Erich Hörl: The Technological Condition (2011/2015)

1 June 2015, dusan

Partial translation of the introduction to Die technologische Bedingung. Beiträge zur Beschreibung der technischen Welt, ed. Hörl (Suhrkamp 2011), a book “seeking to reformulate the (media)technical question under neocybernetic conditions at the beginning of twenty-first century. As such, it is part of a three-volume project. It follows Die Transformation des Humanen. Beiträge zur Kulturgeschichte der Kybernetik, eds. Michael Hagner and Erich Hörl (Suhrkamp 2008), and it will be followed soon by On General Ecology. The New Ecological Paradigm in the Neocybernetic Era, ed. Hörl.”

Translated by Anthony Enns
Published in Parrhesia 22, 2015, pp 1-15
Open access

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More from Erich Hörl, and on philosophy of technology and media ecology.

Dennis Upper: The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of “Writer’s Block” (1974)

20 April 2015, dusan

The shortest academic article ever published in a peer reviewed journal ends up behind paywall.

Published in Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis 7(3), Fall 1974, p 497

Wikipedia

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Stefan Helmreich: An Anthropologist Underwater: Immersive Soundscapes, Submarine Cyborgs, and Transductive Ethnography (2007)

14 November 2014, dusan

“In this article, I deliver a first-person anthropological report on a dive to the seafloor in the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s three-person submersible, Alvin. I examine multiple meanings of immersion: as a descent into liquid, an absorption in activity, and the all-encompassing entry of an anthropologist into a cultural medium. Tuning in to the rhythms of what I call the “submarine cyborg”—“doing anthropology in sound,” as advocated by Steven Feld and Donald Brenneis (2004)—I show how interior and exterior soundscapes create a sense of immersion, and I argue that a transductive ethnography can make explicit the technical structures and social practices of sounding, hearing, and listening that support this sense of sonic presence.” (Abstract)

Published in American Ethnologist 34(4), 2007, pp 621-641.

PDF (from the author, updated on 2016-8-25)