Emma Norton
As the mouse becomes a less necessary element within the continuously emerging ensembles of ubiquitous networked computing my thesis seeks to ask questions not only of how humans and computers shape one another but of what is surfaced when the mouse is taken on its own terms, as the element which entangles humans with computers.
Description
Inside the 1984 Macintosh computer manual there are six pages which describe how to use a computer mouse. In the present, it is the expectation that computer screens are navigated with your hand. The mouse, on the other hand, has become an optional device, its function assumed to be intuitive to the human user. As the mouse becomes a less necessary element within the continuously emerging ensembles of ubiquitous networked computing my thesis seeks to ask questions not only of how humans and computers shape one another but of what is surfaced when the mouse is taken on its own terms, as the element which entangles humans with computers. If we are to ask questions of the technologies which hold dominion over our daily lives, it might be as urgent as ever that we have a philosophical understanding of them and if we look closely at the mouse as a part of a whole we will also see that the whole is deeply embedded within the mouse itself. I will take this as my starting point by putting forth an understanding of the mouse as a technological element in order to ask meaningful questions of the larger technological ensembles it takes part in.
Classes
Presentation Video
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1eDhEG8iby4hBxPiywLAQn-lJN6RIX6IJ6QKmUMs21AI/edit?usp=sharing