So that’s kind of big picture I see for the Internet of Things At the start (line 1) the speaker asserts that the Internet of Things for him is all about

an idea. Line 2 reveals that it is not some grand idea of a unified system or socio- technical environment, but rather the idea that any device should be able 'to report' (as in line 5), 'to understand' (line 6) and that a device 'should know' (line 8). While these three are all rather reactive faculties, in line 12 the device is also thought to act upon its understanding, knowing and reporting in order to further coordinate the flow and movement of things and goods outside of it.

In other words, the ‘device that has input and output in general’ (line 2) has the ability to act. Act here, however, does not only mean in a socioculturally mediated capacity, as that is assigned to human beings, but also in a technical one, making it a techno-socio-cultural capacity. As has been discussed in previous chapters, the idea

of a device as an active agent has been a part of the Internet of Things discourse from its early imaginings, as outlined by Bleecker (2006), Latour (1999) and Law (1992). Here, as in the previous writings, devices are seen acting alongside people, but also independently of people. They are seen as active participants in the construction and deconstruction of networks, in a world of inter-networked relations.

In line 3, the speaker makes a repair on a statement made in line 2, or rather extends the information concealed in this vernacular ‘any device’. For the listener unfamiliar with this discourse, ‘any device’ could mean as much a water tap as a telephone. However, by excluding the ‘Internet part’ that ‘already’ connects many devices, with their inputs and outputs, such as routers, switches, smart screens, etc., the speaker locates the conversation within the network paradigm, which acts as a background frame for which the ‘Internet part’ acts as a contextualisation cue. Likewise, in line 7, the relationship between the device and the network is made explicit by positioning the network behind the device. Thus a device is seen as a front-runner, the visible part of the network, that not only has a relationship to the network - ‘its impact’ - but also manages its own impact, and that of what it puts through.

The device thus embodies “intelligent vessel-like qualities”. As noted already, when wrestling with the concept of the thing, Heidegger (1975:169) used an example of a jug (see section 2.2.2). As with Heidegger’s jug, it is the void inside a device and the performative act of gathering that manifests its ‘thingness’. In the speaker's utterance, we can observe that with a device the conceptual void is for whatever it ‘takes in’ or ‘puts out’ (line 4), and it will be the device’s intelligence and decision-making qualities to manage the world outside (line 12), or the act of it gathering and pouring (like in the case of a jug) that is making it into the thing.

However, the device in itself, in a Kantian sense Das Ding an sich, or as an object itself130_{, may be simply a board, a chip, a network shield with attached sensors}

hanging from it, a bit of code programmed and uploaded onto that chip by a human, which needs to be powered up and connected to the Internet via an Ethernet cable or wireless card. In the perception of this speaker, a device stands in front of the

130Kant made a distinction between the thing-in-it-self or what a thing really is and the phenomenological thing. Heidegger’s jug is a relational thing as it gathers other things, whereas Kunt's concept of thing is not relational. (see 'Critique of Pure Reason' (orig 1781, 2017).

network and between the world of material goods and resources (as in line 12). Lines 9 and 10 bring forward the background frame used by the speaker, that of the ‘overall system’. While speaking about it in an abstract way, the speaker assumes the existence and presence of some sort of system. This system exists on both sides of the device or on its periphery, at its intake point and at its output point, thus indicating that the background frame is a technological system. However, with the use of the adjective overall, the frame is extended into the idea of a total, all- inclusive system in which the digital meets the physical and, subsequently, social space and processes.

The abstract notion of a device containing its meaning in a ‘pouring’ shapes the concept, and our experience of space. Heidegger suggested that ‘Thinging is nearing the world’ (1975:178). It is this transition from the bits of technology to a perceivable ‘thing’, or the becoming of a device, that has occurred, and it becomes evident through spoken language. While the device is nearing the world in the way Neil Gershenfeld (1999) envisaged it, by ‘bringing more capabilities closer to people’ (1999:245), it is still physically present and technological, as opposed to disappearing into the world or becoming invisible. At this point, however, we might want to ask what these capabilities are that we are attempting to bring closer with the IoT.

4.4.2. The Thing of the Future

‘Technology progresses along with mankind, and so does the interest in what is technologically more refined; and the idea of perfection is pushed further and further. Hence we always have an open horizon of conceivable improvement to be further pursued.’ (Husserl, 1970:25) While, for the speaker in Example:6, a device was at the centre of the IoT idea, we learned little about what that “anything” is that the device takes in or puts out. As a technologist, he was primarily concerned with the technological development, and in such a context, the immediate problem would be to resolve the issues concerning the technical role of a device in the process of managing the usage of materials, goods, energy, etc. In contrast, Example:7131 _{is a fragment of speech uttered by one of the} 131The fragment of utterance is taken from two different takes of the participant’s answer to the question: What does the Internet of Things mean to you? The interview was interrupted on day

community coordinators (IO_2) who is less involved in the technical development of the project, and whose primary concern is with public engagement and interaction management. As such, he is well articulated in expressing broader visions of what these capabilities are which Gershenfeld foresaw, and which could even be further refined in the Husserlian sense.

Example:7