Bruno Latour, Aramis, or the Love of Technology, PDF - Dss-edit.com

"So we had to increase the absolute reliability of the equipment. Now thisis only marginally possible-everything always breaks down, even whenmilitary technology is used, even in aeronautics, where Matra was on prettyfamiliar ground. So in every car all the equipment had to be duplicated. Butthat was impossible because of the cost."So the size of the cars hod to be increased; that way the costs of automationwould be divided up among more than ten people. However, you can'tlengthen the vehicle or widen it without losing the ten-meter curve radius thatwe'd just token so much trouble to get."So Matra had to find a solution that would keep the radius and improveavailability without increasing costs. They came up with paired cars, twovehicles physically attached together-a solution imported from VAL. Each pairof cars now holds ten passengers and the probability that the identical eqUipmenton the tvvo singletons will break down decreases. At the price of aphysical connection between pairs of cars, the reliability, the price, and theflexibility are maintained." [no 7; see Photos ] ]-] 3]Mechanisms cope with the contradictions of humans.Pairs of cars transcribe, or take upon themselves, or accept, ortransfer, or take the place of, the technological impasse (chips are fallible,alas), the economic limitations (the vehicles must not cost as much assatellites), the contradictions of the system (the mobile units cannot simultaneouslygrow longer and turn readily) . The connecting bar that attachesthe singletons two by two shoulders the responsibility of simultaneouslyholding together the mobile units and the contradictions of the engineers'erratic demands, exactly the way the nonmaterial couplings that still connectthe pairs of cars shoulder the responsibility of resolving the contradictorydreams of those same engineers-behaving as if they were automobiles,churning up a massive flow of cars guided like trains. But since thetwo dreams coexist, the result is material coupling between cars in eachpair, and computerized coupling between pairs!Although charged by humanists with the sin of being "simply"efficient, "purely" functional, "strictly" material, "totally" devoid of goals,mechanisms nevertheless absorb our compromises, our desires, our spirit,and our morality-and silence them. They are the scapegoats of a newARAMIS AT H-Il: CfT STAGE