Mapping Qualculative Geographies: User interface design and the production of space.

摘要

This dissertation examines the production of new forms of spaces and subjectifying processes in the making of contemporary interactive technologies. In particular, I study the concepts and practices of user interface design, an emerging sub-field in the discipline of human-computer interaction. My goal is to understand how designing computing technologies can shift users' geographic perceptions and experiences, such as senses of space, time, distance and boundaries, and create new forms of identity and subjectivity, based upon users' relationships to technological things. I argue that the development of anticipatory, highly intuitive technologies may appear at first glance to overcome or transcend the human-technology binary prevalent within modern thought. However, closer examination of the history, key concepts and everyday practices of the field of interface design illustrate the way these technologies continually reinforce this divide, thus extending the ongoing imposition of 'qualculative'---that is, quantified and calculatory---processes and spaces in contemporary life. In order to develop these arguments, I draw from the literature on 'software geographies' that note the relationship between software, calculatory technologies and the production of space; spatial epistemologies literature that observes how spatial representations often create 'conditions of possibility' for reality; Foucauldian notions of governmental and disciplinary power; and the science and technology studies research on the production of scientific and technical knowledges. I conclude by proposing alternative ways about thinking about the human-technology relations that challenge the ontological (and highly rationalistic) foundations of this field.