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

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E:'2the ministry's technical dossiers, often a difficult taskgiven the scale of operations both technological andfinancial-of the SNCF, the RATP, and the major automobilemanufacturers.isotopyLagardereLepine competitionMatra companyIn semiotics, the set of procedures which gives thereader the impression that there is continuity amongthe characters and parts of a narrative. The term wasimported into semiotics by A. J. Greimas; see A. J.Greimas and J. Courtes, Semiotics and Lan8ua8e: An AnalyticalDictionar y , trans. Larry Crist et al. (Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1983).Jean-Luc Lagardere has been president of Matra since1977.An annual fair, conceived by a famous prefect of Parisand first held in 1901 . The fair offers inventors ofevery stripe the opportunity to present their devicesto one another and to would-be investors. Its namehas become synonymous with weird and useless gadgetry.French high-tech company (also known as Societe desEngins Matra) , founded in 1945. Under the leadershipof Jean-Luc Lagardere, it has become preeminent inits field, with major divisions devoted to military applications,telecommunications , automobile technology,and mass transit. It is also involved in many activitiesrelating to publishing and the media. Its branch MatraTransport is one of the central characters in thisstory, since it was set up to handle the business generatedby VAL and, at least in part, by Aramis.Matra Transport A subsidiary of the Matra company founded in 1972to develop the VA L system in Lille, as well as Aramis.It has since become an important company in its ownright, selling automated-transport systems around theworld (e.g., the city of Taipei, and Chicago's O'HareAirport).MauroyMirage IIIMitterandPierre Mauroy was prime minister from 1981 to1984. He was replaced by Laurent Fabius up to the1986 legislative elections, which were won by theRight.One of the most sophisticated of the Dassault fighterplanes.Fran
moduleMSTNotebartorange cardOrly RailOrly-ValpcePetite Ceinturephonic wheelA unit that is considered to be reusable in other transportationsystems without any specific adaptation tothe particular circumstances of a given site. "Modular"research is the opposite of "specific" research. Inpractice, the complexities of guided transportationmake a modular approach very difficult.Mission Scicntifique et Technique (" Scientific and TechnicalMission. " ) Branch of the Research Ministry.responsiblefor the politics of science.In the 1970s and 1980s Arthur N otebart was presidentof the Lille urban community, mayor of the city,and a member of the Chamber of Deputies. He putall his energy into the VAL project.A special fare card that allows Parisians to pay justonce a month, or even once a year, for unlimited useof public transportation within the city and its immediateoutskirts. Half the cost of the card is borne bythe passenger's employer. This rate structure makes itdifficult to calculate the profitability of a new investment-butit docs make public transportation in Parisrelatively inexpensive, indeed a real bargain comparedto other costs (as tourists can hardly fail to note).The low fees are the result of a decision by PierreGiraudet (q.v.) to simplify the subway- and train-faresystem.Traditional rail system that links Paris with Ody Airport.It has one major disadvantage : passengers haveto take a bus to reach the terminals.A VA L system a few kilometers long that was openedin 1990 to link Orly Airport to the RER station inthe Paris suburb of Antony. Built with private funding,it quickly went bankrupt- -as predicted-and is nowrun jointly by the RATP and the SNCF.Poste Central de Commande (" central commandpost"): supervisory hub of the Aramis system. It includesa computer network, workstations, consoles,video monitors, and telephones that permit electroniccontrol and surveillance of the system 's components,stations, and movements, as well as communicationwith maintenance, police, and emergency services.An old rail line that circles Paris and that, for muchof its length, has fa llen into disrepair. See map in thefrontmatter.A cogged wheel that allows very fine calibrations ofits axle's rotation._GLOSSARY--'--- ---- ---
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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
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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
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
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Page 298 and 299: on on ongoing basis how things are
Page 300 and 301: 7. Aramis has been perfected as a m
Page 302 and 303: of a network, to the extent that th
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 332 and 333: Porno 2000PrometheusPRTQuinRofoleRa
Page 334 and 335: sniffer planeSOFRESSOFRETUSouth lin
Page 336: BIUND /ATOUI , 01"""of SOOoIogy, £
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