2015 - DESCAMPS Aymeric - Technology & Magic by China Studio

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Technology & Magic

Exploring the relation between addiction and magic behind new information and communications technologies Master thesis

of Aymeric Descamps

Master Design & Transculturality, Shanghai, China at lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ă&#x2030;cole de design Nantes Atlantique January 2015

Todd McLellan, Laptop Computer, 2006.

CONTENTS Abstract Foreword Introduction

Personal Treasure Box 25 26 28 29 30 33 36 39 43

The Black Recording Box Brain memory extension Loosing things Inseparable device Invisible world Magic mirror Transformation of reality Knowing ourself Remembering lost things

A Magic Tool 47 Multi-usage & Transformation 49 Coding is limitless 51 Convenience 53 Saving time 54 Break the distances 60 Information alcoholism 64 Always evolving 65 Changing habits of people 67 Technological dependence

Humanization of Electronic Devices 73 77 78 80 82 83 85 86 87

Are machines conscious? Complex systems Incomprehension & Daily use Softwares, the soul of devices Why are you doing that, machine!? Toward sensible & responsive surrounding environments Invisible interactions Suffering fast obsolescence Understanding new technologies

New technologies Vehicles for Transculturality 93 95 96 99 101 102

Breaking language frontiers Breaking geographical frontiers One big mainstream culture and more sub cultures. Chinese internet frontiers Creating a community identity Transcultural exchanges limited by the frame

Conclusion Acknowledgments

Abstract

I wrote this dissertation for my Master Degree about « Design & Transculturality » in 2014, at l’École de design Nantes Atlantique. In the booming context of Shanghai, in China, where I was during this two years of master. In this book, I would confront two observations supported by anthropological interviews and references. One is about the massive connectedness of Chinese people through electronic devices, and their attraction for new technologies of communications and information. The other, is the fact that people, generally speaking, use electronic devices like smartphones, tablets in their daily life without really understand how it works, inside. How a picture is stocked in my smartphone? How a message can be instantly transferred around the world and read by hundred of nationalities in the same time? How my English text can be turned into Chinese in few seconds? This, reflects the magic aspect of new technologies and it is what I am interested about, and especially how it affects people relations with their devices. The book is divided in 4 parts. The first one regards smartphones as « Personal treasure box ». The second compares electronic devices to magic tools. The third one is about humanization of our devices. The last one closes the thesis by viewing new technologies as vehicles for transculturality.

Master: Design & Transculturality Keywords: #NewTechnologies #Magic #Addictiveness #Shanghai #ElectronicDevices #Transculturality #Anthropology

Technology and Magic

Foreword

What you will discover in this book is less a global statement than my reflexion as an interaction design student concerning the relation between Chinese users and their electronic devices, between technology and magic. Indeed, if I compare technology and magic, it is, generally speaking, because people commonly use their smartphone, tablets, computers without understanding how the machine works behind interfaces, inside its black box. This reflexion is based on an observation of people in Shanghai during one year, from September 2013 to September 2014. Then, through an anthropological research and analysis from May 2014 to October 2014. Moreover, it has been also built on a series of interviews led between September 2014 and October 2014, of 7 people (Chanel, Mickael, Qian Shi Jie, Rasul, Lujia, Berlina, Chengyu) . These interviews of 1 hour and a half each, were mainly held in a Starbucks Café because it is a cosy place where lot of Chinese people stay to benefit the free Wifi, provided by the café. It was easier to get access and to engage a conversation about new technologies, with people in such context of connectedness. The others, Berlina and Chengyu, were held in XinCheJian 新车间, the Shanghai Hackerspace1, or at the Fine Art College of Shanghai University. In the first essay, I will define why people are so addicted to these devices they do not understand, introducing smartphone as a « Personal Treasure Box ». In the second essay, I would try to answer why new technologies and especially smartphones appear as a « Magic tool. » In the third one, I will explain why electronic devices sometimes appear as human, with dynamic interactions and emotional reactions.

1 A hackerspace is a place where people from different backgrounds try to hijack things and especially new technologies. So that they could understand and appropriate them.

Technology and Magic The last one addresses the question of transculturality embodied in new technologies. Four essays which try to understand and explain why new technologies are tinged with magic and how does it influence our relation with our electronic devices.

Introduction

September 2nd, 2013. 18h30, Jingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;an Temple station. I jump into the subway, dodging some elbows from people leaving and enter in this long white snake. The serpent closes its doors and sighs. I manage to find a place in this crowded carriage, sit down and observe people. Those Chinese faces are not familiar to me. I have just arrived in Shanghai. People seem to enjoy the coolness of the environment, facing the hot summer heat of the outside. Few people are sleeping. Nothing seems really different from Paris, I left few days ago. Except one thing: almost all the people are looking at their smartphones or tablets. Sometimes both. At my left, my neighbor is playing a spaceship game whereas the one at my right, is reading. Both, on the last generation of smartphone. The metro stops. I escape to change line. The corridor is full of people. One woman in front of me is walking watching a movie on her iPad, dodging obstacles on her road with an amazing intuition. The boy next to me is sending WeChat1 messages with his phone. I take a look further and realize that almost everyone is connected to its device. Watching movie, listening to music, sending messages, reading, looking at online maps. My phone has no more battery. I feel lost in translation. Disconnected from the others. The last 30 minutes of my journey were long, too long. I observed people and thought starring at the lights outside the window. I was not able to read articles on my phone, to play interactive games, nor to listen to music, in short, to kill the time. I understood that: if most of the people have a smartphone or a tablet in Shanghai, it is maybe to pass the time they spend, each day, in the public transport. Because Shanghai is a giant city, one of

1 WeChat is a Chinese famous mobile application of communication. It allows people to send messages to other WeChat accounts, through internet.

Technology and Magic the biggest, possessing the world longest metro system, of about 567 kilometers2 in length. Few days before, I just received the new iPhone 5, I won in a design contest. And I was fascinated by all the new possibilities that it offers me, as a smartphone. Fascinated because, it was so thin and so smart at the same time. I did not understand how this device could work. How could it display some video games with such high graphics on this so little object? How could it be synchronized and communicate with other devices? How could it take a picture and save it in its memory? All these possibilities amaze me. Especially, compared to my old computer, a Windows 98, I had 14 years ago. Which was so fat and so un-powerful by comparison to this super compact device. It was also amazing for my self experience in China. I travelled 9263 km, arrived in a country so different from my native France. A place where people speak an other language, often, without speaking any English. A place where locals live their own lifestyle with their own customs. My smartphone was for me the transcultural tool par excellence. Not just because it is a fabulous tool which makes people connected together in order to break distances and culture differences by sharing informations with others around the world. But because it has allowed me to communicate in that foreign environment. In fact, by instantly translating my French into Chinese, saving me from few troubles. Or in order to exchange cultural stories with the local population showing pictures from my hometown. It was also a super tool to share my experience to my friends or to my family, when I went back to France, for the summer. But, despite the fact it gives me some kind of super powers which allow me to do things I can not do before. I realize that I totally do not understand how smartphones work inside their electronic body. However, I am studying Interaction Design3. I only know how to design interfaces which are the usable link between the computer code and the user. But behind

2 Stephen J. Smith, New Starts: Shanghai Metro Worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Longest, January 6,2014 http://nextcity.org/daily/entry/new-starts-shanghai-metro-worlds-longest-panama-canal-drama-japans-maglev 3 Interaction Design is a kind of design related to new technologies and the creation of Human-Machine interfaces.

Introduction

People looking at their screens inside the Shanghai subway 17

Technology and Magic the code, lies a mysterious world, a magic city, full of electronic components: transistors, resistors, sensors … If an interaction designer, someone who works in the new technologies field, do not know how its smartphone works inside, how many people in the world know what is really going on, inside our computers? This observation is the reason and the starting point of my essay. I went on the field to try to get some points of view from the Chinese population. I asked them if they know how it works inside their smartphone. Chanel apologized and confessed that she did not know. So do Qian Shi Jie while Lu Jia exhaled making some circles with her finger to express her incomprehension. Berlina admitted that she found new technologies as a mystery at first. Then, I specified my question. I asked them to detail the process of taking a picture with a smartphone and to explain how it is possible that the photo is stocked inside and appears on the screen. Rasul confessed me that he did not really know how a picture can be saved on his phone, from the moment he took it to the moment he saw it. But he tried to guess: « I think it is about a light which is captured by a lens then transferred to the phone into data. Data are stocked and then they reassembled itself visually to form the picture. Like little spiders that remake the photo. » Rasul Through these answers and my first observation of a majority of Shanghainese people, from all generations, who are using their smartphone in all circumstances, I affirm that people are familiar and very close to their smart devices but they do not know how they work inside. It is this paradoxical relation I would like to explore in these essays. The relation between electronic devices and people who are using a lot these objects which they do not understand. Which seems to work thanks to « little spiders »4 hidden inside or thanks to a magic spirit behind. I like this metaphor of smartphones which are under a certain kind of magic. Because, it describes well the unlimited possibilities behind, as a bit of a magic wand used by a magician or a sorcerer. Also, because the term « magic » is a temporary answer to something that people do not understand. It is related to mystery, and supernatural powers. 4 camera.

As Rasul defined how pictures are recreated inside the phone after being captured by the

Introduction

Inside the iPhone 6

Technology and Magic

In some ways, electronic devices can be compared to human bodies. In a sense that they both have a really complex body and a brain which work with electric signals. Both are so complex that they have a kind of magic inside. Consciousness and body: symbiosis of human. Software and hardware: symbiosis of electronic devices. I would base my analyze in Shanghai because it is a crazy environment for the development of new technologies. Chinese people I met were so addicted to their smartphone that it was sometime a bit excessive. Generally speaking, people seem fond of new technology much more than in France where we seems to be timider concerning the use of technology. Indeed, I led a creative session at the end of October, in which I asked to Chinese friends what would they want to transform, if they could transform anything, and into what? One of the participant drew an apple which become an Apple product like an iPhone, an iPad or a Mac. When I asked her why she drew that, she answered that a lot of Chinese people want Apple products but it is too expensive for them.

« I use a smartphone because it is useful, beautiful (beautiful shapes), fashion because there is a lot of people who use it. » Mickael

Through my interviews and observations, I realize that smartphones in Shanghai are part of a fashion phenomenon of society. In which, they are a kind of social status indicator and precisely, they signify a belonging to a certain social rank. That is what Berlina affirms: « Chinese people catch up technology very quickly, it is a necessity for their life to have the new smartphone, in a way to belong to a social group. To say, I am fashion, I am cool, for demonstration. You know, I think mobile phones are a kind of social status indicator »

Introduction

Apples

turn into Apple products.

Technology and Magic To explain, Anthropologist Allen W. Batteau said that: « socialization of invention turns novelty into social value ».5 Because innovation is constantly evolving, people keep being addicted to these new devices as a social value indicator. Rare are those Shanghainese people who do not have a smartphone. The subway is the best place to notice this phenomenon because users come from any social classes, from any backgrounds. It is common to see almost 80% of the passengers looking at their black screen, where in Paris, people avoid taking their phone out of their pocket for not being extorted. In Shanghai, even those who seem to have a very low salary, have a smartphone. It is the case of some workers for example, like the one who work in my building. Moreover, it is also based on the observation that Chinese people seem to personalize their devices by using large fancy cases to protect and decorate it. I saw once entering in a restaurant a man with a big banana case to protect his smartphone. He has to take his phone in his hand because his case was so big that he can not put it in his pocket. Why this man chose this big banana case instead of a smaller one he can put in his trousers and hold easily. The specific relation Shanghainese people have with their electronic devices in such context of massive connectedness. The paradoxical interaction people experience with new information and communications technologies, by using them without understanding them. These observations and reflections have conducted me to explore the link between new technologies & magic. By new technologies, I mean modern technologies of information and communications referring to electronic and connected objects, especially smartphones or tablets. By magic, I mean the fact of seeing mysterious and supernatural powers behind our devices.

