Mediating change: translation and mediation in the context of bricolage

摘要

Technology transfer has become recognised as a key factor in people's efforts to implement information technology in diverse spheres of modern life, and particularly at the workplace. However, `transfer' is a unidirectional conceptualisation of the processes of technology design and implementation. It veils the work of interpretation, mediation, and reshaping involved in the processes of `technology transfer'. Moreover, the obstinate focus on discrete, isolated devices, and technological fixes provides us with blinkers that cut off from our view the complexity of the integration of a heterogeneous amalgam of new and old technologies, traditional and newly evolving work practices, organisational structures, and economic, social, and cultural contexts. In this paper we describe the collective efforts of a multidisciplinary team of researchers and practitioners to embed new technologies into the existing bricolage of tools and work practices in aesthetic production.