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

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of a network, to the extent that these intervals can be equalto the int erval on the common trunk line;-to offer, in the most sophisticated version of theAramis system, direct or semidirect services, by using offlinestat ions; certain pairs of cars from a train may in effectshort-circuit the station by taking the main track andavoid intermediate stops .In addition to the specific features described above, thechief characteristics of the system are the following:-the small size and thus the ease of insertion in an urbansite, the minimum curve radius being 10 meters without passengersat the terminus, 25 meters with passengers on thelines;-the very bri ef servi ce interval .The report presented the 1987 Aramis, word for word, as identicalto Petit and Bardet's 1970 Aramis. I myself had found twenty-oneinterpretations, but the technological documents remained mute aboutthis dispersion. Aramis had not incorporated any of the transformationsof its environment. It had remained purely an object, a pure object.Remote from the social arena, remote from history; intact. This wassurely it, the hidden staircase Norbert was looking for. Its soul and itsbody, as he would say, never merged.I saw my professor again only on the eve of the debriefing sessionthat he called "restitution." While I was stamping my feet in excitement,he seemed to be at a low point."Oh, I'm all washed up," he told me. "I'm going to change careers.Technology isn't for me. Even in dreams I haven't been able to embraceFrankenstein's creature. I've pulled away in horror. I've been a coward .I haven't reached any credible conclusion. I'm going to go back toclassical culture. Do theology again. Reread Tacitus, as my Poly techniquecolleague Finkielkraut advises. Habermas is right, after all; there's nolove, no culture, in technologies. The farther behind you leave them ,the better you think. How about you, what have you found? We dohave to turn in a report. And you're the engineer, after all."III' __ ARAMISI SREADYTOGOIAWAYI____________________________ __
"I was! 1 could have been! I was going to be! And you're the onewho dragged me into this 'mission impossible.' And you're asking meto pass judgment in your place? It's your job to present the conclusions."I showed him the 1987 document."But we 've read that a hundred times," he said dejectedly."They've been saying the same things for fifteen years, ever since Petitand Bardet. Nonmaterial couplings, small size, adaptability to the sites,no transfers, comfort for seated passengers, a network with multipleorigins and destinations. It's all there. Where does it get us?""But that's just the point-it doesn't get us anywhere. Look atthe date: October 1987, one month before Aramis' death. Aramis hasbeen exactly the same for seventeen years. The basic concept hasn'tundergone any transformation, any negotiation, except for the pair ofcars and the ten seats. It's held up against all comers. Yet you interviewedquite a few skeptics! Things have happened in the last fifteenyears! And now, look at my list: the interpretations are all over themap."His eyes lit up when he had run down the list."You see," I continued triumphantly. "Nothing changed it. It didn'tincorporate any skepticism, any random event. It reaches the momentof death absolutely intact, fresh as the day it was born. Without aging,without being 'degraded,' without being 'adulterated,' as they all say.On the one hand, Aramis; on the other, my little chart.""But wait, I don't understand," Norbert interrupted, more andmore intrigued. "There's absolutely no relationship between these twodocuments.""Exactly. Does Aramis absorb the 600 pairs of cars?""No, operational viability comes later, at the end of the road.""Do they transport it to Montpellier?""Ah! No, everybody talks about it, but it remains a pure possibility.""Do they increase its height so as to be able to include standingpassengers and restore elasticity to the traffic How?""Oh, no, that's at the very end, and it isn't Aramis any more ifpeople aren't seated."
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ARAMISTHE LOVE OF ECHNOLOGY
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Copyright © 1996 by the President
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TO SIMON SCHAFFER 7/
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By publishing this hook, I would li
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exemplary meditation on the difficu
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PROLOGUE: WHO KILLED ARAMIS?The fir
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PROLOGUE•cember 1987. A promising
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[DOCUMENT: EXCERPTS FROM AN ARTICLE
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"You see," he went on during one of
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"But during that period I found out
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-"There's one small problem," I sai
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1973: Test site at Orly; three-vehi
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1985: Scale model of two-car Aramis
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in a mass transit network, with no
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come true. Since every study has to
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load fa ctor, Professor? Your isola
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if by magic. An electronic calculat
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to be invented, if we are to track
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---) TransporterTime IS . ; To Char
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assembly line? You said "transfer"?
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primly, without acknowledging my cl
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defensive about playing "amusing me
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curves: DATAR, the RATP, Paris, bef
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fellow. It's like the Galileo affai
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Time To-1 2 3 4 5CJIII __ _ Time T1
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fic off the roads , it improve s tr
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ter-who speaks in the name of the g
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are solemnly and eternally committe
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me, Aramis isn't a PRT Iype of tran
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Aeroport de Paris said. IF you map
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IS ARAMIS FEASIBLE?"Now we can go o
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workshop, a control post, a recepti
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the optical sensor so it will maint
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evolutionary system of transportati
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"For my part, " the motor declares,
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-otherwise, it instructs the car to
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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
Page 252 and 253: "Level III: the fixed equipment, ea
Page 254 and 255: But since you're not human, I'd be
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Page 260 and 261: the cars located in the sector, as
Page 262 and 263: So it givesa recalibration that'sre
Page 264 and 265: OrdinateViewpoint of mobile unit/I-
Page 266 and 267: Phonic wheelCoded equidistant cross
Page 268 and 269: "Here deceleration has to be factor
Page 270 and 271: [DOCUMENT]code 5800 .2ORI 10 0 0 00
Page 272 and 273: Norbert woke up terrified.The next
Page 274 and 275: This is the case for the Matra comp
Page 276 and 277: This figure, in the context of the
Page 278 and 279: short-term vision. 'As long as ther
Page 280 and 281: 1. What M. Brun needs; what hechoos
Page 282 and 283: ecause if someone says, 'After fift
Page 284 and 285: Well then, that's reassuring. I sta
Page 286 and 287: thing, give or take a nuance or two
Page 288 and 289: that's too bad Obviously, to go fro
Page 290 and 291: They sound awfully sure of themselv
Page 292 and 293: "Either they didn't put enough ener
Page 294 and 295: Phase 1: Concept development5phose
Page 296 and 297: VAL. You'll see, we're going to fin
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Page 300 and 301: 7. Aramis has been perfected as a m
Page 304 and 305: "Are they interested in elected off
Page 306 and 307: "But then why not say it was resear
Page 308 and 309: when we talked about it. The electe
Page 310 and 311: "No, no, not enough love! Love and
Page 312 and 313: ahout each other in strict confiden
Page 314 and 315: "Yet in spite of its fragility, its
Page 316 and 317: to be a line. What more could I ask
Page 318 and 319: things. That's not what brought my
Page 320 and 321: "Obligation to use all appropriate
Page 322 and 323: " Prometheus. ""Prometheus! The 'sm
Page 324 and 325: GLOSSARYA-320 An airplane built by
Page 326 and 327: BertinBienvenueBus DivisionCabinent
Page 328 and 329: 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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