Transductions: Bodies and Machines at Speed

by Adrian MacKenzie

Overview

What do the patented data structures embedded deep in the code of an online computer game or the massively complicated architecture of the latest supercomputer used to simulate nuclear explosions have to do with culture, life or meaning? Why does technology attract such wildly differing responses - from fervour to boredom to distrust?

Transductions explores these questions by drawing on science and technology studies, contemporary critical theory and corporeal theory. An exploration of complex technologies such as online computer games, genomic databases and the global positioning system reveals how the borders between bodies and machines, between what counts as social and what counts as technical, are no less diverse and complicated than culture itself. Indeed, they constitute a crucial dimension of contemporary culture. Through a critical analysis of the widely accepted notion that technology speeds everything up, Transductions argues that there are only ever differences in speed. The question for us now is how can such differences be represented?

Transductions was originally part of the Technologies: Studies in Culture and Theory series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826481696
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/27/2006
Series:	Continuum Collection Series
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	248
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

Adrian Mackenzie is Researcher in Information Cultures, Department of Computing, Lancaster University.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Radical contingency and the materializations of technology
2. From stone to radiation: the depth and speed of technical embodiments
3. The technicity of time: 1.00 oscillations/sec to 9,192,631,770 Hz
4. Infrastructure and individuation: speed and delay in Stelarc's Ping Body'
5. Losing time at the PlayStation: realtime and the 'whatever' body
6. Life, collectives and the pre-vital technicity of biotechnology
Conclusion

Editorial Reviews

"Mackenzie seeks to pinpoint the relationship between conceptions of technology and technology as a physical and temporal process. Although Mackenzie's philosophical exploration of transductions of the living and nonliving addresses broad subject matter, the underlying concepts are analyzed with precision." Summing Up: Recommended.--Sanford Lakoff

From the Publisher