Allen W. Batteau, Technology and Culture, 2009, published by Waveland Press, Inc; p.4

Introduction

A fancy case

Technology and Magic

Personal Treasure Box

In this essay, I would like to explore the singular relation people have with their smartphone, to determine why they have so much importance in modern lives, and try to understand why Chinese people are so fond of that tool. At the end of June, I had a discussion with Chengyu, a Chinese friend I have from the Fine Art College of Shanghai University, and I tried a trick I used to play during my interviews: I ask her if we could exchange our smartphone for few days. She immediately reacted and said : « Noooo, because my smartphone is private, personal. There are many secrets inside, like some pictures, some messages, my schedule, my hobbies, what I like… »

The Black Recording Box By listening again this conversation I have recorded last summer with my iPhone, I realized that my cellphone was less a tool to record for my dissertation, than a black box recording all my life. Like an aircraft blackbox which records all the informations of the plane during its flight. Before to come to Shanghai, I bought a nice black notebook to record all my trip in China, all my thoughts, all my stories to keep a trace of that great and shaking experience I would live there. Finally, suffering of the short time that booming city offered to me, I failed to manage it. The first reason was because of the few time I got. The second was

Technology and Magic because I am not a writer in the heart. But after 4 months, I realized that all my memories were blurring in my head and I suddenly missed the notebook. I wanted to save my life instead of letting it disappear, lost in my mind. So, I tried to find the best way to solve this issue: the one which no need to take a lot of time. The one I can always have on me, which is best than my bulky camera. The one which can capture different medias: drawing, text, photo, video; the one which can be shareable easily, in order to share stories, cultural customs and the Chinese atmosphere to my grand-parents in France. I found that the best way was using my smartphone because I always have it in my pocket, everywhere. I already used it a lot to take instant pictures of my daily life. I mean much more spontaneous, expressive and true. I kept using it, even more to record all my life here, in China, by taking some audio, video, photo of places I visited, things I ate, surprising behaviors I saw on the street and so on. I use it first to keep all my mementos in reaction of those blurred by my brain memory. Because I think it is important to keep some traces about what we live here, to have some precise memories in the future in order to share or to remember them.

Brain Memory extension « The mind is just less and less in the head. » 1 Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborgs

This smartphone quickly become like an extension of my brain memory, much more precise and clear. As Andy Clark says in his book Natural-Born Cyborgs, we are « human-technology symbionts: thinking and reasoning systems whose minds and selves are spread across biological brain and nonbiological circuitry. »2.

1 2

Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborg, 2004, ed.Oxford University Press; p.4 Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborg, 2004, ed.Oxford University Press; p.3

Personal Treasure Box

People catching the setting of the forbidden city in their smartphones, to keep a memory.

Technology and Magic My brain has merged with my smartphone. This particular tool and I work in symbiosis. I use it to stock data from my daily life, and more: I need it to remember memories. We are complementary: my mind keeps the global cognitive experience related to the informations I catch with all my senses. I mean sounds, smells, colors, shapes, in a global view. My « black box » keeps all details of precise moments caught by visual, sound capture or both. Andy Clark defined in 2004, before the smartphone that we know today, our tools as « “mind-ware upgrades”: cognitive upheavals in which the effective architecture of the human mind is altered and transformed. ».3 In my case, my electronic device is a kind of extension of my brain, in a way that can trigger lost memories of my mind by providing precise contents caught inside its artificial memory. Thanks to that, I can clearly define and remember my experience in China by swiping with my thumb all the pictures of my phone, and remind all the stories behind each one.

Loosing things Stocking as much as personal data, that make this phone precious as it is, has a dreaded major risk. Which is to loose all these data and even worse that someone steals them. When I asked to Chanel if her phone was an animal what would it be, she instantly answered: « If I have to change my smartphone by an animal I will choose an elephant ! First, because it is my favorite animal. Then because it could make me safe as the phone if I hold it, because my all life is in it. The elephant could make all the things of my life, which are in the phone, safe. » Chengyu added: « If I loose my phone I would like to be unworried about losing the secrets inside and be able to find it. » If it is only a question of stocked data, I am wondering if this kind of ties with these devices will be weaker with the development of cloud computing which basically means the action of putting all our personal data on delocal3

Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborg, 2004, ed.Oxford University Press; p.4

Personal Treasure Box ized servers accessible, everywhere, with any devices. On one part, it is safer than stocking all in one device because all informations are accessible with any artifices. If you break or loose your phone, it does not matter because all is on internet. But, on the other, it asks some question about security and trustability, what if someone get all the data I send to delocalized server? What if the owner of the server decides to keep and reuse my personal data? Smartphones would become less a personal treasure box than a kind of key to access to servers which would be these treasure chests. We would loose our personal attachment to these intimate objects.

Inseparable device This privileged personal relation I have with my smartphone seems to make me inseparable from it. Explained by the fact of having all my life stored inside : my memories (photos, videos, notes, historic of navigation, …) but also contents related to my tastes and interests: songs I love, website I have visited, films I watch, mobile applications I use. Also, some contents related to my social relations like contacts, previous conversations, present conversations and so on. This seems to make our smartphone a priceless thing like a girlfriend for example. This comparison was used by Martin Lindstrom, a US neuro-marketing specialist, in the documentary Apple la Tyrannie du cool, in order to explain that « the iPhone utilization activates the same brain region than when we are in love with someone, it is no doubt that makes people addicted to smartphones. »4 To argue, he asked to the journalist a question : « It is a bit like if I ask you to evaluate the price of your girlfriend, if I ask you: How much does she cost? You will say: How dare you ask me such a question? Now, If I ask you: I want to buy your iPhone with all your data, all your mobile applications, all your contacts. What is the price for that? » The journalist said : « I prefer to sell you my girlfriend ».

4 Apple, la Tyrannie du Cool, directed by Sylvain Bergere, December 13, 2011, 50:22 http://boutique.arte.tv/f7106-apple_tyrannie_du_cool

Technology and Magic

They laughed and Lindstrom added: « But this is the reality, we can’t live without it. That is why we saw by scanning your brain that is was a love affair. How can you make an evaluation of that? You can’t. » I was astonished by that revelation but I was not at the end of my surprises. Indeed, when I met last October, Rasul, a Malaysian man who attends a MBA in management, we talked a lot about techno-dependence and how new technologies change our behaviors. During our conversation, he said: « Your phone is as much important than your girlfriend, you check your phone at first on morning before saying hello to your girlfriend. You check your smartphone at night after saying good night to your girlfriend and then you sleep. » I was shocked to realize that this electronic device, as smart as it is, takes the same level of importance as the one you love. My answer to that astonishment is that maybe, smartphones are not someone else but a part of oneself. Something that you need to manage as a kind of external organ, before going to bed. Personally, I use to check it before to sleep to verify there is not new informations in my mailbox or WeChat. Then, to set the alarm to wake up at time. And I finish by closing all the communications putting my phone on plane mode. That is my every night protocol of managing this electronic organ before sleeping. On morning, it is more about re-opening the connection to social networks and checking what happened online, on the other side of the world, when I was dreaming of rainbows and unicorns.

Invisible world A smartphone is a part of ourself which allows us to be connected to others. When we say « I am connected to internet », it clearly does not mean my body is connected to internet: it means I can use this tool to access to information and communicate. But somehow, I think it could also means my body is connected to internet: to the others. If you think about that idea of tools which are “mind-ware

Personal Treasure Box

Smartphone connecting brain to the world

Technology and Magic upgrades”5, it is a bit like plugging your brain to a network of accessible informations and a system of communication with others. Marshall Mc Luhan said that tools are the extension of the body and media the extension of the psyche.6 To illustrate this theory, I made some observations on people around me using their smartphones or computer. When they use it, you can talk to them but they will almost never answer. They look so focus on their devices that sometimes I feel that they are not present anymore. I feel that they are in the computer, connected to the network. « At first, a smartphone is good to start talking, but using it for a long time is not good for real social relationships. When we go to party, all of my friends use their phone and there is no contact, no real talk between us. I think people don’t like to enjoy the present, they are stuck into their own world, using their smartphone. » These words of Chengyu describe well social relationships between young adults in China. Everywhere, I saw groups of young people looking at their screen instead of talking to each others. The most striking example is at the restaurant. Even if tables tend to be circle in Chinese restaurants, to share food with others, people I saw did not seem to enjoy real social relationships with their friends. All are too focused on their screen to talk to each other. I remember, when I went back to France for the 2014 summer. I had just arrived in the airport when I had a dinner with my parents, in a hotel close to the airport. The table next to us was a couple of young Chinese, who probably came to visit Paris. They were sitting face to face, surprisingly not looking at themselves but looking at their iPad. My father made a joke saying that maybe they were talking to each others through WeChat. It was as they were in two different worlds stuck in there iPad. They seemed so far from each other and in the same time so close: « Electronic devices are very convenient but somehow this distance between people is getting much larger. I think that is really bad. I think that sometime we need to put down our phone and talk to our friend, not just talk to each others via WeChat, Facebook, What’s app. Having a real conversation with people, actual, 5 Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborg, 2004, ed.Oxford University Press; p.4 6 Robert K. Logan, Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan, 2010, ed. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers; p.87

Personal Treasure Box not just like if we live in an invisible world. It just also makes people indifferent sometimes. » Chanel said. These frequent extreme uses of ICT7 constitute in a sense a disruption in physical communication creating two different worlds: the physical and the virtual. These two kinds of communication seem to be separated, impervious to each other. People who are communicating in one world tend to be separated from the other. « So many people in subway or bus looking at their smartphone that they don’t care about the environment. Smartphones make people be far away from reality.» Qian Shi Jie If we want to communicate or to get information from the virtual world, we need to connect ourself to this tool, to the medium. That to extend our natural capacity of communicating, to be able to communicate further, from there to everywhere. But sometimes, extending our power to communicate to everywhere reduces our power to communicate nearby, locally and naturally.

Magic Mirror

« My smartphone’s name ? It is the same name as I: Mickael. That, because it is a part of my life, you use it to communicate with people, it constitutes you in a sense. » Mickael This particular relation we have with our phone makes this device a kind of mirror reflecting our own life. It could be explained by the fact that it contains all these memories from our daily life, and generally speaking, a huge amount of data about us.

