POLYVALENT TECHNOLOGIES

In this section I use the term polyvalent to underscore the versatility of uses, functions and capacities that modern digital technologies, especially the computer offer the user. Multivalent could have perhaps substituted as an alternative, as both prefixes mean ‘many’, but multi seemed limiting in that it suggests a number of ‘different’ forms. Using the prefix poly insinuates more malleability, not least from its extensive use as a prefix for plastic materials and when used with the base word valency, it indicates the potential number and type of bonds, or ‘combining capacity’, of technologies and the ‘different valencies [of technologies] in different contexts’ (Crystal 2008: 507); that is, those that technologies can form with each other and their users. In the end the choice of prefix became a decision of what seemed most fitting in this context when polyvalent is used as an adjective for technologies, not least supported by the connection between the Greek origins of poly and technology which is derived from ‘technos’ with similar Greek origins, rather than ‘multi’ with its Latin roots.

There is no denying the increasing role that computers and other technologies play as social and educational platforms. These technologies can border cross cultures with ease, according to need. In one context a computer is a professional work tool yet the same computer can be used for leisure, socialisation, communication, or keeping up with a professional workload when not at work and so on. With the increasingly diverse range of users, uses and advances in digital programming the choices for switching between activities and running several applications at once is expansive. As I type in Word, or browse the Internet I can listen to music, have a video running in a small window and even have streaming information in a sub-area of my vision. At another time the software could be reading a document to me, or I could be dictating to it as it converts my speech to digital

units of text. The variations of this and the number of applications being used at one time only reaches its limit through the available memory and processing power of the technology.

There would be some rationality in thinking that computers and other digital technologies and media are, by themselves, passive objects built by humans for humans, and as such a resource or object that responds to a user’s needs according to input and resources. There is still something within that premise, as objects cannot be held culpable for any actions carried out using them, nor are they the originators of ethical actions or intentions. That is until some consideration is given to the deep entwinement that occurs between daily activities and technology, or media; not least evident through the feeling of reliance on them, or even comfort when we have access to them. This can be evident in the anxiety that occurs if one forgetfully leaves a mobile phone behind or when a work or leisure computer stops working. As Smith (2003: 184) comments objects can ‘affect and alter the ways we think, act, and perceive’ and therefore they become non-neutral artefacts that can shape human praxis. For Smith (ibid.) the relationships we have with objects means that they become more than passive things in that they can affect our decision-making processes, ethical or otherwise and as such there is a rejection of modernist philosophy and the subject-object dichotomy that renders the division between objects as passive and subjects as active.

Ihde (2002: 138) through the lens of postphenomenology suggests, ‘we are bodies in technologies’, who have ‘amazing plasticity and polymorphism’ (ibid.), therefore firmly identifying the capacity for humans to be extended through new technologies. Idhe (ibid: 137) considers that this is a two- way relationship: ‘Insofar as I use or employ a technology, I am used and employed by that technology as well’ and just as the body adapts to the technology, so the technology adapts to the body, within limitations. For Idhe (2009: 22 original emphasis) the role technologies and non- humans play in assembling the social and cultural, results in a ‘multidimensionality of technologies as material cultures within a lifeworld’. Idhe argues that human experience which involves

relationships with technologies has changed the landscape of the philosophy of technologies into an ‘interrelational ontology’ (ibid: 23) where ‘both are transformed within this relationality’ (ibid.). From this, Ihde (1990: 107) posits that technology moves beyond the domain of objects through the ‘existential relation which constitutes my self’.

Kember and Zylinska (2012: xv original emphasis) explore the mediation of events and life and of, ‘being in, and becoming with, the technological world’, through the relationship that occurs

technologies are dispersed, yet dynamically interlocked into lives and therefore have become more than things at our disposal to artefacts which are entangled with us at a sociocultural and biological level. The proposition is that ‘mediation is an intrinsic condition of being-in, and becoming-with, the technological world’ (ibid. emphasis added). Hayles (2005: 7) adopts a more extensive term through the concept of ‘intermediation’ for both analogue and digital contexts where there are ‘complex transactions between bodies and texts as well as between different forms of media’, and draws on intermediation to denote the mediating interfaces that connect humans with ‘intelligent machines’ (ibid). Hayles (2007b: 101) argues that humans and computers are ‘increasingly bound together in complex physical, psychological, economic, and social formations’ and that through this relationship there is a re-engineering of people ‘through their interactions with computational devices’ (ibid: 102); therefore, how we think about and see ourselves as modern human beings. Hayles acknowledges that humans have been shaped by their technologies since prehistoric times, which is mirrored by Ihde’s (1990: 72 original emphasis) comment that praxis has been embodied through technologies in ‘an existential relation with the world. It is something humans have always….done’. Notably Hayles develops the point that the intermediating dynamics with computers has been crucial in the development of language within complex social formations and structures, both in leisure and commercial contexts. This could surely be extended to how we non- verbally communicate to others through the semiotics of the technologies we carry and use, which can signify to others what our level of commitment is to them and the values that are placed on them. I have noticed this occurring at a more discrete micro level amongst media students when they use, or attain certain levels of software actions that can gain them credibility from any observing peers, which can then initiate discussion.

