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

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Millions of francs per year1970197119721973197419751976--------10 20 30 40I I I IPreliminary PhasePhase 0Phase 1I Oriy Site!Motor,South Line19771978--Phase 2AI Aramis simplified197919801981198219831984-_11--_.Phase 3AInterphasePhase 4Installationof componentsTwo-car u_nit (doublet), CMD, microprocessorsPhme ClRI19851986-eET-19871988I10I I I20 3040JMillions of francs per yearFigure I. lotal and annual expenses by phase, in 1992 francs. After Phase 3A,the amounts no longer include either the RATP's internal expenses or Matra'scost overruns. (Official contracts, January 1, 1988.)ANEXCITING INNOVATION
1985: Scale model of two-car Aramis presented. 1986:First two-car unit delivered; two-tiered Aramisproposed; studies of potential ridership; Chiracnamed prime minister; Quin leaves the RATP.1987: Termination of project announced; fifth two-carunit delivered; three weeks of contradictory testruns; project halted; postmortem study begun.[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M. Lievin, INRETS engineer:"Aramis is the last of the PRT systems, you know. ""PRT?""It was fashionable at the time-Personal Rapid Transit, PRT. Everybody wasexcited about it.""When was this?""Oh, around the sixties. The Kennedy era. Private cars were on the wayout-that's what everyone was saying. But at the same time the advantagesof cars had to be maintained; we couldn't keep moving in the direction of masstransportation." [no. 15]M. Etienne, at Matra:"In 1972 the Transport Expo took place in Washington. That exhibit wascritical for PRTs . Everybody in the world came. There were Boeing systems,there were Bendix systems. People were beginning to recognize the potentialof computers. It seemed logical to control vehicles from a central computer. "[no. 21]M. Cohen, speaking at Matra's Besanr;:on oFFice:"All the major manufacturers plunged into PRTs: Boeing, Otis, we did thesame thing at Matra . There were at least ten different systems. None of themworked . Aramis is the one that lasted the longest; it was the most credible,finally. We wouldn't do it the same way today; we wouldn't tell ourselves that,well, we know how to make planes and satellites, great, mass transportationmust be a cinch. It's not true; it's not that easy. A train may well be morecomplicated than a satellite, technologically speaking." [no. 45]Mr. Britten, on American private consultant in Paris:"With PRTs, what doesn't work is the P. P means people, not personal. Weknew from the beginning that that part didn't have a chance. In 1975-1 haveAN EXCITININNOVATION
Page 2 and 3: ARAMISTHE LOVE OF ECHNOLOGY
Page 4 and 5: Copyright © 1996 by the President
Page 6 and 7: TO SIMON SCHAFFER 7/
Page 8 and 9: By publishing this hook, I would li
Page 10 and 11: exemplary meditation on the difficu
Page 13 and 14: PROLOGUE: WHO KILLED ARAMIS?The fir
Page 15 and 16: PROLOGUE•cember 1987. A promising
Page 17 and 18: [DOCUMENT: EXCERPTS FROM AN ARTICLE
Page 19 and 20: "You see," he went on during one of
Page 21 and 22: "But during that period I found out
Page 23 and 24: -"There's one small problem," I sai
Page 25: 1973: Test site at Orly; three-vehi
Page 29 and 30: in a mass transit network, with no
Page 31 and 32: come true. Since every study has to
Page 33 and 34: load fa ctor, Professor? Your isola
Page 35 and 36: if by magic. An electronic calculat
Page 37 and 38: to be invented, if we are to track
Page 39 and 40: ---) TransporterTime IS . ; To Char
Page 41 and 42: assembly line? You said "transfer"?
