We Make Technology, Technology Makes Us
Via Flickr. Medical imaging is responsible for some of the most powerful moments of our lives, from the first glimpse of a growing fetus to the discovery of a tumor. Since the invention of the x-ray in 1895, imaging has become a fundamental part of diagnosis and even how we understand our selfhood.
If we consider the results of imaging to be art, then philosopher Don Ihde, a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at New York’s Stony Brook University, would be one of their most prolific collectors. He is the author of over twenty books, including the 1976 Listening and Voice: A Phenomenology of Sound–the first and only phenomenological investigation of the experience of sound–and a follow-up, 2015’s Acoustic Technics.
As a phenomenologist, Ihde studies consciousness. He believes we can interpret our experiences through the confines of not only our brains, but also the audio and visual instruments that mediate them. His next book will focus on how technology and instruments are shaping the humans of the future, just as they have shaped our understanding of humans
