Natural, Technical, Human Reticulations

Through a surplus of structuring, or by way of a productive destructuration, these strategies manage to introduce, as we have indicated, more coherence into a system that can be described as the superposition of nature, technics and the human factor, the three instances being understood as reticulated domains, that is, as networks. Such an apprehension of the system as a whole leads Simondon to contemplate the network as the last stage in the evolution of technics¹, which helps explain the visionary aspect often attributed to his thought when one thinks of the technical networks that structure our era.

The digital image, understood as a technical object, likewise evolves from an isolated mode of existence until it becomes the central element of the technical network where the most pressing stakes reside today: the Internet. This movement from the isolated element to the network was in a way reproduced within this research. Indeed, while the central chapter considers above all works that stage the isolated digital image², the last chapter problematizes artistic gestures that target the network of images.

However, in its evolution from the isolated technical object to the network of objects, technics alters the balance within the transductive relation that binds it to the human. Simondon describes this mutation in these words:

The reticular structures of integrated technics are no longer merely means available for an action […]; one changes tools and instruments, one can repair a tool oneself, but one does not change networks: one does not build a network oneself; one can only connect to the network, adapt to it, participate in it; the network dominates and encloses the action of the individual being³.

Simondon emphasizes a fundamental aspect of the technical network: its rigidity and its inescapable character. This rigidity is not, however, absolute: one can, for example, choose one’s water, gas or electricity supplier; but one is obliged to connect to the only network available for each service. Greater nuance would be needed in the case of the Internet: one can choose one’s Internet service provider (ISP)⁴, certainly, but also and above all one can connect to the network either through tools with a high degree of extratechnicity (Google Chrome, Google, Gmail, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp…), or by opting for freer and more transparent alternatives (Firefox, DuckDuckGo, ProtonMail, Mastodon, Signal…). Of course, the “purer” alternatives have their limitations: the reduced reach of community ISPs, alternative social networks that are less visible and little used for the time being…

Thus, the increase in rigidity and conditioning introduced by technics when it reaches the network stage is very real, and Simondon perfectly perceived that with the emergence of networks, the power of isolated individuals is annihilated. In this context, and faced with a technics that can only unfold in a rigid manner, the need for institutional control and regulation proves fundamental. From Simondon’s view of extratechnicity and of the mode of existence of networked technics follows the constraining situation in which we find ourselves today within the high-tech technosphere. His thought helps to emphasize that the only possible action in the face of these stakes is collective action, which nowadays rests essentially on the work of associations and activist collectives, while political and institutional will falls short of what is at stake⁵.

In this context, how can we apprehend the technical system, without letting ourselves be discouraged by a supposed inescapability, in such a way as to encourage the expression of forces of resistance in the face of a technics with alienating features? From the apprehension of technics that emerges from art arise emancipatory avenues, as we have seen, and as we will specify further below.

1. This evolution follows a progression that Simondon presents in multiple ways. He may refer to the passage from a “unitary stage” to a “dichotomous stage” – like a wheel that must adapt both to the road and to the vehicle – which finally tends toward a “network object.” More generally, the philosopher refers to the progression tools -> machines -> ensembles -> networks. Gilbert Simondon, Sur la technique (1953-1983), op. cit., p. 20, p. 411 and p. 412.↩︎

2. Of the 22 works in the central chapter, only 5 deal more or less directly with the networked image: Jodi.org by the duo Jodi and The Pirate Cinéma by the collective Disnovation.org for the destructurations, Paganini Caprice No. 5 by Cory Arcangel for the structurations, and Postdigital flipbook and Substance for the personal work.↩︎

3. Gilbert Simondon, Du mode d’existence des objets techniques, op. cit., p. 301-302.↩︎

4. A nonprofit community Internet service provider being the safest and most transparent option; see in this regard La Quadrature du Net, Pourquoi un FAI associatif ? [en ligne]. 2022. disponible à l'adresse : https://video.lqdn.fr/w/3GpYbf5o8DjjGsuVNbYDeL.↩︎

5. Marta Severo questions the role that amateurs could play, which she resituates in the contemporary context of the digital, as a factor capable of energizing the articulations between the institutional sphere and collective participation. See in this regard Marta Severo, L’impératif participatif. Institutions culturelles, amateurs et plateformes. [s. l.] : Institut National de l’Audiovisuel (INA), [n.d.].↩︎