Machines (HC)

This book is about machines: those that have been actualized fantastical imaginal machines tothose deployed as metaphorical devices to describe complex social processes. Machines arguesthat they transcend time and space to emerge through a variety of spaces and places times andhistories and representations. They are such an integral fabric of daily reality that their disappearancewould have immediate and dire consequences for the survival of humanity. They arepart and parcel to our contemporary social order. From labor to social theory art or consciousnessliterature or television to the asylums of the 19th century machines are a central figure; anoutgrowth of affective desire that seeks to transcend organic limitations of bodies that whitherage and die. Machines takes the reader on an intellectual artistic and theoretical journey weaving an interdisciplinary tale of theiremergence across social cultural and artistic boundaries. With the deep engagement of various texts Machines offers the readermoments of escape alternative ways to envision technology for a future yet to materialize. Machines rejects the notion that technologicalinnovations are indeed neutral propelling us to think differently about those things created under specific economic or historicalparadigms. Rethinking machines provides a rupture to our current technocratic impetus shining a critical light on possible alternativesto our current reality. Let us sit back and take a journey through Machines holding mechanical parts as guides to possible alternativefutures.