ICT = Information and communication technologies

Technology and Magic

« If my phone has a name ? If I should give it a name it would be mini me. » Rasul When I previously wrote « mirror », I meant a tool of introspection or self analysis. Have you ever had this situation of verifying ten times your message before to send it to someone important, like a respectful professor or your love for example? When I do, I always read it and correct it almost a hundred times: before to send it to be sure of having the right tone of expression, and after to be sure that it was okay. If I don’t receive any answer, I read my message again to be sure that it was understandable and try to find out what is wrong. Generally speaking, a smartphone is an instant mirror and a mirror of the past. Indeed, it allows people to capture and fix the present moment, but also to store a past reflection. That tool makes us able to questioning ourselves at the time or from past events, to anticipate the future. In the Chinese culture, « The mirror as long served in China as the metaphor for history: we look into the past, as into a mirror, in the hope not only of seeing ourselves clearly reflected, but also of gaining greater control and understanding the future. As Sima Qian (145-ca. 86 BCE), China’s greater historian, explained, “ by not forgetting past events, we become masters of future events.“ »8 These smartphones are good to show us our own life through our produced contents but they are also good to display our own physical image, in the literal sense, as a real mirror. These reflections of its user differ from a real mirror because they are shareable reflections. To explain this, let us take the best example of the internet worldwide phenomenon, characteristic of Chinese women: the « selfie »9. I mean the act of taking a self-portrait of oneself. It became famous thanks to the appearance of frontal camera on smartphone and social networks based on easy sharing of photos like Instagram, Tumblr, WeChat and so on. In China, it is a daily occurrence especially for Chinese woman so much so that the « Chinese manufacturer Huawei announced plans for a new smartphone with “instant facial beauty 8 Edward L. Shaughnessy, Exploring the Life, Myth, and Art of Ancient China, 2009, ed. Rosen Pub New York; p.5 9 Ian Tucker, How Selfies became a global phenomenon, The guardian http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/14/how-selfies-became-a-global-phenomenon

Personal Treasure Box

Sony Selfie Camera

Technology and Magic support” software which reduces wrinkles and blends skin tone. »10 Sony makes the step and release on Asia-Pacific market, a special selfie camera11 of 19.2 megapixels, with face slimmer, eye widener software integrated. This ritual is for Chinese women a way to check their beauty, seduce but also share and prove to their friends: places they are visiting or new things they have just bought. As Lu Jia, a 24 years old woman I met in a café where she works, said: « I take some photos of myself, and sometime I put them on WeChat, most of the time I will not watch them again. I do that when I am in a new place, or I get a new thing to say it to my friend. And when I seem to me beautiful, I take a photo of myself, like a mirror. » If Chinese women do not share pictures of themselves they do not like, they often start again to find the greatest angle to show their beauty. Through his funny animated short movie: Selfie12, Andy Martin shows us a warning about self obsession that illustrates well that behavior, when people see themselves always ugly until finding the perfect angle.

Transformation of reality This kind of self-censorship leads to a transformation of the reality. Indeed, by choosing the right image, which displays one’s most attractive profile, one creates a fake self-representation through an uncommon point of view, lacking in spontaneity and truthfulness. Dr James Kilner, neuroscientist at the University College London, describes the « selfie » obsession as « the first time we are able to take and retake pictures of ourselves until we can produce an image that come closer to matching our perception of what we think we look like. » 13 10 Ian Tucker, How Selfies became a global phenomenon, The guardian, July 16, 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/14/how-selfies-became-a-global-phenomenon 11 Vamien McKalin, Sony creates selfie camera that looks like a perfume bottle: Future success or future failure?, August 24, 2014 http://www.techtimes.com/articles/13913/20140824/sony-creates-selfie-camera-that-looks-like-a-perfume-bottle-future-success-or-future-failure.htm 12 Andy Martin, Selfie, 2014, http://www.andymartin.info/shortfilms/selfie.html 13 James Kilner spoke at a National Portrait Gallery panel discussion, The science behind why we take selfies, BBC, January 16, 2014 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-25763704

Personal Treasure Box

Selfie Andy Martin, Selfie, 2014

Technology and Magic He argues that it is because we have a very little experience of looking at our own face, that makes a lack of visual knowledge about what we look like which impacts what we think we look like. He said that when people are asking to pick a photograph which they think looks most like them, from a series of photographs digitally altered to produce more attractive and less attractive versions. He found that people are very bad at selecting the original photograph. Indeed, people systematically choose images that have been digitally altered to make them appear more attractive. He conclude that « we have an image of ourselves that tends to be younger and more attractive than we actually are. » Moreover this unconscious fake vision of oneself is, sometime, and especially in China, increased by a photo editing application. These « app » make you better looking according to the beauty standards of Chinese women, for example, by making your eyes bigger or by whitening your skin.14 These smartphones give us the power to transform the reality according to our desires, and blur the frontier between fiction and truth. This, by creating some trustable proofs like pictures or videos which represent fake contents. My friend Chengyu related the same point of view when I asked her what does she hate in new technology: « People put all their life on Weibo, WeChat, internet in general. It is not bad, but they show a fake face of themselves. You can not really know the real person behind his profile. » Marcel Danesi, semiotician at the Toronto University, said about how new technologies of information and communication has changed us: « In fact, we even probably consider ourself as a sort of a brand. Not as a spiritual entity but something that we can literally sell, through websites, social networks… » 15 It is that we experience on social networks: people sell themselves through a self marketing process. When I look at my WeChat Moments16, I see a lot of food 14 Terence Lee, Chinese selfie photo app BeautyPlus edits your face: Enlarge eyes, look slimmer, TechInAsia, August 5, 2013 https://www.techinasia.com/beautyplus-selfie-app/ 15 Apple, la Tyrannie du Cool, directed by Sylvain Bergere, December 13, 2011, 32:59 http://boutique.arte.tv/f7106-apple_tyrannie_du_cool 16 WeChat is a mobile application which is well-known in China and used by major part of the local population. WeChat Moments is a part of this application which is dedicated to people sharing life taking form as a kind of timeline, like the Facebook Timeline.

Personal Treasure Box pictures, from Chinese friends who discover Western food or European friends who eat chicken foot17. I see people sharing their holidays in Thailand, or a trip in their home town, sharing pictures of their friends from the last dinner they have or their dog playing with a cat. I also see people sharing the last shoes they bought, or their new golden zippo lighter they have just ordered on Taobao. If I compare my Chinese friends and my French friends, it seems that there is no real difference between European or Chinese people concerning this observation. It is all about sharing and showing experiences, social contacts and well being. People always look good on social networks. Rare are those who post their depressed mood, or a bad appearance of themselves because no one want to show a bad image of oneself. It is the base of communication and marketing: valorizing the positive aspect of the brand rather than the negative points. In that sense, people present a false image of themselves, by most of the time, showing only the positive rather than both: positive and negative.

Knowing ourself Despite all of that, smartphones are great tools to know more about ourself. Indeed, it provides us the ability to have a physical representation of ourself, facing what Dr James Kilner, previously said when he argued that we have little experiences of looking at our own faces. this kind of device allows us to have more self-representations by making selfies for example, or simply looking at pictures and videos of ourself. Moreover, it gives us the possibility to get a lot of informations about our own body. Informations which are not really measurable without sensors and wearable devices like, for example, heart beat and body movement. In order to know more about ourself, our behaviors, our body way of working, that, to better ourself. It is what Rasul answered me when I asked him what does he think about connecting our body with technology. That is called Quantified-Self. It means quantification of oneself, the act of collecting and analyzing personal data in order to know better one’s body and to improve one’s life. 18 17 Chicken foot is a typical asian dish, famous in China, and usually eaten as a kind of Snack. 18 Camille Gicquel, Mais au fait, c’est quoi le Quantified Self ?, Regard Sur Le Numérique (RSLN), March 01, 2014

Technology and Magic

Rasul added: « New technology makes us be able to collect a large amount of data from our behavior and analyze it. We always create data, that is magic. I don’t think in our history we could know more about ourself and our behavior. It is a cross between magic and science. Using science to make magic. We can use that data to predict future and know more about human. » Because we can have all these informations of our body in real time, we can know more about how it works, how to improve it, how to change our behaviors according to our health state by adopting better comportments. And this is the second role of the quantified self, after understanding, it is acting. Mickael described that the device can provide you some advices about the right behavior to adopt: «It can say to you to relax when you need to take a breath, or to train your body. » For Mickael, it seems normal to follow health advices given by its smartphone but for me it sounds a bit unusual. As if roles has changed and new technologies were trying to control us. We are not anymore, those who give instructions to the machine. It is now, the machine which gives us instructions. It is, in my opinion, a bit disturbing to follow advices about our health, from an external electronic device rather than following our own mind directly connected to our body. Consequently, the smartphone appears more powerful than our brain by providing to us a precise measurability of our own body aliveness. As if sensations we have were not enough to control itself. By controlling I mean for example: doing sports to eliminate spare calories, sleeping when being tired, avoiding coffee before going to bed and so on. People follow advices of their devices rather than trusting their own feeling because wearable devices provide numbers and stats which seem much more determined and certain than human feeling. In that sense, we appear as « Cyborgs ». This observation refers to the first definition of a « cyborg », given by Manfred Clynes in 1960 in Astronautics:

http://www.rslnmag.fr/post/2014/03/01/Mais-au-fait-cest-quoi-le-Quantified-Self-.aspx

Personal Treasure Box

Example of a Quantified-self product Withings ActivitĂŠ A smart watch which allows you to track your activity during the day and your sleep at night

Technology and Magic « For the exogenously extended organizational complex . . . we propose the term “cyborg.” The Cyborg deliberately incorporates exogenous components extending the self-regulating control function of the organism in order to adapt it to new environments. » 19 In my mind, these wearable devices which generate our personal data could help us to self-regulate ourself, in a context of life based on productivity, stress, and rush. These systems of self quantification happen in a time when people, especially in Shanghai, are always busy and under pressure. They could be useful in that context in a way that they are disconnected of our quantity of work, of our consciousness, of our mind. Because of that, they can display external alerts, out of context, only focusing on our body health, to inform us when it is time to change behaviors. In order to prevent diseases from stress or tiredness or even bad alimentation during busy times, as Chanel said.20 Qian Shi Jie explains me that he thinks these devices or mobile app of self-regulation are great and relevant, especially, in China where people are afraid to go to see the doctor. Where Chinese people work so hard that they do not care about their health. He added that these app could help people to prevent them of tiredness by alerting them when it is time to make a break.21 But, he added that sometimes, knowing, by measuring precisely our body health, could lead to panic especially for Chinese old persons who are afraid to die and who will be afraid if stats are different than usual.

19 Manfred Clynes, Astronautics, September 1960 http://web.mit.edu/digitalapollo/Documents/Chapter1/cyborgs.pdf 20 Chanel said about wearable technologies: « I have never tried wearable tech, but I think it is good, because nowadays people suffer a lot of pressure, they need to know their health situation and do something to improve it. Sometime they just don’t care about their health, especially when they are busy, they eat a lot of fast food not good for their health. I think it is close to Chinese medicine you can learn some bad diseases in advance and have enough time to fix it before the bad situation, before going to see the doctor. -It is fun because you said « to fix it » like if we are robots- Laughs- Yeah it is true !» 21 QIAN SHE JIE, I met him in a café in Jing’an district on the 2nd of October, 2014. Here is a part of what he answered when I ask him: What does he find magic in new technologies? « You know IOS8 ? It is the new OS for iPhone. There is something to get information of your HEALTH that make you able to know your body better. I think it is important. In China, every persons are afraid to go to see the doctor. Chinese people work so hard that they do not care about their health, so maybe these app could help people to prevent them of tiredness by alert them when it is time to make a break. »

Personal Treasure Box

Remembering lost things Dying. That is also a big matter about collecting data: where go our data after our death? Do we have to delete Facebook or WeChat account after one’s death? Do we have to reveal these data to his close relative, like his parents? 22 Rasul shares this idea of these data which keep playing a role after our death: « Also what is interesting is that the amount of data we produce through social networks and internet, can exist after we die. So we can still live in a virtual world after our death. » 23 These data still contribute to remember one after his death. I believe publishing on social networks is like writing our story, our biography through different medias: pictures, words, videos, music, sharing interests and chronologically recording our whole life. That, because all the data people generate on social networks and more globally on internet are always stocked somewhere: on server or on people computers. These contents are virtual and historical marks of physical life because they are dated and they describe a past event. This remembers me the story shared by a YouTube commenter under the nickname 00WARPTHERAPY00 following the video Can Video Games Be A Spiritual Experience?24 about how he remembers his dead father through his car racing video game phantom player.25 Follow, its touching story:

22 Lauren Maffeo, Ghost in the Cloud: Dealing with data after death, November 13, 2013 http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/11/16/ghost-cloud-dealing-data-death/ 23 Quote of an answer by Rasul about what magic is for him in new technology, following his answer about generating massive amount of data he argued that data can represent us even after our death. 24 Jamin Warren, Can Video Games Be A Spiritual Experience? May 22, 2014 http://youtu.be/vK91LAiMOio 25 A phantom player is usually, in some old car racing games, a previous player run that you can compete against.

