Un-Hinge

This weeks’ readings reminded of Latour’s suggestion that the ‘hinge,’ not the door was the first technology of social construction. I might be remembering it wrong!
However as I remember it, the analogy of the door, operating as tangible technology, and the hinge as the social, or interactional component, seems applicable. When thinking about TUI, I think I am most interested in this idea of a hinge, meaning the design of space or interface, might keep something or someone in or out, and the ways in which design may privilege certain ways of being as central to how something is deemed useful or productive. How does design construct disabilities, rather than impairments— is there a way to unhinge what we think we know about human activity , as in Latour’s analogy. First there is a hole in the wall, and then a door, and then a hinge…who opens the door, closes it, who monitors the door? All to say, it’s not as simple to ask or answer as I am posing these statements I know. Yet, it always stands out to me how little we discuss different ways of being and I don’t always know if the conversation is too specialized. I thought the first reading, Acting with Technology, makes a strong argument, how theory is useful, and the failures of ethno methodologists, yet it didn’t necessarily address differently abled people or neurodivergences- are these more relevant that specializations- are we still thinking too in the box about human interaction and activities- and how they structure agency.
My favorite user UI, where I was really aware I was using a new technology, was probably the first Atari console and Donkey Kong. I remember going to the beach and trying to jump over the waves the same way my character would over the barrels.

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