3 - Forms of Technology

Summary

The previous chapter introduced descriptions and formulations that at a second examination did not quite fit the network characteristics. There were components that did not stay in place. There was mutation instead of stability. And there was collaboration in the place of trials of strength. In this chapter, I discuss these failing, mutating, and collaborating relations and the patterns they contributed to performing. I explain that describing Femtedit as a network presents only one form of the technology, out of the multiple forms that existed. The network metaphor is not sufficient. It is even partly misleading.

Law and Mol (Law 2002b; Law & Mol 2001; Mol & Law 1994) provide us with additional ways of describing technological practice. They suggest the metaphor of fluid space, which helps account for different performances of the technology. This chapter moves from the relational imaginary of the network to a spatial imaginary of patterns of relations, of which the network is only one among multiple performances of the technology.

A Second Examination of Femtedit

Optional Components

In the network pattern of relations, each component does its job and stays in place. In the Femtedit network, the children's connection to the online feature of the virtual environment was maintained through common tasks given to mixed groups of children from the two schools and through the graphic ruins of the Femteditians' homes, which were built in the online 3D virtual environment and provided the children with a location for online collaboration.