Technology and Magic « Well, when I was 4, my dad bought a trusty Xbox. you know, the first, ruggedly, blocky one from 2001. We had tons and tons and tons of fun playing all kinds of games together, until he died, when I was just 6. I could not touch that console for 10 years but once I did, I noticed something. We used to play a racing game, Rally Sports Challenge. actually pretty awesome for the time it came. And once I started meddling around... I found a GHOST. Literally. You know, when a time race happens, that the fastest lap so far gets recorded as a ghost driver? Yep, you guessed it - his ghost still rolls around the track today. And so I played and played, and played, until I was almost able to beat the ghost. until one day I got ahead of it, I surpassed it, and... I stopped right in front of the finish line, just to ensure I would not delete it.26 Bliss. » His father was still alive in the game through his fantom player, he marked his real life in the virtual one. His child can still play against him. It remembers the movie Tron: Legacy27 where the main protagonist finds his father departed since he was a child, in his video game, that his dad conceived before to disappear. In some way, new technology appear magic to me for that: recording events, capturing time, stocking all our life in a box, as a biography. That in order to serve as an interactive rememberer after time erasing memories. An other science fiction movie which finds a second life to our data, after our death, is the UK series Black Mirror28. Especially the episode Be Right Back29 which takes place in a near future. In this story, Martha, the protagonist, lost suddenly her husband in a car accident. Devastated, she heard of a service that allows people to communicate with their deceased loved ones by using powerful artificial intelligences based on all their online communications and contributions on social networks. At first, reticent, she started to use it to speak with her deceased husband. During the movie, there is a scene where Martha is on a cliff, where she used to come with her love before he died, talking about the beauty of the scenery to her virtual husband incarnation. That, through an ear phone con26 In those game, when you beat the phantom player, you delete it and replace it by your run. Your run become the phantom player: the best run to compete with and to defeat. 27 Tron: Legacy, 2010, Film,125 minutes, American, directed by Joseph Kosinski It is a sequel to the 1982 film Tron directed by Steven Lisberg. 28 Black Mirror, 2011, TV serie, United Kingdom, created by Charlie Brooker Black Mirror refers to all those black screens from our smartphones, TV, computer which have invaded our life. It is a series about new technologies and its limits. 29 Be Right Back, from Black Mirror, Episode 1 Season 2, 2013.

Personal Treasure Box nected to her smartphone, showing him the landscape through her phone camera lens. What is terrifying is that the artificial intelligence is so close to the dead person character that it makes the person as still alive: she could continue to have real conversations with him. All this episode is questioning that topic: data which prolong our life after death, good or bad? In one sense, it can blur old souvenirs by new ones invented by the computer, in one other, it is a good way to remember someone or past events of our life.

To conclude, this essay about « the personal treasure box » and this part about « remembering lost things », I would define smartphones as personal black boxes that constantly record our life. Precisely, by chronologically recording events, capturing time, stocking all our life. They are constituting our own biography. It makes them fully personal, intimate, part of ourself as an extended memory. An external memory connected and based on sharing things to others, through information and communications technologies. A symbiotic and electronic memory that can keep precise souvenirs, instead of general blurred impressions kept by our brain. Keeping memories with the risk of loosing things. Loosing things, as parts of our life, by loosing data because of a system crash. Loosing things by according much more importance to the electronic device than our physical brain. And at the end, being too much dependent of the technology: without any capabilities of remembering stories by ourself. In the future, will we all be vacuous without natural memory anymore? Or on the contrary, will we all be better, augmented by these new technologies?

Technology and Magic

A Magic Tool

In this essay, I would like to explore the versatility of electronic devices and the fact that it is a tool that we make after buying it, not something fixed, in order to answer our personal needs.

Multi-usage & Transformation Electronic devices, especially smartphones appear to us as an unlimited tool in term of possible usages. I usually compare my smartphone as the PokĂŠmon Metamorph, a creature coming from the Japanese video game created in 1996 by Satoshi Tajiri. It was a fluid form monster which can transform itself in whatever other PokĂŠmon monster and acquire its skills and power. The difference is that smartphones keep their shape but take the same usage of other existing tools. Only the meaning changes. One time it is a ticket office where you can book a train ticket. An other time it is a level to measure stability and the lead angle of a shelf. Sometimes, it is an alarm clock, a health tracker, a coach, a book, a music instrument, or even a GPS.

Technology and Magic

Pokemon Metamorph which can transfom itself into whatever other creatures.

A Magic Tool

Coding is limitless When I asked Chanel, a Chinese English teacher, met in a café of Jing’an district, about what she finds incredible in new technology, she answered: « I guess new technology is like a witch or like a unicorn you know. -laughsit is just linked to everything, it makes everything. It seems that everything is possible, nothing is impossible if you have new technology now. But I don’t know about future. I guess that new technology is getting better in the future. » This possibility of usage changing is accorded to the malleability of the code, which is the software DNA. This code breaks the frontier of possibilities. As Glenn Marshall, a digital artist well known for creating environments and movies by computer programming and algorithms said : « With commercial software for example, the creative limits are real. With code, the limits are theoretical, in other words there are no limits. If I need a particular fancy tool or feature to do something, I write it myself into the heart of the program itself.. » 1 The power of computer programming allows programmer to create everything they want. The virtual world allows people to make what they could never make in the real life and user to use something which exist only in this system. As in the movie Matrix2, the main character Neo, who is a hacker3, is selected to fight again the Matrix: a simulated reality controlled by sentient machines to exploit humans. In his quest, he struggles the system by creating computer code which allows him to get superpowers in the virtual world: like flying or fighting hundreds of opponents in the same time.

1 Emerson Rosenthal, Dive Into The Clouds In This Code-Generated Music Video, July 29, 2014 http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_au/blog/premiere-dive-into-the-clouds-in-this-code-generated-musicvideo?utm_source=tcptwitteranz 2 Matrix, movie directed by The Wachowski Brothers, 1999 3 A hacker is a person who uses computer flaws to gain unauthorized access to data.

Technology and Magic

Matrix (1999) What Neo does in Matrix, is just computer coding. Every actions, every moves he does are computer codes. He is â&#x20AC;&#x153;the Oneâ&#x20AC;? because he is the best hacker, the one who is good enough to trick the machine which controls human bodies. In the movie, Neo can defy physical laws of the virtual world because they do not exist, they are just rules created by the machine to fake the physical world. But in theory, the only limit of programming is imagination. Computer code is limitless.

A Magic Tool This malleability of the computer code leads to adaptability of the tool to user desires. During the interview of Rasul, I asked him to draw the monster his smartphone would be, if it was an animal. Here is his answer: « If my smartphone was an animal, it would be an animal adaptable or a smart animal. Are dolphins smart animals ? Or maybe it could be something like a bird that could fly and go under the water » These kind of multi-possibilities and its high malleability make the smartphone a tool super adaptable to people needs and to a variety of contexts.This by the fact that a lot of mobile applications or softwares extend possible usages which are provided by electronic devices. Devices which are only the support of these programs. A smartphone without its OS, its application, generally speaking; without its softwares, is a useless tool without any usage. These systems are the grey matter of the device. This is why it changes from our classical tools because their usage lies in their form whereas here, the usage lies in the software.

Convenience It makes new technologies, like smartphones, so versatile because people can use them as they want and change their usage according to their needs.

« I use my phone to make some phone calls, text messages, WeChat, What’s app, email, music, and to call some taxis » Rasul

said.

« I don’t know I just use my phone to do pretty much everything, to buy tickets like the train tickets, I download the music app to listen to music… » Chanel said. « I use my smartphone to play games, to watch TV, or video on Youku. I also use an app to buy some tickets on internet. My favorite app are Weixin, Taobao, Music, Safari. » Qian Shi Jie said.

Technology and Magic

Super adaptable animal If Rasulâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s smartphone was an animal, it would be an animal super adaptable... His drawing gives a better impression of what he meant.

A Magic Tool That increases our capabilities. Because it is millions of applications, I mean possible usages, available in your pocket, always with us, everywhere and at anytime. According to Chengyu, it makes our life better by offering us more possibilities. Before having a smartphone, she was not able to do all the things she can do now like calling people, sending instant messages, chatting on WeChat, finding her path using Baidu maps, playing games, or translating English into Chinese.4 If we consider this versatility, I think it is hard to define which could be the ancestor of that object. As could be the bamboo slips an ancestor of the book in China.5 Is it something with a lot of possible kind of utilization like the swiss army knife? Or is it, not one ancestor, but a convergence of different fathers relating to all uses possible with a smartphone? Potential ancestors include: the fixed line phone + the camera + the note pad + the MP3 player + the TV + the canvas + the watch + the book + the newspaper and so on. This list seems infinite. Or is it a magic stick coming from fairy tales with unicorns, witches and black wizards? Maybe it is something totally new, corresponding to a new need: the need of having all our tools everywhere with us.

