Technology and narrativity: How technology writes, directs, and organizes the narrative and temporal structure of our lives

Description

What does a process approach imply for thinking about technology? This talk discusses the question what the notion of narrativity can do for understanding technology. Using a number of metaphors borrowed from domains such as literature and theatre, I try to conceptualize what technology, in particular digital technologies, do to our lives in terms of their impact on narrative-temporal structure. I give examples from use of mobile phones and social media to show how technology writes, directs, and organizes the narrative and temporal structure of our lives. In response to postphenomenology, I emphasize embodiment and the agency of technology, but stress that currently that approach lacks a good conceptualization of the temporal dimension of what technology does and misses the existential importance of narrativity. Moreover, I argue that Latour's approach is helpful here but needs to be further developed by critically reflecting on the metaphors it uses. I also move away from postmodern approaches to narrativity in the humanities that take text as the main metaphor and miss the embodied and performative aspects of technological practices; for this purpose I highlight the theatre metaphor in Ricoeur.

Period	14 Jun 2018
Event title	Colloquium on Understanding Digital Events
Event type	Lecture series, colloquium
Location	Greater Manchester, United KingdomShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International