[Air-l] Re: Novelty of Internet and activity theory (Yvonne Waern)

[geert lovink]

>    re: Novelty of Internet and activity theory (Yvonne Waern)

Yvonne Waern <waern at dsv.su.se wrote:

> I forgot the most important argument: Internet is of course NOTHING
> without human beings USING it. Internet is an artefact that mediates
> between the human subject and our objects (that may be various
> things).

The all too human aspect of the Internet might exactly be point where the
whole story becomes boring and predictable. An Internet which no longer
interests human beings could as well be an interesting point of departure.
Many believe the Internet would be a better place without users. Just
machines talkin' to each other; a dream come true for many programmers (and
theorists...). The attempts to 'humanize' have so far not really been
succesful, despite a decade of human-machine interface research and immense
discoursive power of gurus such as Jakob Nielsen. After such failures it
might really be interesting if computer science would FINALLY become post
modern and shake off its poor humanism.

Geert