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Article
Technology and material culture: or the art of work in the
age of mechanical dysfunction
Things
can be tricky, and they can say a lot about us, as Sorcha
O'Brien explains.
I once received
an e-mail from a friend of mine, describing his experiences
with a balky photocopier on the first day of term. With the
time for the first class swiftly approaching, attempts to
photocopy and collate a handout left him with a pile of page
ones, a pile of pages twos, all the way up to thirty or so
and a class of twenty-odd students. The first class of term,
therefore, started with the lecturer walking up and down the
row of students like a performance artist, placing one sheet
on each desk and then returning to the beginning to add another
page to each pile. It may sound like an urban legend in the
making, but it demonstrates two things: that he may not have
been able to grapple with the photocopier, but that he was
entirely comfortable with communicating the story through
the medium of e-mail.
One of the
reasons that people may find technology intimidating is that
the term is usually used to refer to the newest and most recent
and unfamiliar type of consumer digital products. A broader
definition would be the practical application of knowledge
- materials and techniques used for a practical end. Using
this definition, hand-made pottery and woodwork are as much
the products of technology as a DVD drive, albeit the technology
of the kiln and the saw rather than of the microchip. It is
a measure of created objects and the thinking behind them
- inextricably bound up with the process of design, not just
of the designer, but the craftsperson, the engineer and the
architect.
A distinction
in this is between artefacts (the actual objects themselves)
and the greater system of which they are a part. Quite often,
the pattern of the system behind a group or type of objects
isn't immediately clear, although analysis of the objects
can often give important insights into how the system works.
Conversely - with material culture, as the study of the consumption
of designed goods, as a background - an understanding of the
technological system that produced the objects is invaluable
to their study, alongside this recognition that the system
is separate from the artefacts themselves.
To look at
our current material culture in the developed world, the most
engaging and newest form of technology is almost ubiquitous
- in the home (DVD players, alarm systems, digital TV, internet-enabled
computers), on the person (mobile phones, pacemakers, PDAs),
in the workplace (PCs, faxes, the aforementioned photocopier).
As this technology is developing, it can engender extreme
reactions from the consumers, who may consider it a saviour
or a demon. But, when you consider that digital technology
has evolved within living memory, its very newness and unfamiliarity
precipitates these reactions, until we, as a culture, come
to terms with it and accommodate it into our lives. The difficulties
in doing so are graphically outlined in Ellen Ullman's book,
Close to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents1,
especially when one tries to immerse oneself in this culture.
There are many
questions to be asked in the study of the material culture
of technology. How is the technology being used? How does
its use affect the culture of its users? How do the users'
responses affect its development?
A current example
would be the increasingly ubiquitous mobile phone on the Irish
streets, introducing a culture of almost-permanent connection
with an increased fluidity of social arrangements. This is
in turn has affected the design of the phones themselves,
moving from a sombre 'business' aesthetic to the mobile phone
as lifestyle accessory, complete with interchangeable covers.2
Like material
culture itself, rich within this field is heavily indebted
to the areas of the history of technology and the sociology
of science and technology.3
Rather than taking a view of technological determinism, where
the technology itself shapes the culture around it, the research
is generally influenced by the view that it is a process of
interactions between sociological, economic and political
factors, as well as the constraints of materials and the design
process. As well as articles in the Journal of Material
Culture itself, Technology and Culture, the journal
of the Society for the History of Technology4,
publishes articles from a material-culture point of view,
as well as sociological case studies on technological artefacts
and systems.
Three case
studies in Of Bicycles, Bakelite and Bulbs outline
the social-constructivist approach of Weibe Bijker, which
can be found in more detail in The Social Construction
of Technological Systems5.
The case study of the development of the bicycle in the nineteenth
century highlights the role it played in the emancipation
of women, the increased mobility acting as an influence in
social change. Bijke keeps an emphasis on invention and creativity
as social processes in which individuals (or 'Actors') matter,
but are highly influenced by their social contexts (or 'Structures').
Arnold Pacey's
book, The Culture of Technology6,
also looks at a wide range of examples, from Eskimo use of
snowmobiles to electricity generation in Britain. He disputes
the idea that technology is value-free and highlights the
operation of the culture of expertise and the emphasis on
progress at any cost. He demonstrates that the view he disputes
is a result of ignoring the organisational and cultural attributes
of technology, in favour of a purely technical view. The organisational
aspect is, as Bijker outlines, bound up with the political,
economic and industrial activity of the engineers, scientists
and vested interests, who are involved in the production of
technological artefacts. On the other hand is the cultural
aspect, where technology is consumed, used and integrated
into people's lives.
What the introduction
of research from a material-culture point of view adds to
the debate is an ability to mix these sociological and economic
approaches with an approach concerned with the contextual
analysis of artefacts. Material culture has inherited from
the history of design a solid basis of looking at and analysing
the real object, as the way that people use and treat objects
often demonstrates a direct link to their ideals and values.
Charting technology-related social change is an enormous task,
whether it be for the printing press or the mobile phone,
but it is one that has many benefits for the self-aware society.
It may prove an advantage when dealing with recalcitrant photocopiers...
Sorcha O'Brien
lectures in the National College of Art and Design, Dublin,
the Institute of Art, Design and Technology, Dún Laoghaire,
and the Dublin Institute of Technology.
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