Technoculture

The Perfect Solution: How Trans Fats Became the Healthy Replacement for Saturated Fats

by David Schleifer

David Schleifer. 2012 “The Perfect Solution: How Trans Fats Became the Healthy Replacement for Saturated Fats.” Technology and Culture 53(1): 94-119.

Trans fats became part of the American food system due to a complex interplay among activism, industrial technology,... more Trans fats became part of the American food system due to a complex interplay among activism, industrial technology, and nutritional science. Some manufacturers began using partially hydrogenated oils, which contain trans fats, in the early twentieth century. Medical authorities began framing saturated fats as unhealthy in the 1950s. In the 1980s, activist organizations, including the Center for Science in the Public Interest, condemned food corporations’ use of saturated fats and endorsed trans fats as an acceptable alternative. Nearly all targeted corporations responded by replacing saturated fats with trans fats, which fit easily into their existing products. Trans fats thus became the perfect solution to the political problem of saturated fats and to the technical problem of what to use in their place. Activists helped precipitate technological change, but by 1994, trans fats were no longer regarded as a solution. Instead, they became regarded as a new nutritional problem.

A Political Sociology of Socionatures

by Damian White

Getting stuck into the grow or die/treadmill of production/ecological modernization, political ecology/new ecology/skepticism debate around political economy. Wrote this five years ago and I'm still amazed by how little US environmental sociology and political ecology engage with each other. It's almost as if they live in different worlds.....

Technonatures Introduction White Wilbert

by Damian White

An attempt to survey and think through the political implications of hybridity discourses such as Latour and Haraway for environmental politics. This is the introductory chapter from D.White and C.Wilbert (Eds) Technonatures: Environments, Technologies, Spaces, and Places in the Twenty-first CenturyISBN13: 978-1-55458-150-4, 2009.

Lots of other really interesting cuts in the book from Erik Swyngedouw, Sarah Whatmore, Mike Michael, Steve Hinchliffe and others ...check it out at Available from http://www.wlu.ca/press/Catalog/white-wilbert.shtml

We spent a million bucks and then we had to do something: The unexpected implications of industry involvement in trans fat research

by David Schleifer

Bulletin of Science, Technology and Society, 2011, published online ahead of print.

Many scholars assume that industry meddles in scientific research in order to defend their products. But this article... more Many scholars assume that industry meddles in scientific research in order to defend their products. But this article shows that industry meddling in science can have a variety of consequences. American food manufacturers long denied that trans fats were associated with disease. Academic scientists, government scientists, and activists in fact endorsed trans fats as a healthier alternative to saturated fats. But in 1990, a high-profile study showed that trans fats increased risk factors for heart disease more than saturated fats did. Industry funded a U.S. Department of Agriculture study that they hoped would exonerate trans fats. But the industry-funded U.S. Department of Agriculture study also indicated that trans fats increased risk factors for heart disease more than saturated fats. Industry quickly began developing trans fat alternatives. This confirms that corporations get involved in science in order to defend their products. But involvement in science can be the very means by which corporations persuade themselves to change their products.

Gry komputerowe i branża gier a sztuka komiksowa (Computer games and games industry connections with comic art)

by Andrzej Klimczuk

A. Klimczuk, Gry komputerowe i branża gier a sztuka komiksowa (Computer games and games industry connections with comic art), [in:] G. Gajewska, R. Wójcik (eds.), COntextual MIX. Through Graphic Stories to Analyses of Contemporary Culture, Poznańskie Towarzystwo Przyjaciół Nauk, Poznań 2011, p. 385-396.

Growth in popularity of computer (video) games is a noticeable change in recent years. Electronic entertainment... more Growth in popularity of computer (video) games is a noticeable change in recent years. Electronic entertainment increasingly engages the wider society and reaches to new audiences by offering them satisfy of wide variety of needs and aspirations. As a mass media games not only provide entertainment, but they are also an important source of income, knowledge and social problems. Article aims to bring closer look on the common areas of games and comics. On the one hand designers and artists working on games are often inspired by comic books, as well as they create their licensed adaptations and separate „interactive issues”. On the other hand more and more often we can see comics based on popular games. Study present the areas of agreement, cooperation or dependence like: technologies used to create games and comic books, use of comic books to comment events in the gaming industry and organization of exhibitions or events popularizing the works from both fields.
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W ostatnich latach dostrzegalny jest wzrost popularności gier komputerowych (wideo). Elektroniczna rozrywka angażuje uwagę coraz to szerszych kręgów społecznych i dociera do nowych grup odbiorców oferując im zaspokojenie najrozmaitszych potrzeb i aspiracji. Jako środek masowego przekazu gry dostarczają nie tylko rozrywki, ale stanowią też istotne źródło dochodów, wiedzy i problemów społecznych. Celem artykułu jest przybliżenie wspólnych obszarów gier i komiksu. Z jednej strony projektanci i artyści pracujący nad grami często czerpią inspirację z komiksów, jak również tworzą ich licencjonowane adaptacje i odrębne, „interaktywne numery”. Z drugiej zaś coraz częściej publikowane są komiksy bazujące na popularnych grach. Opracowanie przedstawia również takie obszary porozumienia, współpracy, bądź zależności jak: technologie wykorzystywane przy tworzeniu gier i komiksów, zastosowanie komiksów w komentowaniu wydarzeń branży gier oraz organizowanie wystaw i imprez popularyzujących twórczość z obu dziedzin.