Saving time One of the answer could be explained by the enlargement of cities like Shanghai, where people need to travel a lot to join their work place, to make some shopping, to meet friends, to have a drink. In such cities, each move is a one hour journey, under pressure of crowded and noisy places. Smartphones are a way to have all our tools accessible everywhere to be able, to kill our time during transport, but also to save our time. This timesaving device is an answer to that loss of time in such booming cities. Chanel explained to me:

4 « Technology makes our life better. It offers us more possibilities : Before using a smartphone I could not do all the thing I can do now! […] telephone, instant message, we chat, weibo, baidu map, playing games (candy crush, popstars, 2048), translating English and so on.» Chen Chengyu 5 The Age of the Bamboo Slip, china.org.cn, 2003 http://www.china.org.cn/english/2003/Jun/66332.htm

Technology and Magic « I use a smartphone because it is very handy, you can do pretty much everything on your phone nowadays. For example, I can buy things on Taobao6, all I have to do is to download the application. Before, I had to go to the bank to pay all my bills, like electricity bills or water bills. Now I can do that with my phone (with Alipay). That saves me a lot of time. » For her, its smartphone is very convenient for saving time because she does not have to make movements in the cities to pay or buy things. She can do it at home or at her office. Chanel gave me an other example: « The first time I used a smartphone was five years ago, I bought the iPhone. I guess convenience was the most important thing for me, especially nowadays, people work under pressure, they have no time. It can make them save time. Like for me, during lunch, I don’t have enough time to eat, so I order with my phone before the break and food come to me, I can eat immediately. No need to find a restaurant…. » Before to add: « What is magic for me in new technology… I don’t know: easy life ! It saves people a lot of time by using smartphone, they don’t have to go to the shopping mall or to go to the banks, you can just use your smartphone instead of going there, through useful applications. I guess this is the magic. Time saving and money saving. »

Break the distances These new technologies appear as a time saver because they break distances, everything become accessible by a thumb « tap » on screen. Things come to me. I do not need to go to the shopping mall, I can buy everything, everywhere. Especially in China, where delivering is cheap, people tend to buy more through e-commerce services like Taobao, T-Mall and so on. In 2013, 69% of Chinese consumers have purchased a product or service through their smartphones comparing to 46% in the US.7 This is also explained by the 6 Taobao is a Chinese service for online shopping similar to eBay or Amazon. 7 Steven Millward, China’s mobile commerce spending to surpass $50 billion in 2014, nearly double last year’s total, April 3, 2014

A Magic Tool fact that mobile customers in China, are « those born after 1980, who have better educations and better jobs, and earn higher incomes than those who are older. These post-80ers are active on social media, and in the meantime, they are the mainstream of Chinese consumers. »8. Whereas, in the West, this category of people « are recent college graduates with little income to spend. ».9 This process of buying things, in a way, turns from mall-centered to buyer-centered. I mean by that, it is the product which comes to the buyer and not people who have to come to the shopping mall to buy products. Chengyu shared a story about that, which is, I think, well representative of Chinese modern mode of buying things: « My roommate never escapes her room to make shopping, she thinks it is cheaper on internet comparing to shopping malls and also, more convenient » New technologies of information and communications rub out distances, because one can access to things without physically moving. I mean informations, goods, but also people.

« I use Wechat to talk to my friends in China or overseas. I feel that even they are not around, I feel they are just there, you know, so we can talk whenever and ever. It breaks the distance, it is just like if they are closer. And it is for free. » Chanel told me. It breaks frontiers between countries. Even if in China, there is a certain censorship on internet. I mean lot of western websites and services like Facebook, Twitter, BBC, Gmail are blocked by the government. That could contribute to an isolation of Chinese inhabitants from the world wide network. Even so, people who are using internet are Chinese, French, English, Brazilian etc. all mixed in a same territory named: planet earth. Internet is a transcultural https://www.techinasia.com/china-mobile-commerce-spending-2014-will-surpass-50-billion-dollars/ 8 Helen Wang, Why China Will Lead Innovation in Social and Mobile Commerce, August 25, 2014 http://www.forbes.com/sites/helenwang/2014/08/25/why-china-will-lead-innovation-in-social-and-mobile-commerce/ 9 Helen Wang, Why China Will Lead Innovation in Social and Mobile Commerce, August 25, 2014 http://www.forbes.com/sites/helenwang/2014/08/25/why-china-will-lead-innovation-in-social-and-mobile-commerce/

Technology and Magic network made by a lot of networks linked together. In that sense, it breaks the boundaries between cultures and countries. Such easy ways of communicating have made the world: a global village10. This term was defined by Marshall McLuhan before internet, as we know it today, happened. By these words, he meant that events in one part of the world through this electronic nervous system could be experienced from other parts in real-time. Which is, what were human experiences, when we lived in small villages.11 We often see internet phenomenons which become world wide phenomenons like Gangnam Style12 by the South Korean K-pop singer: Psy. It is the most viewed video of Youtube13 with two billion views. When we arrived in China in 2013, it was frequent to hear it in popular club of Shanghai, when we went to party. Without internet and this easy way of sharing information, I do not think that Psy would have been as famous as he is now. These kinds of world wide phenomenons, created on internet, exist because thanks to that technology people are closer to each others. Indeed, because they are always connected to each others, they can interact at anytime, no matter the distance between them. This leads to a continuous human connection and presence. When I was interviewing Rasul, we were talking about if he use his phone to do some unusual actions like playing music, doing some tinkering with it, measuring things and so on. Applications which are personal appropriations of the tool. When suddenly, his phone vibrated on the table. He took a look at these WeChat messages and said: «Take a look, it is my son in the classroom at the primary school. Teacher sends these photos to me during class, so I can see my son, what he is doing. And I can also ask him questions or react on the WeChat group with other parents. »

10 Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964; p.19 « Today, after more than a century of electric technology, we have extended our central nervous system itself in a global embrace, abolishing both space and time as far as our planet is concerned. » Marshall McLuhan made as an insight the concept of a global village, interconnected by a kind of electronic nervous system, before internet we know actually happened. 11 Multi-authors, The first web-published book, January 2000 http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_mcluhan.htm 12 GANGNAM STYLE M/V - Psy, 2012 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0 13 in November 2014

A Magic Tool It was like he is always with his son. He follows all his education through that medium. And at the end, Rasul has probably a closer relationship with his son than unconnected parents as mine, who were totally far away from what I have experienced at school. Smartphone and, generally speaking, information and communication technologies, make people closer to each others and make them be never more alone. Through that, these devices are an answer to a fear, the fear of loneliness. As Alain Damasio said: « La technologie vient conjurer nos peurs, elle vient nous rassurer et elle vient d’abord conjurer la peur suprême, celle de la solitude et de l’abandon en nous reliant fil à fil en un cocon continue, communicant: le réseau, le portable. Plus jamais seul. »14 « Technology wards off our fears, reassures us and, first of all, wards off our supreme fear : loneliness and being abandoned. That, by linking us, wire to wire, to form a continuous communicating cocoon: the network, the phone. Never alone. » Martin Lindstrom, a US neuro-marketing specialist adds : « We also observe an activity from amygdalae, this area is reflecting fear. So if you feel afraid of being alone, afraid of being stolen or rapped, this area would be activated. Having an iPhone, this zone will be activated most likely because you are afraid of being cut off to the rest of the world. »15 It is a kind of paradox in a sense that people use smartphone to be not alone and in the same time they also are afraid of being cut off the world when they have those ones. But this fear of being alone and the need to be connected lead people to be too much connected. Chanel said about that, when I ask her what does she hate in new technologies: « I hate it because everybody are too focus on their phone nowadays, they barely talk with each others. Especially when they are in public. Especially for 14 Alain Damasio, sci-fi author, Très Humain plutôt que transhumain, TEDxParis, October 6, 2014, 7:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR0T5-a6YTc 15 Apple, la Tyrannie du Cool, directed by Sylvain Bergere, December 13, 2011, 35:30 http://boutique.arte.tv/f7106-apple_tyrannie_du_cool

Technology and Magic Chinese people, at the restaurant, either, looking at their phone, iPad or computer. » Then, she added: « 10 years ago, people met in restaurant and talk. Now people just ignore each others. We are definitely becoming the slaves of new technology. We cannot change everything but I don’t wanna go worst, so maybe we need to find something to avoid that. I know some restaurants where they force people to put away their phone otherwise you have to pay the bill. » Chanel said that we are slaves of new technology because we need to be connected, even when we are still in a physical social relationship, at the restaurant with our girlfriend for example. This could be explained because we are « informavore ». 16 I mean: « an organism that consumes information. » The idea of that term is to compare information we consume with food: with good or bad food for health, with lot of calories or not, and so on. We consume thousands informations during our days through articles, movies, social networks, pictures. Informations which are like that food: with different kinds of aliments. I mean we need to differentiate the kind of content: social network content is not equal to scientific documentary for example. These aliments were served with the Television, the only way to choose the content was to press next to change the channel. Thanks to internet and the World Wide Web, we are not anymore subjected to content providers but we can choose which content we want to consume. It is like going from a canteen where you cannot really choose your dishes to a self service where you can compose your own plate. Due to this change of getting informations we tend to be more information alcoholic. That because of the quantity and variety of informations the web is created of. Always evolving. Always changing. It is the biggest book of the world with billion of billion of billion chapters and topics inside. It is like a huge human brain representative of our whole world. All cultures, sub-cultures and ages mixed.

16 Frank Schirrmacher, The Age of the informavore, October 25, 2009 http://edge.org/conversation/the-age-of-the-informavore

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Interactive cartography of Wikipedia.org http://wiki.polyfra.me/ The cartography shows 100 000 articles from Wikipedia and their links. 59

Technology and Magic

Information alcoholism So much informations choosable that we become hooked on informations. And thanks to the hyperlinks, we are always seduced by other interesting things. When I am writing this essay, my web browser is full of dozens of tabs unread due to lack of time. Tabs I opened after clicking on some interesting URL I have found, reading some articles. This information overload leads us to an obligation of making a selection of what we should read what we should not. Frank Schirrmacher made a comparison with the Darwinism17 and the selection of which information we should remember, which not. Either you select information, either you try to find some time as Lujia said to me: « I hate new technologies when I want to sleep because I cannot control myself, I read some story or novel and I can’t stop looking at it. I read http://tieba. baidu.com/ it is like stories or novels website. » This is a great example of someone hooked on information. Each time you finish to read an article, a second, which seems more interesting appears, hyper-linked. We can hope that this primitive state where we are force-feeding ourself with any kind of informations, interested or not, will change to a state where we are consuming much more refined informations. Either informations specially selected by the machine for oneself, or informations digested before by the computer. For example, I do not care to know how much parking places available there are, I want to know where I can park my car. 17 Frank Schirrmacher, The Age of the informavore, October 25, 2009 http://edge.org/conversation/the-age-of-the-informavore « As we know, information is fed by attention, so we have not enough attention, not enough food for all this information. And, as we know — this is the old Darwinian thought, the moment when Darwin started reading Malthus — when you have a conflict between a population explosion and not enough food, then Darwinian selection starts. And Darwinian systems start to change situations. And so what interests me is that we are, because we have the Internet, now entering a phase where Darwinian structures, where Darwinian dynamics, Darwinian selection, apparently attacks ideas themselves: what to remember, what not to remember, which idea is stronger, which idea is weaker. » Frank Schirrmacher, German famous journalist and essayist.

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As French techno-entrepreneur, Rafi Haladjian said: « Avec la 3G, l’accessibilité de l’information est devenue omniprésente. Tant et si bien que nous ne supportons plus de ne pas avoir accès à quelque chose. Demain, nous ne supporterons plus que les choses ne soient plus connaissables. On veut suivre son colis. On veut savoir où sont les places pour se garer, ce que signifie tel ou tel mot… » « Thanks to 3G, information accessibility has became everywhere. So much so, that we can not stand to have no access to something. Tomorrow, we will not put up with things which are not knowable. We want to follow our parcel. We want to know where are free parking places to park ourself, what does mean this or that word and so on. » That reflection puts the machine as the one which digest and refined information, from data to a meaning or to an action. Rafi Haladjian added: “On passe de la Machina Habilis à la Machina Sapiens. De systèmes où on informe les machines à ceux où elles s’informent seules et vont devenir autonomes pour prendre des décisions.”18 « We are going from the Machina Habilis to the Machina Sapiens. From systems where we inform machines, to systems where machines get informations by themselves to become autonomous and take decisions. » But that could be dangerous, if we let the machine to decide by itself, which content we should read, which not; for example according to our usual interest. We are going to loose our free-will. In this case, we will always look at same articles concerning same kind of topics we like. I remember one of my teacher who said that it was disadvantageous to use only Google in order to search articles. Because Google, as a search engine, has its own algorithm to search things and this is just one way of searching thing. This algorithm is just one formula. And if you use the same recipe to make cake, you will always have the same result. If you use only this search engine, you will only get the same results: same informations.

