I samarbeid med Camilla Vatne Barratt-Due og nyMusikk har Notam lansert en lesegruppe for teknologi, musikk, kunst og filosofi.
During a time frame of about eight months, we will jointly read and discuss the books The Real World of Technology by Ursula Franklin, and On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects av Gilbert Simondon. Vi vil følge en leseguide satt opp av musikkfilosof Patrick Valiquet, og utforske hvordan disse verkene står i dialog med hverandre.
Lesesirkelen er åpen for alle, og man kan selv velge om man vil delta på alle samlingene, eller kun et utvalg.
Find pdf of The Real World of Technology of Ursula Franklin here, and On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects by Gilbert Simondon here.
Program våren 2025
Første samling: 17.03.2025
Under den første samlingen fokuserte vi på sosiotekniske perspektiver
Vi startet lesingen i midten av begge bøkene med:
Franklin, kapittel 5 & 6, og Simondon, del II, kapittel 1 & 2.
Introduksjon til lesningen fra Patrick Valiquet:
"In the face of the emerging threat of authoritarian technocracy with rising environmental, social and psychological costs, how can instrument-builders and instrumentalists change their practices to protect just relations in music production, consumption, distribution and research technologies? How can this task dovetail with recent calls for reparation by the survivors of global industrialisation, or for a ‘right to repair’ in the regulation of consumer devices? My goal is to define a reparative organology by staging a conversation between Quaker metallurgist Ursula Franklin’s 1989 book The Real World of Technology, and French phenomenologist of technology Gilbert Simondon’s 1958 book On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects. Franklin argues for a principled focus on the design of ‘redemptive technologies’ that attend to environmental and social concerns before proceeding in ‘small, reversible steps’ to allow ‘revision and learning’. Simondon outlines the case for equal social and psychological relations between the human and the technical, redefining tradition, progress and alienation to take better care of the essential limits separating the domains of technics, ethics and aesthetics."
Andre samling: 22.04.2025
Til vår andre samling vil vi fokusere på Gilbert Simondons.
Til vår andre samling er det satt opp at vi skal lese:
Introduksjon og første kapittel (Genesis of the Technical Object: The Process of Concretization) i On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects av Simondon.
Introduksjon til lesningen fra Patrick Valiquet:
"This week we focus on Simondon to understand the engineer’s view of standardisation and specialisation and to inform our response to Franklin’s critiques of prescription and control. Why do instruments and tools seem to evolve or progress over time without planning? How does this progress relate to other forms of progress in nature and the sciences? How do internal functions relate to external uses?"
Tredje samling: 20.05.25
Fjerde samling: 16.06.25
Patrick Valiquet is a researcher in music and music technology at the University of Huddersfield and acting editor of Divergence Press, the online journal of the Centre for Research in New Music. His writing explores the history of experimental music through cinematic, literary, pedagogical, political, philosophical, scientific and sonic expressions in contemporary France and Quebec. His first monograph, Pierre Schaeffer and the Ethics of Experimental Music Research, is forthcoming from Edinburgh University Press.
The reading group is initiated in connection with Symposium for instrument buildingwhich will take place at Notam in November 2025.
