While doing my research paper, I uncovered a bunch of other resources that I think will shape my thesis. Right now I’m really interested in the philosophical perspective on technology/human relationships. I found a paper on the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that outlines the thoughts on philosopher Don Ihde on this topic.
This paper is actually about phenomenological experiences of technology; I had no idea what the term “phenomenology” meant… I learned that it has to do with a first-person point of view. As I noted in my paper, I’m actually more interested in making my thesis about an object’s point of view rather than a human’s…or at least that’s what is interesting to me at the moment.
That said, for the sake of picking a direction and running with it for the time being, I’m going to use Don Ihde’s paper as a jumping off point for my 3 thesis projects. Actually, I’m going to propose 4–one for each of the person-technology-world relationships he describes in his theory. They are:
- “Embodiment relations”: object and human are melded together in an experience that shapes how the world is experienced
- “Hermeneutic relations”: object and world are melded together; human sees a translation of the world when looking at the object
- “Alterity relations”: technological object is other-worldly; human recognizes it as an alien object within his world.
- “Background relations”: technological objects falls into the background of human’s experience of the world; goes unnoticed.
For each of these 4 concepts I will make an object that “does something.” The object will be powered by either electricity, mechanical energy, or both. It will require a user to engage with it in a manner that conveys one of the 4 perspectives on human/technology relationships.