18 Hubert Guillaud, A quoi sert l’innovation ?, January 7, 2014 http://www.internetactu.net/2014/01/07/a-quoi-sert-linnovation/

Technology and Magic In my opinion, it is important to have such computers which help us to process informations. Because consuming such amount of informations available leads information alcoholics to excesses, or to illnesses such as ADD: Attention Deficit Order. Rasul explained me that: « ADD is a kind of illness which is due to the use of devices. It makes people loose their focus, and have difficulty to concentrate on something. » Berlina confessed to me why she tries to avoid WeChat, because it breaks her concentration every time. Nicholas Carr wrote about consequences of internet on his brain: « Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle. »19 Before to add: « The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. »20 This attention deficit disorder is due to all these contents available and provocative through hyperlinks, interactive banners, references and so on. But also due to limited time we have comparing to that massive quantity of informations. Indeed, new technologies of communications and information are time consuming. During my interview with Rasul, I asked him: « if you had the chance to turn your smartphone into an other (unconnected) object, what would you want to get? » He answered: « Ah If it is a not connected object… I will change it for time, to go anywhere I want, to spend time with my family, to travel maybe in Europe to explore, also to come back in Malaysia, one week. If it could be with no sacrifice of jobs and money … » I noticed: 19 Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, July 1, 2008 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/ 20 Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, July 1, 2008 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/

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Where is Waldo? If you tried to find Waldo, you have just lost your focus and experienced what Nicholas Carr describes about internet and loosing the thread. Turn the page to continue >

Technology and Magic « It looks like you stop traveling virtually on internet to travel physically in foreign countries » He added: « Yes, true! It is like if I can reuse the time that I would not consume with my devices to take more time with my family and to explore other places.» So he tries to catch up by using new technologies like robots to do his work when he sleep: « I use a robot vacuum because, my wife and I, we are lazy to clean. And the robot can clean when we are sleeping, so it is like if we make this time of doing nothing to make something. Using this time of un-productivity to clean. »

Always evolving New technologies are always evolving. They are part of the innovation process. Berlina, who tried to educate women to new technologies by making them play, and tinker with it; said that: « When you want to know technology, every time you need to be aware to follow what is new » One explanation of this fast evolving process, is the Moore’s law established by Gordon E. Moore21, co-founder of Intel corporation who wrote: « The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year. Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. » Ten years after, his supposition was still true, but he slowed the future rate of increase in complexity to an increasing rate of factor two par two year. 22 Fundamentally, it means that processor speeds, will double every two years, increasing by two the processing power of our computer. The rule is still true in

21 Gordon E. Moore, Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits, pub. Electronics, pp. 114–117, April 19, 1965 http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~fussell/courses/cs352h/papers/moore.pdf 22 “Moore’s Law” Predicts the Future of Integrated Circuits, computerhistory.org http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1965-Moore.html

A Magic Tool 2014 and leads teams of Research and development to new challenges in order to pursue this innovation rhythm which increases the power of our machines. This rhythm allows engineers to increase the power of our machines but also to develop new possibilities of inventions, because transistors are at the base of computing. If every two years, the power of our electronic tools double, consequently our own power is also increased per two. This fast evolution feeds our desire of progress.New technologies descended from the computing area appear like kind of magic powers always pushing the limit of progress. Allen W. Batteau describes technologies as an answer to that « dream of millennia »: the dream of satisfying our human desires beyond our human capabilities. He compares technologies of everyday life to these magic artifacts which answer those unlimited desires: « King Midas, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Aladdin’s magical lamp are but three examples of fables where magical means could be used to achieve endless worldly wants »23 Smartphones could be a magic stick. A magic stick which could be improved at each new release of upgrade, or each new version: opening new possibilities for the user.

Changing habits of people These new possibilities create new usages which change our habits. To illustrate, Berlina said that: « Now, you can pay with WeChat, pushing people paying with their phone instead of money, it creates new habit of consumption. I have these apps on my phone like Alipay which allows me to pay with my phone at the vendor machine. I can get my coffee at the machine by paying with my smartphone. I use it a lot because I find that it is fun to pay without coins.» Before Berlina did not use to drink coffee but she has changed her behavior because she likes the way of paying her coffee at the physical vendor machine, without giving any physical money. Only by wireless transmission, dematerialized. I think it is a kind of magic to pay with invisible money. Even if this can be 23

Allen W. Batteau, Technology and Culture, ed. Waveland Pr Inc, 2009; p.23

Technology and Magic dangerous, in the sense that because we do not see the real money, we think it is free. She added: « An other example, the digital Red Envelop24, WeChat has created for Chinese New year in which people can put some money into that digital Red Envelop then post it on a WeChat group, and the first member who catches it, wins the prize. It is a kind of gamification, and it works so much. » But these kinds of new habits, which stems from the digital technology, can result in exclusion of certain kinds of people, techno-deprived. Indeed, sometime it could put some people away. That is the case of Shanghai Taxi, we never understood why some taxis never take us, even if we make the sign to call them. We understood few time after that it was because of a Chinese app. Chinese people are able to order a taxi through an app. But because a lot of Chinese people use this service, available taxis are becoming more and more rare. Now, it became harder to find a taxi quickly in the street, if you can’t use this application because you can not speak Chinese for example. We were deprived of the technology because we could not be able to communicate in Chinese. This example raises the same problem for elder Chinese people who do not understand the semantics of new technologies and its language. Berlina made the comparison with Uber, a similar service of instant taxi booking for expats: « Services like Uber are discriminating because you have to possess a smartphone but old people can’t use certain services because they don’t know how to use the technology » Lujia extends the problem to the uninitiated: « You know, a lot of people don’t use their phone to play games and stuff like that, they just phone. They use it as they understand it, as they know and don’t pay attention to what they don’t know. They don’t try to understand because it takes time to understand. »

24 The red envelope 红包 (hóngbao) is a monetary gift which is given during social or family gathering, particularly famous during the Chinese New Year. The red color of the envelope symbolizes good luck and is supposed to ward off evil spirits.

A Magic Tool Indeed, people who are not sensitive to new technologies do not necessarily try to extend their basic capacities. Because they do not really know what is possible, and also because it is not their main concern. But people, especially young ones, try to follow the evolution of technology to avoid being excluded. Chengyu admitted: « I have bought the first iPhone because everyone bought it. Everyone used it and asked me what is my WeChat ? I answered that I did not have it yet. Then, I decided to buy a smartphone to be able to access to these services. At first it looked beautiful, then I found it very useful.» Mickael added: « I use WeChat a lot, it is I think the best communication app in the market, a lot of people use it. If you don’t use it you can’t communicate with others. And it is free. » People are forced by the social pressure and the fear of being excluded from the society, to follow the techno-tendencies. That is because it provides new tools of communications which are impervious, un-combinable with others. It leads people to a technological dependence to be included in the mass population of communicators.

Technological dependence In the next part, I would like to further explore this question of technodependency. And ask myself: Are we slave of new technologies of information and communication like our smartphone or computer? I would like to verify an hypothesis I had about the fact that maybe people are dependent of their own devices, their own tools. So I have asked during my interviews if we could exchange our smartphones. Whereas Chengyu was absolutely opposed to this deal, Berlina was less reluctant and said why not. She thought it could be a good idea to discover what mobile application I use. But at one condition: to have also her applications in my phone to be able to utilize them too. 67

Technology and Magic Smartphone appears like a personal toolbox for daily life, un-shareable because people put their modern tools in it. I mean by “tools”: all applications they use : Taobao, Alipay, WeChat … Without, they are deprived of their tools, handicapped in their daily life, they could not order food, buy things online, order a taxi, communicate with others etc… What Alain Damiaso said about that, is that: « On est entrain d’externaliser nos capacités cognitives dans la machine, par exemple, notre mémoire dans les moteurs de recherche, nos capacités d’orientation dans le GPS, notre aptitude à hiérarchiser nos informations dans nos applications de planning … »25 « We are externalizing our cognitive capacities inside the machine, for example, our memory inside search engines, our orientation capacities inside the GPS, our skills to hierarchize informations inside our planning applications… » By using all our devices, we are being dependent of our tools. Because we use the machine to help us and the machine replaces our skills. In that sense, we merge with our devices. Indeed, we integrate them as a part of our system of thinking and doing. Andy Clarke wrote: « It is in the operation of these extended systems that much of our distinctive human intelligence inheres. »26 Our intelligence is included in these computational tools we use, as a symbiosis Human-Machine, biological-electronic. And these external tools are part of our intelligence. John Culkin, a colleague of Marshall McLuhan, wrote « we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us »27 We have created these computers to process and stock informations. Now, we need them to find unknown or forgotten informations. We stock all our memories inside them. When I need to remember myself what is the planning for my next days, I check on my computer my e-calendar. When I want to know how much eggs I need to success in creating my cake, I go on the web to get the information. When I want to know why I do not sleep well since one week, I « google » it and try to get advices to improve my sleep. When I have a headache since two 25 Alain Damasio, sci-fi author, Très Humain plutôt que transhumain, TEDxParis, October 6, 2014, 5:01 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR0T5-a6YTc 26 Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborg, 2004, ed.Oxford University Press; p.33 27 Robert C. MacDougal, Digination: Identity, Organization, and Public Life in the Age of Small Digital Devices and Big Digital Domains, 2011, pub. Fairleigh Dickinson; p.30

A Magic Tool days, I « google » it and learn that I have a tumor or an illness that will make my brain exploding in two months, or just a simple lack of water. In that sense, all the Internet users, together, have created a kind of big virtual book, collecting all the world knowledge, as The Whole Earth Catalog28, that everyone can access and contribute. Providing us any knowledge on demand. Marshall McLuhan wrote: «the wheel is an extension of the foot the book is an extension of the eye clothing, an extension of the skin, electric circuitry, an extension of the central nervous system .» 29 Internet and the cloud could be the extension of our memory and our knowledge. Knowledge and information that we stock for later, as an intermediate, to save or to share. In one sense, internet is like connecting our brains to the others and sharing knowledge. When I look on websites how to make a banana crumble cake, and find instantly a good recipe shared by an English guy: I am getting knowledge from him. When I add to it that you can use 100g of chocolate for a better taste, I am improving this knowledge, sharing mine. The final recipe become a mix of different savoir-faires from two distincts people. This vision of sharing brains and knowledges, instantly, connected to the world wide network: Internet, is the vision of Sergei Brin and Larry Page, Google founders. Who said in an interview for NewsWeek in 2004: “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than your brain, you’d be better off. »30 This is a transhumanist vision of the relation between technology and our human capabilities. I would conclude this chapter on this particular relation. 28 The Whole Earth Catalog was an American counterculture magazine and product catalog published by Stewart Brand, between 1968 and 1972, providing access to informations, tools, education, ideas and featured the slogan : « Stay hungry. Stay foolish. ». 29 Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is The Massage, 1967, pub. Bantam books; p. 31-40 30 Steven Levy, All eyes on Google, Newsweek, April 11, 2004 http://www.newsweek.com/all-eyes-google-125003

Technology and Magic A symbiotic link by which technology has merged with human brain to offer an extension of our memory. By extension, I mean, the fact of being constantly connected to others, beyond their locality, but also to servers which contain knowledge from everywhere in the globe, beyond physical frontiers or cultural barriers. This combination of brain and technology, provides also, an extension of our mental capacities through a powerful and external manner of processing informations, which is fully adaptable and which always evolves. As Andy Clark notices: « We—more than any other creature on the planet—deploy nonbiological elements (instruments, media, notations) to complement our basic biological modes of processing, creating extended cognitive systems whose computational and problem-solving profiles are quite different from those of the naked brain. »31 This vision of a symbiosis mind - devices, electronic - biologic, asks the question « where are the limits of our own body? »

Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborg, 2004, ed.Oxford University Press; p.78

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Picture from the movie

Daft Punk’s Electroma.