The level of division within the relationship humans have to technologies, or non-human objects has intrigued research, especially since there has been a significant increase in the use of

technologies across many sectors of society. The impetus of working this out occurred through opportune texts such as The Social Shaping of Technology (MacKenzie and Wajcman 1985) and The Social Construction of Technological Systems (Bijker, Hughes and Pinch 1987), which discussed the role of society in the shaping of technological systems. Emerging from this was an interest in how objects, including technologies, where situated within infrastructures of actor- networks of human and non-human symmetry and therefore how each could be located within the same conceptual framing and assigned equal levels of agency (Callon 1986; Latour 1987).

As part of the momentum of this line of enquiry Pickering (1993: 562) critiqued previous sociological knowledge, ‘which accords priority to the human subject through an asymmetric distribution of agency – all to human beings, none to the material world’. That is, the premise that human effect gains no response from the material world, which Pickering found untenable.

Pickering (ibid: 565) also challenged the exact symmetry of the actor-network, which ‘insists, there is no difference between human and nonhuman agents’. Notably, the sticking point for Pickering was intentionality: ‘We humans differ from nonhumans precisely in that our actions have intention behind them’ (ibid.). Pickering contended that there were periods when humans exerted agency over machines and other times when they were more passive, notably when the machines captured agency and were performing as the humans intended. He referred to this asymmetry in goal- orientated practices as a ‘dance of agency’ (Pickering, 1995: 21). In doing this Pickering critiques any fixed notion of symmetry and instead entwines humans with material agency and extends this to the ‘insistence that material and human agencies are mutually and emergently productive of one another’ (Pickering, 1993: 567).

The acknowledgement of symmetry between humans and nonhumans, which dismisses any a priori distinction between the two, affords us to recognise the continuity between humans and society and non-humans rather than forming any impression of clear distinctions. That is, ‘that not only

humans but also things ‘act’’ (Verbeek, 2014: 86). However, for Verbeek (ibid.) the notion of symmetry is inappropriate and instead references ‘interaction and mutual constitution’, where humans and things constitute ‘myriad ‘hybrid entities’; therefore making a distinction away from any notion of a mirror like symmetry where the main characteristics of the original are imitated. Verbeek presents this argument through a focus on what role technologies play in morality, by adding that the ‘mediating role of technologies in moral actions and decisions’ (ibid: 87) needs to be acknowledged. This is due to the maturity of society’s relationship with technologies and

therefore they cannot be excluded from ethical considerations within the material world we inhabit. For Verbeek (ibid.), morality emerges through those relations where, ‘objects have moral

significance and subjects are engaged in mediated relations with the world’.

It is due to the close relationship that technologies now have to users, that I suggest that the

computer emerges as a polyvalent object. As an assemblage of component technologies computers have the capacity to carry out different functions according to the context and user’s needs, thus identifying ‘how differently embedded in different cultures even the same technologies may be’ (Ihde, 2008: iv). In each context the technology and the object itself becomes symbolically

saturated with use-value where, ‘value is used in recognition of the ordinary incommensurabilities that people face in daily life’ (Miller, 2008: 1124). While writing about computers, Derrida (2005: 23) states rather broadly and ambiguously: ‘What rules it obeys’. There is no clarity if this is the user, the limitations of the hardware, or what the software designer has programmed in, even the addictiveness of playing a particular game, or the draw of particular websites. However, if

Derrida’s statement is reconsidered more towards what determines usage, this partially reflects the complexity of examining any computer-based practices especially in a discrete temporal space, such as a classroom where cultures and expectations may not be secure within the principle aim of

learning. Consequently, a computer rich classroom can become a place of high-choices for

students, with the resulting risks of distraction and a reduced level of engagement with coursework if learning activities become resisted. As Bijker, indicates below, although computers may

essentially be inanimate objects, it is what they can provide that can afford change.

We live in technological cultures. Today’s societies are thoroughly technological, and all technologies are pervasively cultural. Technologies do not merely assist us in our everyday lives; they are also powerful forces acting to reshape human activities and their meanings (Bijker, 2009: 2).

From the outset of this section one aim was to present the value of using polyvalent as a way of conveying how technologies, especially computers, are integrated into many of the textures of daily lives and society at large. This depth of integration and the versatility of use for computers and many other new digital technologies therefore has implications for how their use-value may be seen within the digital classroom and their affect on praxis. The extensive interaction with technologies that users have as cultural and social artefacts which, as Verbeek (2014) indicates can develop a mutual constitution, is significant for how discrete contexts may be identified with, not least when conjoined with Smith’s (2003) articulation of how they can affect those aspects of us that control decision making. This becomes aligned with Hayles (2007b) comment of how technologies can shape how we see ourselves has obvious repercussions for context appropriate behaviour. Not least how the ‘dance of agency’ (Pickering, 1995: 21) is situated within this as an initiative for

performative actions (Pickering, 2010: 195), which Pickering (ibid: 197) sees in their ubiquity, as ‘the very stuff of our being in the world’, and thus how students and even teaching staff may see both themselves and the technologies within a classroom.

Within this shaping and reshaping of social actors and the role in this of digital technologies through the extensive interactions that can occur, Bijker (2009) above and others have suggested, the following section will examine how technologies, despite their undoubtedly significant efficacy

for education, can not only become a diversion away from the educational task in hand, but also within the use of them, signify a resistance to existing conditions.