Page 43 and 44: primly, without acknowledging my cl
Page 45 and 46: defensive about playing "amusing me
Page 47 and 48: curves: DATAR, the RATP, Paris, bef
Page 49 and 50: fellow. It's like the Galileo affai
Page 51 and 52: Time To-1 2 3 4 5CJIII __ _ Time T1
Page 53 and 54: fic off the roads , it improve s tr
Page 55 and 56: ter-who speaks in the name of the g
Page 57 and 58: are solemnly and eternally committe
Page 59 and 60: me, Aramis isn't a PRT Iype of tran
Page 61 and 62: Aeroport de Paris said. IF you map
Page 63 and 64: IS ARAMIS FEASIBLE?"Now we can go o
Page 65 and 66: workshop, a control post, a recepti
Page 67 and 68: the optical sensor so it will maint
Page 69 and 70: evolutionary system of transportati
Page 71 and 72: "For my part, " the motor declares,
Page 73 and 74: -otherwise, it instructs the car to
Page 75 and 76: not only determined the laws accord
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M. Lamoureux, r
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they have to change the motor, mult
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there would be a lot of new functio
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"The idea was that it was seductive
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know who, among the engineers, exec
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of admiring the architecture, the s
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control room, by Ferbeck (who is al
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has the massive dimensions it takes
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come back to print. The whole passa
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"Do you comprehend the crime, the u
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS)At Matra headqu
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M, Parlat, proi
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Stationl00o
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destinations: that's the idea that
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the network, all the problems of au
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M. Etienne, hea
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ody can commit himself; it's imposs
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configuration on the board. Besides
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to the real transportation system,
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As a young engineer, I refused to c
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS)In M. Hector's
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]M. Parlat is sp
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did his field work in the Amazon ra
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What counts, in a technological pro
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"That's an interesting theory all r
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"With VAL, we moved gradually from
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hard; you'd need to build it into t
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also VAL; Ficheur, the contracting
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completely ignores economic conditi
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INTERPHASE :THRE E YEARS OF GRAC E"
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construction of the Center for Tech
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]At the Ministry
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every year?* You could pay for Aram
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A "trashable explanation" ! The exa
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II est passe par iciII repassera pa
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uilding reliable, predictable, conv
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public funds vampire-fashion and th
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"Number 7 is incompatible with numb
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"Yes, we 've made a lot of progress
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Orly-Val], and then Montpellier. We
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Norbert's sociology, he respected m
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"In fact, I should have spent a cou
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The rationality of technologies wri
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Why not go see Ronald Reagan, or th
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"I called several meetings to verif
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the World's Fair; then they said it
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attaching to me dozens of poor devi
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3. In 1973, in a beet field near th
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7 The control room for VAL in Lille
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1 I. Aramis really does exist now;
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] 5. [n March 1987, seven months be
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19. Since no engineer could prove m
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we are often the first to see, in a
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"The RATP said to itself, 'I'm behi
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agree. "They're aiming at VA L in s
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"He agrees with me," I remarked mod
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viewpoints, goals, and desires, so
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If the actors in a project define n
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With a technological project, inter
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gers impatient to show up at Bercy
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allies. Thus, not only is the actor
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from one extreme to another. If you
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isn't the only one who doesn't know
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"Aramis has a lot of advantages bec
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hour. The human being in these scen
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the subway, by virtue of its access
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even includes direct quotes! A prot
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Regie Autonome des TransportsParisi
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etween us had evaporated with Norbe
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ITY OF THE INDIVIDUALS AND COMPANIE
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opinion of the capitalists had "per
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An accusation that's so watered dow
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epistemological; it talks and talks
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conception, which exists in fact on
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put it. If Aramis existed, you woul
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"So we had to increase the absolute
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[SUMMARY OF A GROUP INTERVIEW]The s
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engineering, all the ingenuity, all
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"We've found the hidden staircase,"
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dominated by, people. But there is
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-Vehicle110,000f-PCC spervisio Stat
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[INTERVIEW EXCERPTS]-M. Freque, pro
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problem. This task, for the project
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"What I think is that the Matra eng
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"As for the automation, I agree wit
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inappropriate, as if it were clear
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PIaorm 1X" StationI / Plaorm 2Subst
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"Level III: the fixed equipment, ea
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But since you're not human, I'd be
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--wheels, supply information about
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little I was becoming the Aramis mo
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the cars located in the sector, as
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So it givesa recalibration that'sre
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OrdinateViewpoint of mobile unit/I-
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Phonic wheelCoded equidistant cross
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"Here deceleration has to be factor
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[DOCUMENT]code 5800 .2ORI 10 0 0 00
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Norbert woke up terrified.The next
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This is the case for the Matra comp
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This figure, in the context of the
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short-term vision. 'As long as ther
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1. What M. Brun needs; what hechoos
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ecause if someone says, 'After fift
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Well then, that's reassuring. I sta
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thing, give or take a nuance or two
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that's too bad Obviously, to go fro
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They sound awfully sure of themselv
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"Either they didn't put enough ener
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Phase 1: Concept development5phose
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VAL. You'll see, we're going to fin
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on on ongoing basis how things are
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7. Aramis has been perfected as a m
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of a network, to the extent that th
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"Are they interested in elected off
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"But then why not say it was resear
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when we talked about it. The electe
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"No, no, not enough love! Love and
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ahout each other in strict confiden
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"Yet in spite of its fragility, its
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to be a line. What more could I ask
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things. That's not what brought my
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"Obligation to use all appropriate
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" Prometheus. ""Prometheus! The 'sm
Page 324 and 325:
GLOSSARYA-320 An airplane built by
Page 326 and 327:
BertinBienvenueBus DivisionCabinent
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tems to be controlled in the car (d
Page 330 and 331:
E:'2the ministry's technical dossie
Page 332 and 333:
Porno 2000PrometheusPRTQuinRofoleRa
Page 334 and 335:
sniffer planeSOFRESSOFRETUSouth lin
Page 336:
BIUND /ATOUI , 01"""of SOOoIogy, £
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