Daft Punk’s Electroma, 2006, dirs. Thomas Bangalter, Guy-Manuel De Homem-Christo

Technology and Magic

Humanization of Electronic Devices

Are machines conscious? I am thinking in the high speed train staring blankly through the windows. The train stops at the station. Suddenly, lights and motors turn off and the train drops dead in a pregnant silence. Few minutes later, the machine wake up. Like a high tech dragon full of mechanics and electronics, it rumbles and makes little digital sounds. The beast starts to wake up, full of power and strength, in the deep breath sound of the locomotive. This train seems to me as a kind of creature, full of life. I can hear its sounds, feel its movements as a dynamic character. This kind of vision could come from a Miyazaki film, or a kind of fairy tale where objects could have emotions and could feel things. But it is my actual statement, the statement of things, empowered by electronics, seem to be alive. In an interview, Michel Gondry1 tells a similar story when he explains why in its movie Mood Indigo, the environment is very animated like the room, which is alive: it changes its form according to the relation of the two main characters.

1 Michel Gondry is a French film director, well-known for its handmade style. Indeed, he is often compared to a magician, because he makes a majority of his special effects by hand, playing with some tips and tricks.

Technology and Magic

Drawing of a 7 years old Chinese child representing a colourful smartphone monster.

Humanization of Electronic Devices « Yeah, when you wake up and hear your alarm clock, you want to destroy it. And when something is obnoxious you want to break it. When you watch Tom & Jerry, they destroy each other in each scene. But in the next scene, they’re put back together. So I think it comes from that, and from many other things. When your cellphone doesn’t work, you feel it’s doing it on purpose to piss you off. So you imagine it has a conscience. You just express that, knowing it’s not how it really works. » 2 In this part, I will put my attention on humanization of electronic devices and try to understand why these new technologies appear to us more alive than simple tools like a paper or a pen. Sometimes, our electronic devices seems to be possessed by a kind of spirit. I remember when I was a kid, my dad bought us the last generation of computer on the market, the golden nugget among computers: an IBM Windows 98. It was our first computer at home and I was seven. After school, I used to play some games on it. My favorite game I had was Star Wars: X-wing Alliance. I could drive the Millennium Falcon inside battles against the dark force. It was so amazing for that kid who wanted to become a fighter pilot. So amazing, except when my computer did not want to let me destroy Tie Fighters on the battlefield, and turned blue. It was what we call a « Blue Screen of Death » and it means that the computer has just crashed. It is for me the scariest memory I have with computers. Even if the next computer I had, exploded and burnt twice. The blue screen of death was scary, because first it was so ugly and so incomprehensible. Okay okay, « my graphic card is under over cloaking » due to the error 011#00234 , happy to hear that. Second, because it happens only when it should not. Before to save a file for example. As if the computer did it on purpose. As if the computer was conscious of what it did. An other example could be when we push too much keys, the computer makes a grumpy noise as if he would like to say “ouch”. Or, funny oral discussions you can have using intelligent personal assistants like Siri or Google Now. It is this impression of consciousness behind our electronic devices I would like to discuss about, in this essay.

2 Carl Franzen, Michel Gondry talks technology, his latest film ‘Mood Indigo’, and why he can’t use an iPhone, July 21, 2014 http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/21/5923233/michel-gondrys-mood-indigo-interview-q-and-a

Technology and Magic

My old IBM Aptiva 2139 with its

“Blue Screen of Death”

Humanization of Electronic Devices To come back to my comparison of the high speed train, that giant powerful monster, I think in China, it is not unusual to see objects humanized or some complex concepts represented by a simplified allegory. The Shanghai Metro is represented by a kind of robot named 畅畅 (« Chàng chàng ») which is in some ways the good spirit of the subway. He can fly, and protects people from dangers. This little cartoon character appears in emergency short movies in the subway where he leads people to exit from subway in fire.

Complex systems I think this impression of having spirit or consciousness behind our electronic devices lies in the fact that new technologies are complex systems. What is fascinating is that they are part of a big system of interwoven sub-systems. Allen W. Batteau said about technology that: « Every useful technology is embedded within a sociotechnical network and can neither function nor be understood nor even exist apart from that network. »3 Then, he illustrates explaining that: « To safely fly an airplane requires radios, navigation, aids, airports, air traffic control, flight rules, a system of fuel supply and a superstructure of government certification and supervision. »4 New technologies are also part of an ecosystem really complex. Your smartphone works because of electricity provided by batteries, thousands of different assembled electronic components which come from everywhere in the world, an operating system, added softwares, an internet connection, services inside softwares like Twitter, graphic interfaces and so on. Because it is such complex, it needs many skills and specializations to be fully understood. Batteau said: « Technology has also made the world more complex, cramming more specializations… »5 3 4 5

Allen W. Batteau, Technology and Culture, ed. Waveland Pr Inc, 2009; p.11 Allen W. Batteau, Technology and Culture, ed. Waveland Pr Inc, 2009; p.11 Allen W. Batteau, Technology and Culture, ed. Waveland Pr Inc, 2009; p.65

Technology and Magic

That is why it fascinates and appears as magic, the fact of being too complex to be understood in its entirety for common people. Some parts are still in the shadow, staying misunderstood. Areas which fall within magic powers. Something that people do not understand.

Incomprehension & Daily use But in the same time, electronic devices as smartphones and computers are things that people daily use. That, because they are quite easy to use compared to their complexity. You can take a picture of something with your phone. In less than 30 seconds, I guess: your photo is captured by the lens, translated from light to digits by a sensor and the machines. Then, converted into a readable format, saved in a located folder, and then displayed through 727 040 pixels6 coordinated in order to form the final picture. The process looks simple, because it as been thought to be easy to do, as interfaces where thought to be more or less easy to use. These graphic interfaces are part of these complex systems but are also the layer of simplification of the high complexity behind new technology. That because, they are the link between user and the machine. GUI, for Graphical User Interfaces, were experimented in the research center of Xerox Parc at Palo Alto, in the 70s.7 They created an alternative to command-line interfaces which were based on text orders given to the computer. The graphical interface were one layer above, closer to the user and one layer more natural than these lines of commands which control the machine. Lines of code were the layer that made understandable and controllable computers for human. GUI made computer usable for human. These interfaces were, in some ways, the usable part of the machine, more visual: with icons, buttons, frames; which hides the complex system part. Like the designed metal case which envelops the machine and hides the computer components. These interfaces, popularized by Apple in 1984, has developed personal computers by making them accessible to everyone.

6 7

It is the number of pixels of an iPhone 5S. BenoĂŽt Drouillat, Petit dictionnaire du design numĂŠrique, Designers interactifs

Humanization of Electronic Devices

From command line interfaces to graphical user interfaces

image source: The Xerox Star: A retrospective IEEE Computer, September 1989, pp. 11-29.

Technology and Magic Because computers tend to be easier to use, they need less skills. People tend to less understand what is behind these interfaces. It appears as something mysteriously hidden. Without these skills they can not understand how the machine works. These graphical interfaces simplified the use of these devices but they have put people away from understanding the machine.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The spirit of modern technology is to create a sense of miraculousness by hiding functionality behind smooth, shiny surfaces.â&#x20AC;?8 Allen W. Batteau

Softwares, the soul of devices Moreover, adding the fact that comparing to basic tools like notepads, pen, paper, new technologies seem to have a consciousness because they are made of hardware and software. It is these softwares: mobile applications or operating system which provide the different usages of these tools. Electronic devices are only the support of these programs. A smartphone without its OS, its application, generally speaking; without its softwares, is a useless tool without any usage. These systems are the grey matter of the device. This is why it changes from our classical tools because their usage lies in their form whereas here the usage lies in the software. In some way it is closer than a human body than a simple tool like a classic phone. Because its faculty of being useful depends less on the form of the product than on its system inside. A dead body is inert, without any capacity of thinking, useless. A smartphone or a computer without operating system is like this dead body, inert, without any applications, in one word: useless. Softwares are like the spirit and consciousness of hardware. They work together, in symbiosis, but people do not really understand the link and interaction between hardware and software. It remembers what Mickael, the software developer I met, said to me. I asked him if he could describe the process of 8

Allen W. Batteau, Technology and Culture, ed. Waveland Pr Inc, 2009, p.101

Humanization of Electronic Devices

Example of

Percussive Maintenance

from the movie Back to The Future

where Marty McFly smashes his hitech car to make it works in order to go back to the future. Back to the Future, 1985, dir. Robert Zemeckis

Technology and Magic taking and saving a picture on my smartphone: how it works inside my smartphone. I thought he could enlighten me. He answered me all the process that the machine does: « Step 1 : I upload a pictures Step 2 : A Program processes my photo, and converts it to a readable format Step 3 : It saves it in the hardware Step 4 : The program writes a command to ask the hardware to show it » But then, when I asked him how it works inside components, one layer deeper. He said: « Sorry. I know how to program it but I don’t understand how the machine works in the deep.»

Why are you doing that, machine!? These understandable and usable interfaces which hide the complex part of the machine. The process of designing to make it easier to use and understand, through a more accessible way to control the machine. A way where people do not have to understand how the machine works to use it. Those things create also a kind of magic around electronic devices. But it makes computers and smartphones uncontrollable and incomprehensible sometimes. Especially when machines do not want to respond to your control. Or when they crash. Because we do not understand why the machine does that. We tend to think that there is a mysterious spirit behind, which does everything to upset us. So we try to regain this control, and communicate with it through unconventional ways like moving quickly the cursor, yelling, insulting it, even striking it. We call that « Percussive Maintenance ». It means hitting an electronic device in order to encourage it to work properly. Sometimes, it works, sometimes, not. Because unpredictable and incomprehensible, for common people, are the reaction of computers, it leads to think that, what is behind is alive. As if these machines were like pets we can manage by voice, correcting them when they do a mistake. 82

Humanization of Electronic Devices

Scan this QR-code to watch the compilation Percussive Maintenance9 by Duncan Robson of percussive maintenances in movies.

