The word 'technology' comes from the word for technique.
- The word 'technology' comes from the word for technique.
- Technique is a process of transforming a thing to another form, reliably.
- Technique is the concept of a reproducible, context-independent process.
- It requires well-conditioned inputs that are all the same, torn out of their context.
- This is in contrast to craft.
- A craftsman brings their knowhow and they bring their energy to the site of the work (the materials).
- That creates a bespoke piece, special and unique to that circumstance.
- Technique requires the alienation of that context.
- Technology is fundamentally inhuman.
- It separates site-specific wisdom.
- Gilbert Simondon has a book on this: On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects.
- Software is the most malleable thing in the world but we turned it into just a clone-stampable thing, devoid of context.
- The true power of software will be unlocked by approaching it more as a craft, embedded and integrated in its context.