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

"We oren't technicians ourselves, but Aramis seemed well-adapted in termsof volume and adaptability to the site; plus it had branches to allow pinpointservice. No, we saw the project in a very favorable light.""Later, it deteriorated?""Yes, in any event we weren 't kept informed; I couldn't tell you why it didn'twork out; there wasn't enough information about the difficulties."There was also-how can I put it?-a phenomenon of irritation after thefact."I'm not trying to say what really happened, just how things felt to peopleat the time."We saw the RATP build a little station, a little catwalk, a little offshoot, verywell-conceived mechanisms, signal systems, lighting systems, everything veryfine-tuned. It sort of gave the impression of kids having the time of their lives."The mayor of Paris went out there [see Photo 15]. It seemed absurd towork on the smallest details of the platforms or the signal system when one hadthe impression the thing wasn't working. To my knowledge (again, I'm not tryingto give you some sort of absolute truth here!, the stumbling block, the real no-no,was when the RATP had to face up to the following question: 'We have tobuild a bridge to connect Bercy and Toibiac. * What do we need to anticipatefor this bridge? Will we have to put Aramis on it?' 'Uh, well, no, Aramis isn'tgoing so well, don't take it into account for the bridge.'"That's how we found out it wasn't working; aside from that, there wereleaks, rumors ."So, for you, whether it's research or not doesn't bother you 05 long 05you're told what to expect. ""No, it doesn't bother me. They haven't got it to work? That's normal, butyes, they should tell us. The probabilities need to be revised periodically, andwe need time to study the alternatives."You understand, we're led to expect great things: it's the wonder of thecentury, it's France seizing the initiative once again, it's Matra , the glory of ourindustry, et cetera, et cetera. And then we hear no more about it, nothing moreis said-suddenly, nothing. It's a mysterious thing, we're dealing with highbrows;it's government in the most disturbing sense of the word."You really need to do exactly the opposite. You need to explain to people*Two Paris stations located on opposite sides of the Seine. The new bridge isstill supposed to include a modern, lightweight, short-distance transportation system.