… the user both wants and does not want the technology.
This is from ‘Human Technology Relations’ found in The Critical Ihde, edited by Robert Rosenberg (2023):
… within the realm of embodiment relations one can develop a quite specific set of qualities for design relating to attaining the requisite technological “withdrawal.”
[line break added] For example, in handling highly radioactive materials at a distance, the mechanical arms and hands which are designed to pick up and pour glass tubes inside the shielded enclosure have to “feed back” a delicate sense of touch to the operator. The closer to invisibility, transparency, and the extension of one’s own bodily sense this technology allows, the better.
[line break added] Note that the design perfection is not one related to the machine alone but to the combination of machine and human. The machine is perfected along a bodily vector, molded to the perceptions and actions of humans.
… The actual or material technology always carries with it only a partial or quasi-transparency, which is the price for the extension of magnification that technologies give. In extending bodily capacities, the technology also transforms them. In that sense, all technologies in use are non-neutral.
[line break added] They change the basic situation, however subtly, however minimally; but this is the other side of the desire. The desire is simultaneously a desire for a change in situation — to inhabit the earth, or even to go beyond the earth — while sometimes inconsistently and secretly wishing that this movement could be without the mediation of the technology.
… the user both wants and does not want the technology.
My most recent previous post from Ihde’s book is here.
-Julie
Coloring 