One of the goals of the course is to make a jam session connecting us, our tools, and the environment we are in. This may refer to Actor network theory developed by Bruno Latour back in 80s. The idea comes from a sociologic point of view, where Bruno Latour distinguishes the traditional meaning of social (=human, community focussed) adding to it other non-human "actors" like objects or activities like law, science, technology, etc.
Black box
Black box is the term usually described by computer scientists. Latour comes with it in his book "Science in Action" (Latour 1987).
"The concept of the "black box" is also important in Actor–network theory as it relates to simplification. As Michel Callon notes, an actor-network is a system of discrete entities or nodes, while the reality that it represents is theoretically infinite. Therefore, in order to describe something in terms of an actor-network, complex systems must be simplified down to individual nodes, ignoring their internal workings and focusing only on their interactions with other nodes within the network. However, if the simplified "black box" is insufficient modeling the system in question, it must be opened, creating a "swarm of new actors."(Callon (986)
Actor network theory
Bruno Latour (1987). Science in Action. Introduction: File:latour-introduction-to-ant-theory.pdf
References
- Michel Callon (1986). "The sociology of an actor-network: The case of the electric vehicle". In Callon, M.; Law, J.; Rip, A. Mapping the Dynamics of Science and Technology: Sociology of Science in the Real World. Sheridan House Inc. pp. 29–30. ISBN 0333372239.
- Bruno Latour (1987). Science in Action. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
- Bruno Latour (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. New York: Oxford University Press Inc.