Technological Artifacts

Abstract

Ask a young child what technology is, and most probably he or she will start listing examples of technical artifacts. That is what several empirical studies among young people have shown (in Chap. 7 we will discuss that in more detail). Technical arti-facts are our immediate encounter with technology. We may not see all that much of all the process behind technology, but the outcomes of such processes, artifacts, are everywhere. In this Chapter we will explore how we can distinguish technical arti-facts from other objects in our lifeworld, and also how they have their place of that lifeworld and interact with us. 2.1 Natural Objects, Instruments, Tools and Artifacts Suppose someone walks in the forest and picks up a thick bough to lean on. With a bit of fantasy one could call that a very simple example of technology. After all, a human has used an object for a practical purpose. And most people would agree that this is the very heart of what we call technology. But at the same time we would not like to equate the bough with a cane that another stroller in the forest had bought in a shop and took with him when going out for his walk. Although the bough and the cane are now used for the same purpose, they have a different history. The cane once started its life as a bough, but has been modifi ed considerably in order to be able to fulfi ll its role as a cane. The fi rst stroller's bough did not go through such a process. This difference can be used to distinguish between natural objects and tools. These are terms that were coined by Randall Dipert in a book on artifacts in art and in technology. In his terminology an instrument is a natural object that we use for a practical purpose without having modifi ed it. A tool then is an object that a human being has modifi ed in order to make it suitable for serving a certain practical purpose. Simply said: the fi rst stroller's bough is a natural object, while the second stroller's cane is a tool.