially broad implications for building and maintaining relationships in Vr. Imagine Summ coming home from work, wearing a VR headset, walking into a virtual town square and seeing other similar users. Then, in a small cafe in the corner, Summ heard the two friends talking and noticed that the other man was browsing the quaint bookstore. Moving on, Summ enters an open collaborative art space where anyone can draw and create. Next, Summ meets an attractive woman, Rachel, and invites her to paint with him. As they talk, the two find they share similar interests and promise to continue meeting in the virtual world. Eventually, Summ and Rachel develop a romantic relationship. Although this is just a fictional scenario for illustration purposes, social VR is becoming a mainstream reality. With the aforementioned social VR world, users can already interact with other users in a digital 3d space, which has the potential to form and sustain relationships. As a result, it is increasingly important to explore the consequences.

Unfortunately, so far there has been little research in this area. Research on social VR focuses on learning and specific aspects of social interaction through virtual reality, such as the ability to "change" the appearance and behaviour of virtual characters. While the latter area of research may help to understand specific aspects of relationship formation in Vr, such as impression formation and interactive dynamics, most research involves only one interactive session. Only a handful of researchers have conducted Longitudinal Studies and explored the effects of VR socializing over time. As a result, the long term effects of VR socializing remain largely unknown.

[usabilidoido]

Embodied entanglements from Pauline van Dongen on Vimeo.

This video accompanies the book publication, entitled: 'A Designer's Material-Aesthetics Reflections on Fashion and Technology.' It covers Pauline van Dongen's design research on wearable technology and examines how wearable technologies can become an integral part of the everyday reality of fashion. By combining design research in fashion with postphenomenology, a particular strand of philosophy of technology, it reframes the understanding of technology and offers practical guidance to designers of wearable technology.

More information on the book and point of sale: https://bit.ly/2LR7NPY

Video credits Director and cinematographer: Thijs Hupkens Sound design: Tiago Correia-Paulo Concept: Yosser Dekker & Pauline van Dongen Talent: Gijs de Boer, Annelie Boere and Daphné Masé

[hungching1982]

Technology Mediation: How Technology Organizes Human-World Relations - Interview with Peter-Paul Verbeek

https://www.fatum-magazin.de/ausgaben/synthese/internationale-perspektiven/technology-mediation.html

"In phenomenology, the claim has always been that we understand the things or phenomena as they appear to us. But what they ended up doing was to study human-world relations. It was about concepts that help us understand that relation—consciousness, being-in-the-world, perception—it is that link between the subject and the object, or the human and the world. In postphenomenology, we conceptualize this relation as being mediated by technology."

"When you stop seeing technologies as part of the world and start seeing them as part of our relations with the world, then suddenly the whole perspective changes and technology becomes foundational."

"For Foucault there is no way to be a subject without having been produced as a subject. The art of living is to subjectivize yourself, maybe almost to subject yourself to such powers."

"Authenticity is the result of dealing with technology rather than trying to escape from it."

"If you do not believe that we can have a meaningful relation, if you are a real nihilist, then of course everything comes down to nothing, also technology."

"Read technological journals and websites—and always try to think about how they challenge philosophy. That is one of the major achievements of philosophy of technology. When I was a student, I hated that word empirical philosophy, because philosophy is not an empirical science. But that is not what empirical philosophy means. It means: doing philosophy from technology, rather than of technology."

Read: June 16, 2019 at 04:13PM

[karesis]

The schema of the specter is a postcritical, postsecular, post-Enlightenment, postphenomenological paradigm of life / death, of sur-vivance, which means, at one and the same time, of a life that is haunted by death: bygone spirits and spirits yet to come; as also of a death that continues to live: of the power of the non-living to live on, which frames the question of tradition and heritage-and all this precisely in the name of justice. For it belongs to the hypothesis of Derrida's reading that, while justice can and must be delivered to the living, justice is not just a matter of and for the living. Rather, if there is any hope of justice, justice is due to the dead and the not yet born. For justice means responsibility and we are responsible to the dead, to their dying and the heritage they have handed down through their death, as well as to the not yet born. The spirits of the dead constitute a flood of revenants, a revisitation of the so-called living present by the spirits of the past. But the present is disturbed no less by arrivants, by all those who are to come, and indeed by the revenant as arrivant, by what is to come as what is coming to us from the past, as repeatable.                                                                                                                        Marxism is inspired by one of religion's ghosts, by an irreducible and powerful "messianic" spirit, by an irreducible religious aspiration and respiration, by the specter of a justice to come that breaks the spell of the living present and haunts our present projects. The comment echoes Derrida's reference in 1980, in "Of an Apocalyptic Tone," to "that Marxist eschatology that people have too quickly (trop vite) wanted to forget these last years in France". This communist spirit also haunts "old Europe," which is scared half to death by the specter of a coming communist justice.

The Prayers and Tears of Jacques Derrida: Religion Without Religion (Caputo, 1997)