A car that reads the road. What a novel idea.
National Geographic Magazine Vol 214 No5 November 2008
Technonature – Arturo Escobar (1999)
Tourist Nature – Andrew Wilson (1991)
This sample ad is a tiny stretch for Technonature, however I think it fits just because it attributes to a computer the ‘ability’ to ‘read’ the road in the way that humans ‘read’ NGM. The use of the same word for wholly different entities, human and machine, leaving it undefined assumes if not intends for readers [!] to blindly accept the use of this word and all that it implies. That the abilities that comprise the gulf which makes humans inherently irreplacable by machines [read: automation/the perogative of capitalism] is actually a narrow fjord. This [multi-faceted and deliberately tricky] use of a word which on the surface appears self-explanatory and concise is reminiscent of Demeritt’s (2002) critique of the obfuscating tendencies of discursive traditions. In this ad, the vague idea of a car that ‘reads’ plants a certain ideas of our own human worth / valuation, of who we are [mimic-able by technology = similar to a machine=replaceable by a machine = less durable than a machine over time=in competition with or threatened by the same machine that was built to serve us]…I think I may have just written the Matrix and Terminator screen plays there…
One thought that occurs to me is how likely will it be that I can code an ad as technonature and NOT capitalist nature at the same time given that the two ‘realities’ a mutually dependent in in the industry which commissions these very same ads…
