Proxies

How those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included—and who is excluded—in the future. Our world is built on an array of standards we are compelled to share. In Proxies, Dylan Mulvin examines how we arrive at those standards, asking, “T...

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Autore principale: Mulvin, Dylan
Natura: Online
Lingua:inglese
Pubblicazione: The MIT Press 2022
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Accesso online:ONIX_20220221_9780262366243_141
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author Mulvin, Dylan
author_browse Mulvin, Dylan
author_facet Mulvin, Dylan
author_sort Mulvin, Dylan
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description How those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included—and who is excluded—in the future. Our world is built on an array of standards we are compelled to share. In Proxies, Dylan Mulvin examines how we arrive at those standards, asking, “To whom and to what do we delegate the power to stand in for the world?” Mulvin shows how those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included—and who is excluded—in the future. For designers of technology, some bits of the world end up standing in for other bits, standards with which they build and calibrate. These “proxies” carry specific values, even as they disappear from view. Mulvin explores the ways technologies, standards, and infrastructures inescapably reflect the cultural milieus of their bureaucratic homes. Drawing on archival research, he investigates some of the basic building-blocks of our shared infrastructures. He tells the history of technology through the labor and communal practices of, among others, the people who clean kilograms to make the metric system run, the women who pose as test images, and the actors who embody disease and disability for medical students. Each case maps the ways standards and infrastructure rely on prototypical ideas of whiteness, able-bodiedness, and purity to control and contain the messiness of reality. Standards and infrastructures, Mulvin argues, shape and distort the possibilities of representation, the meaning of difference, and the levers of change and social justice.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-786212024-04-11T15:10:42Z Proxies Mulvin, Dylan History of engineering and technology Media studies thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TB Technology: general issues::TBX History of engineering and technology thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies::JBCT3 Media studies: advertising and society How those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included—and who is excluded—in the future. Our world is built on an array of standards we are compelled to share. In Proxies, Dylan Mulvin examines how we arrive at those standards, asking, “To whom and to what do we delegate the power to stand in for the world?” Mulvin shows how those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included—and who is excluded—in the future. For designers of technology, some bits of the world end up standing in for other bits, standards with which they build and calibrate. These “proxies” carry specific values, even as they disappear from view. Mulvin explores the ways technologies, standards, and infrastructures inescapably reflect the cultural milieus of their bureaucratic homes. Drawing on archival research, he investigates some of the basic building-blocks of our shared infrastructures. He tells the history of technology through the labor and communal practices of, among others, the people who clean kilograms to make the metric system run, the women who pose as test images, and the actors who embody disease and disability for medical students. Each case maps the ways standards and infrastructure rely on prototypical ideas of whiteness, able-bodiedness, and purity to control and contain the messiness of reality. Standards and infrastructures, Mulvin argues, shape and distort the possibilities of representation, the meaning of difference, and the levers of change and social justice. 2022-02-21T15:13:42Z 2022-02-21T15:13:42Z 2021 book ONIX_20220221_9780262366243_141 9780262366243 9780262045148 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/78621 eng Infrastructures image/jpeg n/a https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11765.001.0001 The MIT Press The MIT Press ae0cf962-f685-4933-93d1-916defa5123d 9780262366243 9780262045148 The MIT Press 288 Cambridge open access
spellingShingle History of engineering and technology
Media studies
thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TB Technology: general issues::TBX History of engineering and technology
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies::JBCT3 Media studies: advertising and society
Mulvin, Dylan
Proxies
title Proxies
title_full Proxies
title_fullStr Proxies
title_full_unstemmed Proxies
title_short Proxies
title_sort proxies
topic History of engineering and technology
Media studies
thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TB Technology: general issues::TBX History of engineering and technology
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies::JBCT3 Media studies: advertising and society
topic_facet History of engineering and technology
Media studies
thema EDItEUR::T Technology, Engineering, Agriculture, Industrial processes::TB Technology: general issues::TBX History of engineering and technology
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JB Society and culture: general::JBC Cultural and media studies::JBCT Media studies::JBCT3 Media studies: advertising and society
url ONIX_20220221_9780262366243_141
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