1
The specificities of ideological frameworks, determine emerging concepts not just in terms of the potential of their evolution but also their limitations. For instance, as Giedion notes, the nature of Movement was overlooked during classical antiquity, as it was irrelevant to the wider understanding of things as given and in a state of equilibrium (pp.14-15). In a similar manner, Mechanization was explored only up to a certain extent during the Hellenistic years in Alexandria, as marvelous machines where invented to serve cultural experimentation but were not used to address applied problems (pp.33) until after a paradigm shift toward a utilitarian ideological framework took place in the 18th century (pp.34). And even then, Giedion writes, “ideas (such as the mechanization of production) arose that could become reality only in the 19th century, for they were unable to sink roots in Catholic France”.
The above suggest that innovative concepts are always ahead of the time of their emergence, and that they are arguably responsible for propelling history forward. If the Industrial society was irrevocably formed by the mechanization of production, what are the means that shape the Information society? Which of its concepts will the information society have to hand over to the coming generations?
2
Le Corbusier belongs to the interwar period that Giedion defines as “the time of Full Mechanization” (Giedion, 41), which enters the personal sphere and changes domesticity in radical ways. In this context, Le Corbusier declares that the house fails to respond to the pace of relentless change and so will perish (pp.33). The steamship, the airplane and the motor-car must serve as agents of change (pp.36) for the home, echoing the Modern mandate of change, roughly translated as the ability of movement, or mobility. Indeed, Giedion notes that the automobile is a personal lifestyle possession that comes to be understood as “the movable part of the household” (Giedion, 43).
In our times, the mandate of change is being manifest by an ever increasing immaterialization of things and processes. Which integral parts of the household that were cemented throughout Modernity are being immaterialized today?
3
It is apparent that the Agent (:craftsman/ artist/ builder… maker) holds a key position in the question of technology, as it is him or her that interprets the specificities of each occasion (“considers carefully”, pp.8) and transduces them, launching an output into being. It is the agent that embodies the full potential of the outcome: infinite possibilities may branch off the very same set of four causes because of the maker’s agency.
This entire process is what Heidegger defines as poēsis (bringing-forth). However, poesis is not exclusive to humans. It is interesting though, that poēsis also includes the occasions when something is brought-forth from out of itself (pp.10), which according to Heidegger happens when Physis (:nature) is the agent of change.
A contemporary school of thought led by sociologist Bruno Latour reflects on the ways in which non-human agents affect the course of occasions. It is not just Nature that holds the ability to bring-forth ‘presence’ from out of itself. Actor-network theory suggests that non-living things have agency too. How would Heidegger’s four modes of causality be re-imagined to include feedback loops of things that affect the presence of other things, feeding into other adjacent causality spheres?
