ANTS!

I thought that this weeks reading was very interesting in that it linked elements of the theory that we have been reading with some concrete case studies. I know that it was a welcome breather for me to be able to apply some of the concepts to a few objects, for lack of a better word.

The formulation that I was most intrigued with was the idea of Actor-Network Theory. I feel that the tensions outlined in this theory are things that we have been dealing with and working through in class. On one hand there is the theoretical insistence on form above content, the purely technical apparatus underpinnings of new media and information technologies. On the other hand there is the unavoidable reservation that what is actually being produced and represented should have meaning somehow. But of course, the same thing can be said and represented across a variety of different and sometimes conflicting mediums. ANT mediates this tension in an interesting way by postulating the interplay of form and content. I think that it is pretty much right that the form of presentation changes the perception and articulation of content.

The way that ANT argues that form itself is a kind of agent is also interesting. Of course, this is a kind of non-subjective agent. Yet, the actor remains an agent none the less in an assemblage of agent-relations, where all agents act upon the final system.

As such, I think there needs to be rethinking of the world virtual-space. As Langlois makes clear the point of a space such as Amazon.com is not to replicate the feel of a traditional bookstore. Rather, the similarities on the surface in procedural processes are belied by a series of differences on the software level. The form of the space itself is different. Thus, even if virtual spaces resembled real spaces entirely the differences in their agent-relations produces another completely different form of reality.