Text

Waves and Forms: Electronic Music Devices and Computer Encodings in China

---

An examination of the relationship between technical objects and culture in contemporary China, drawing on concepts from science and technology studies.

Technical objects constrain what users do with them. They are not neutral entities but embody information, choices, values, assumptions, or even mistakes embedded by designers. What happens when a technology is designed in one culture and used in another? What happens, for example, when a Chinese user is confronted by Roman-alphabet-embedded interfaces? In this book, Basile Zimmermann examines the relationship between technical objects and culture in contemporary China, drawing on concepts from science and technology studies (STS). He presents a new theoretical framework for “culture” based on the notions of waves and forms, which provides a powerful descriptive toolkit for technology and culture.

The materials Zimmermann uses to develop and illustrate his theoretical arguments come from three groups of case studies about the use of technical devices in today's China. The first and most extensive group consists of observations of electronic music devices in Beijing; the second is a study of a Chinese networking site, “Happy Network”; and the third is a collection of personal, small-scale observations on the way Chinese characters behave when located in alphabet-encoded devices such as mobile phones, web pages, or printed documents. Zimmermann discusses well-known frameworks from STS and combines them with propositions and topics from Chinese studies. Each of the case studies advances his theoretical argument. Zimmermann's account shows how cultural differences can be integrated into STS research, and how sinologists can turn their attention from ancient texts and traditional art to everyday things in present-day China.

---

Availability

No copy data

Detail Information

Series Title

-

Call Number

-

Publisher

Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press., 2015

Collation

-

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780262328159

Classification

NONE

Content Type

text

Media Type

computer

Carrier Type

online resource

Edition

-

Subject(s)

Arts

Specific Detail Info

-

Statement of Responsibility

Basile Zimmermann

Other Information

Cataloger

Kholif Basri

Source

https://direct.mit.edu/books/monograph/4209/Waves-and-FormsElectronic-Music-Devices-and

Validator

reva

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/8240.001.0001

Journal Volume

-

Journal Issue

-

Subtitle

-

Parallel Title

-

Other version/related

File Attachment

Comments

---

You must be logged in to post a comment