March 23, 2005

Heidegger, Technology, television

This article by Dan Scoggin on Heidegger and Technology in the Spring 2002 issue of Negations is interesting. Scoggin says:

"On the one hand, the current phenomenon of television, with its privileged status as a cultural event, serves as an excellent example by which to explore Heidegger’s complex notion concerning how technology becomes intertwined with our Being. On the other hand, we can start to unravel the complex existence of the event of television today by returning to his notion of Enframing (Gestell)--which proposes that the essence of technology is not technological, but a way of life. In either case, the first step of bringing Heidegger and television together involves an overcoming of the instrumental logic that suggests that television is best thought of as a home appliance, a window to the world, a marketplace, a piece of furniture, a companion, or something fully human."

Heidegger rarely touched upon television in his writings and speeches we can understand television to be a technological extension of visual and auditory images, an incontrollable plurality of messages, and a space where where human beings are taken as standing-reserve.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at March 23, 2005 11:54 PM | TrackBack
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