Activity Theory offers a model for thinking about subjects,
objects and mediational means within cultural contexts. The
notion of 'subject' is often assumed but rarely scrutinized
when we set about to analyze the adoption of a tool or other
manifestations of agency in a given activity.
'Who' is this agent that selects the tools we use to carry out
'our' intentions? As I write this, I am seated in an ergonomic
chair in front of a screen and keyboard, taking a lunch break
in my Dilbert cubicle at StorageTek. A Unix shell window is
open here in Louisville with a telnet session to my CU Denver
account, using pico to compose and pine to mail this message
to the xmca server at UCSD. Who is the 'I' that adopted this
distributed maze of technology to carry out such a simple activity
of exchange on xmca? To what extent do 'I' shape the technology I
am using and to what extent does it shape my own identity? That
'I' am engaging with XMCA at lunchtime and not alt.cars.racing,
surely this has relevance to the question? And how might this
inform the earlier question about shaping technology?
Happy New Year!
Martin R.