Fokussierte Ethnografie als Forschungsmethode am Beispiel der Untersuchung von Technomusik-Produzenten in Homerecording-Studios

by Jan-Michael Kühn

Article for Studentisches Soziologiemagazin, issue 4, 2011. http://www.soziologiemagazin.de/blog/

In diesem Beitrag möchte ich anhand von Forschungen über Technomusik-Produzenten in Homerecording-Studios, die im... more In diesem Beitrag möchte ich anhand von Forschungen über Technomusik-Produzenten in Homerecording-Studios, die im Rahmen meiner Diplomarbeit stattfanden, Studierenden die Methode der fokussierten Ethnografie (FE) vorstellen. FE, so meine Erfahrung, eignet sich vortrefflich für sehr spezifische Forschungsprojekte wie z. B. Abschlussarbeiten, in deren Rahmen man sich kleine soziale Phänomene „herauspicken“ und sie unter für StudentInnen absolvierbarem Aufwand untersuchen kann. Die teilnehmend-beobachtende Forschungstätigkeit im Feld verbindet entdeckerischen und theoretisch-kreativen Spaß mit hohen methodischen Anforderungen und wissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen. Da FE als zentrale Vorbedingung eine hohe Vertrautheit mit dem Feld bereits vor der eigentlichen Forschungstätigkeit voraussetzt, eignet sie sich besonders, um schon bestehende Interessen- und Wissensfelder der Forschenden mit wissenschaftlichen Fragestellungen in Abschlussarbeiten zu verbinden, und somit eine interessante, anspruchsvolle und lehrreiche Forschungstätigkeit durchzuführen. Insbesondere in einer sich ausdifferenzierenden und damit pluralisierenden, immer komplexeren Gesellschaft können so permanent neu auftretende Formen sozialer Praxis als Forschungsgegenstände im Kontext ihres Feldes erschlossen und mithilfe wissenschaftlicher Zugänge untersucht werden. Damit werden soziologisch relevante kleinteilige Lebenswirklichkeiten beschrieben, die sich mithilfe immerzu neuer Technologien ausbilden, stabilisieren, und in denen die gesellschaftliche Entwicklung zunehmend auch außerhalb der großen Institutionen aus Wissenschaft, Wirtschaft und Politik stattfindet. (Vgl. Willis 1990)
Nachdem ich zuerst die FE als Methode umreiße, folgt im Anschluss die exemplarische Darstellung meines eigenen Vorgehens und meiner Forschungserfahrungen.

Wie entsteht Neues bei der Produktion elektronischer Tanzmusik?

by Jan-Michael Kühn

Diplomarbeit (Master thesis)

The production of new symbolic-aesthetic goods has so far been mostly understood in terms of (economic) determinisms... more The production of new symbolic-aesthetic goods has so far been mostly understood in terms of (economic) determinisms (e.g. Groys, Bornscheuer, Hauser), and the actual practices have been reduced to understandings of bricolage or montage (e.g. Essl, Meueler, Friedrich). My paper questions these approaches. It provides an explorative ethnographic study of independent electronic dance music production focusing on the actual processes music production and their contexts. I studied six house/techno music producers, combined my knowledge from long time field participation and scientific literature to describe the origination process of new music tracks asking, how do new electronic dance music tracks come into existence in homerecording studios?

In the paper, I want to question the assumption that music producer are "hyper-creative" originator, which seems to be the dominant concept in the music scenes – economically, culturally and legally. Independent music production in homerecording studios is better understood as complex processes deeply rooted in individual orientation and interpretation of existing cultural patterns, using technological inscriptions in the context of plural cultural-economic scenes. My thesis is that the processes consists of (a) the experimentation and design of musical elements by self-made music producers in three central parts of the production process by means of orientation and interpretation of existing cultural patterns (musical genres and elements, typical production patterns, best practices, etc. ): sound design, arrangement design and track design; (b) the inscription and structures of commercial music technologies of homerecording studios and computer (music) hardware/software; and (c) the meaningful and structuring scenes of electronic dance music with their internationalized and professionalized infrastructures (clubs, labels, agencies, technology producers, media, etc.) and culture-economic frame of doing business combining personal music taste and hedonism.

Gilbert Simondon: The Essence of Technicity

by Dan Mellamphy

Ninian Mellamphy, Dan Mellamphy & Nandita Biswas Mellamphy (translators), Deleuze Studies 5.3 (11-11-11), 406-424; excerpt from Gilbert Simondon, On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects, trans. Ninian Mellamphy, Dan Mellamphy & Nandita Biswas Mellamphy, forthcoming from Semiotexte/MIT Press, 12-12-12 (?).

An excerpt from the forthcoming translation for Semiotext(e) of Gilbert Simondon’s Mode of Existence of Technical... more An excerpt from the forthcoming translation for Semiotext(e) of Gilbert Simondon’s Mode of Existence of Technical Objects by Ninian Mellamphy, Dan Mellamphy and Nandita Biswas Mellamphy (excerpt scheduled for publication in Deleuze Studies 5.3, 11-11-11). This copy is only a rough draft and is not for distribution (preview only). The excerpted passage is from Chapter One, ‘The Genesis of Technicity’, of Part Three, on ‘The Essence of Technicity’. This chapter is comprised of three sub-sections: 1, on ‘The Notion of Phase Applied to Becoming’; 2, on ‘The Phase‐Shift of Primitive Magical Unity’; and 3, on ‘The Divergence of Technical Thinking and of Religious Thinking’.

Cybertrauma and Technocultural Shock in Contemporary Media Culture

by Aris Mousoutzanis

Handmade sounds: The Sonic Arts Union and American technoculture

by Andrew Raffo Dewar

Ph.D. Dissertation, Wesleyan University 2009.

We Call It Techno! A Documentary About Germany's Early Techno Scene (Sextro and Wick)

by Dr Hillegonda Rietveld

2009: Documentary Review

The Body and Soul of Club Culture

by Dr Hillegonda Rietveld

July 2000: in 'UNESCO Courier' (27 languages), Paris, United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. pp 28-30.