Toward sensible & responsive surrounding environments The impression we have that electronic devices are alive, because we do not understand how do they work, will be stronger and stronger. Firstly, because of the development of the internet of things: the fact of connecting our daily objects to internet through electronic components and sensors to make them smart. We are going to be more and more surrounded by electronic devices. At this time, we are seing a bunch of wearable devices flooding the markets like these smart bracelets or smart watches, full of sensors to track our daily activities, coaching our sport sessions, watching our sleep activity. Moreover, I met some guys at the hackerspace in Shanghai, who were working on a connected air purifier for fighting pollution inside home. It is linked to your smartphone allowing you to check the quality of the air, monitoring it from your office, activating it before going back to home and so on. It is also smart because it can sense and react by itself. I mean it can detect the air quality and activate, autonomously, the filtration when the limit of good quality is exceeded. Secondly, devices become smarter and smarter. For example, when you take the subway in Shanghai you just have to « tap » your metro card on the terminal when you enter and tap again when you leave. The machine calculates the distance and the cost of your journey. Then, it debits

9 Duncan Robson, Percussive Maintenance, September 21, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=insM7oUYNOE

Technology and Magic your card of the correct amount. It is smart because it calculates automatically, in one gesture, the journey you did and the price you have to pay for. What will make them smarter is the fact of being connected to each others and the fact of being able to collect datas from us, and consequently learn through our habits. In the near future, it will be not unusual to see devices talking to each others and anticipating our moves. The metro terminal which reads my transportation card, could send to my air purifier at home, a message to say that I have just exit the subway and I am going back to home after a working day. In order to start the air purification. Rafi Haladjian said: “Jusqu’à présent, notre échange avec les données est comme l’interaction que l’on a avec des poissons dans un aquarium : on tapote sur la vitre. C’est le modèle du guichet. L’utilisateur n’est qu’une espèce de gros doigt, comme le suggérait le designer Tom Igoe. Si l’on veut quelque chose, si on veut entrer de l’information, en recevoir, en porter… Il faut se rendre au guichet, quand bien même il est miniaturisé et qu’il tient dans la poche. Le guichet est un moment d’interaction particulier, sur lequel nous devons nous concentrer, pour lequel nous devons arrêter ce que l’on faisait pour avoir une interaction spécifique avec lui. Avec le guichet, nous sommes toujours dans le modèle du terminal”. « Until now, our interactions with datas are like interactions we have with fishes in a fishbowl: we knock the window. It is the counter model. The user is a kind of big thumb, like suggested Tom Igoe. If we want something, if we want to insert, to get or to share informations… We need to go to the counter, even if it is miniaturized and in one’s pocket. The counter is an interactive special moment, on which we need to be concentrated, for which we need to stop what we were doing to have a specific interaction with it. With this counter we are still in the terminal model. » « A l’inverse, les nouveaux appareils, eux, se fondent dans notre vie quotidienne. Ils n’ont plus de boutons. Ils n’ont plus d’écran. Ils s’insèrent dans nos habitudes. Ils perçoivent notre environnement. C’est le monde des environnements sensibles. »

Humanization of Electronic Devices « On the contrary, new devices melt into our daily life. They have no more buttons, no more screens. They become part of our habits. They perceive our environment. It is the world of sensible environments. » 10

« Robots can help people to do house works. I have one of my friend who have this robot which can clean the floor. It smells the dust and goes to clean it. I cannot say that robots will be the master of the universe one day but they are handy. » Chanel said.

Invisible Interactions That smart learning by electronic devices and the fact that they will be more connected will lead to more invisible interactions. Bill Buxton who is a specialist in Interaction Design and principal researcher at Microsoft Research describes these invisible interactions: « In some sense, a successful interaction design would be transparent, almost invisible, to the point that the user would be almost unconscious of the experience until after it’s over. It is just like magic. A good interaction design also needs to fit well within the society of appliances that surrounds it. I own a car equipped with an integrated communication system. With this system, I can call my son without taking my hands off of the wheel or my eyes off of the road. I can speak with him as if he was sitting in the seat beside me. I hear him through the car stereo speakers, and my voice is captured by a microphone built into the car. If I get to my destination before the conversation is done, I can park the car, pick up my phone, close the door, and continue chatting with him without think10 Hubert Guillaud, A quoi sert l’innovation ?, January 7, 2014 http://www.internetactu.net/2014/01/07/a-quoi-sert-linnovation/

Technology and Magic ing about what just happened. Within a few minutes, the device serving as my phone changed from my car to my actual phone, and I didn’t even notice. Almost everything changed technologically but nothing interrupted my conversation. That’s a wonderful example of a transparent and integrated interactive design. » 11 These invisible interactions and the hyper presence of smart electronic devices in our environment will make our device environment more complex with less direct interactions with it. That will make them much more mysterious, much more magic but also much more natural to use.

Suffering Fast Obsolescence The major problem of such complexity and such incomprehension behind our electronic objects is that they are much more under fast obsolescence. Because they can not be repaired without specific skills. They can not be easily, physically upgraded according to people new needs. They can not be reuse for an other usage. My Windows 98 is still working but I can not use it anymore because it is not enough powerful to host current softwares or to display current contents from internet. When we will have a lot of connected devices at home: how long will be their lifetime before to be outdated and put into the trash bin? It is the biggest problem with these unaccessible technologies. By making devices which are too complex, usable but incomprehensible for common people, we are self dependent of the release of new products and dependent of few people or companies who know how it works inside. We can not easily change broken components, can not really upgrade devices. So after four years when your smartphone is out-dated, you can not add more processing power to use current applications, you need to buy a new one.

11 Chine Labbé, interview of Bill Buxton, “The best interaction design is transparent, almost invisible”, RSLN mag, June 15, 2011 http://www.rslnmag.fr/post/2011/06/15/Bill-Buxton-%E2%80%9CThe-best-interaction-design-is-transparent-almost-invisible%E2%80%9D.aspx

Humanization of Electronic Devices Some alternatives are in development like Project Ara12 by Motorola & Google, same as Phoneblocks, which is a phone made by plugged blocks. Each block corresponds to a function of the phone like camera, battery, screen, sound block and so on. You can customize it as you need: if you want more battery you can choose to replace the camera and have a bigger battery block instead. But maybe the better would be to make it easier to understand what is inside our machine to make people able to repair, transform, upgrade, play with new technologies according to their needs.

Understanding new technologies To face this magic, and incomprehension behind, some people introduced as « hackers » are trying to appropriate themselves new technologies, trying to understand and hijack them to make them fit their needs. That is where hackerspaces come from. They are places where people hijack new technologies. Trying to make them better fit their needs by changing their functions. Deconstructing to understand them. Adding components to increase their capacities. Playing with it. Berlina is part of this movement. I interviewed her at Xin Che Jian, the first hackerspace in Shanghai just after they moved to a new place. We were sitting in front of a large table where there were some electric wires, small transistors, leds, and a soldering iron. In this place which smell tinkering and crazy inventions, Berlina told me why she is now involved in that movement. At first she found that new technology was a kind of mystery. She tried to unravel this mystery and understand how does it work. After experimenting, hacking electronic things, she affirmed to me that « it can be accessible with creativity and fun, you don’t need to be a superman of engineering to play with the technology. »

12 The Verge, Project Ara: building the modular smartphone, April 15, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQqudiUdGuo

Technology and Magic Now, she tries to democratize and make people, especially women, better understand new technologies by putting sensors, programmable circuit board, and DIY kits into their hands. « One of my friend made some Augmenting nails by augmented reality, you scan the nail with your smartphone and it makes it animate. That is just fun, without being useful, but it is good to make people aware of new technology with fun stuff. I would like to bring girls into the maker movement : fabrication for girls, I want to make more girls to get in touch, to know about technology and to play with. I would like to encourage women, and to promote new technologies through a funny and accessible way, because it is a field mostly led by males.» All of that has been being possible because of the convergence of: the decreasing cost of electronic components, the multiplication of open source projects on internet in which experienced people help the others, and also by the apparition of maker spaces which make the « behind the scene » of new technologies accessible to everyone interested.

To conclude this chapter, I would say that complexity of electronic devices which creates this incomprehension behind them, leads to mystify these objects. It makes them appear as conscious things. Increased by the fact that there are interactive, and reactive to their environment and to human stimulus. Moreover, they are intelligent things that are adaptive and anticipative by the fact that they tend to provide invisible interactions to be as natural as possible for the user. That transparency creates a kind of magic because they can interact with their environment without human inputs to anticipate our future needs. But this magic aspect behind, hides a current problem: the fact of behind slave of things that we do not or could not understand. Slaves because we are constantly subjected to its whims without being able to repair it, to upgrade it, or to use it as we want. Slaves also because of the fast evolution of new technologies that make our devices outdated in less than 2 years. That is why I think it is important to know how electronic devices work in order to retake the control of our tools. And potentially, to offer them a second life much more durable.

Humanization of Electronic Devices

Hackerspace XinCheJian first hackerspace in Shanghai, where people can hijack new technologies and appropriate them.

Technology and Magic The complexity of electronic devices, created by the association of electronics and computer programming, hidden behind friendly user interfaces, gives to the user the sensation of having magical powers. But, users are like apprentice magicians with super magic wands without knowing why it provides such extraordinary powers. This tends to a sacralization of new technologies. Especially in China where people can find in those a way to express themselves and to affirm their individuality. But magicians without consciousness experiment a lot of things, as babies discovering world. Making errors to understand: like touching fire to realize that fire burns. New technologies and innovation are part of this process of eternal discovery and advancement. People need to be guided to understand this new electronic world around us. In order to be more mature and wiser concerning the use of these tools. I believe it is part of the role of interaction designers who are the link between new technologies and users. This tends to a sacralization of new technologies. Especially in China where people can find in those a way to express themselves and to affirm their individuality. But magicians without consciousness experiment a lot of things, as babies discovering world. Making errors to understand: like touching fire to realize that fire burns. New technologies and innovation are part of this process of eternal discovery and advancement. People need to be guided to understand this new electronic world around us. In order to be more mature and wiser concerning the use of these tools. I believe it is part of the role of interaction designers who are the link between new technologies and users.

A Magic Tool

Young boy playing with a robot at Shanghai Marker Carnival 2015

Technology and Magic

New technologies Vehicles for Transculturality

I would like to end this master thesis by discussing the transcultural impact of information and communications technologies. To what extend, our electronic devices play a significant role for transculturality? Wolfgang Welsh defines the concept of transculturality as « a consequence of the inner differentiation and complexity of modern cultures. These encompass a number of ways of life and cultures, which also interpenetrate or emerge from one another. »1 This notion of cultures that interpenetrate or emerge from one another is pushed by new technologies of information and communications. Indeed, new technologies of information and communications subserve the mix of different cultures by breaking cultural frontiers. Wolfgang Welsch explains that « the global networking of communications technology makes all kinds of information identically available from every point in space. Henceforward there is no longer anything absolutely foreign. Everything is within reach.»2

1 Wolfgang Welsch, Transculturality - the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today, From: Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, ed. by Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, London: Sage 1999, 194-213 2 Wolfgang Welsch, Transculturality - the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today, From: Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, ed. by Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, London: Sage 1999, 194-213

Technology and Magic

Breaking language frontiers New technologies break cultural frontiers by breaking language frontiers. On the last day of 2014, I was going back to Shanghai in the high speed train from Beijing, where I spent several days visiting the city heritage. In the 15th coach, I was sitting next to a young woman. She was watching a Chinese movie on her tablet. So do I. I was staring her screen, trying to guess the narrative without sounds, without understanding the Chinese subtitles, watching as a child looking at pictures, imagining stories behind. She spotted my interest, and asked if I had understood. I explained her that my understanding level of Chinese was too low and I tried to guess the scenario. She reassured me and admitted that her level of English was not really high too. After, I tried to speak few words of Chinese and she tried to speak few words of English, we arrived at a point where we were, both, lacking of words to push further the discussion. So we continued with the aid of our smartphone using, both, our translator: Google translate for me and Baidu translate for her. I translated my French into Chinese and she translated her Chinese into English. Thanks to that technology we had a great time and she taught me the meaning of Chinese idioms from the book she was reading. We pursued our conversation the 5 remaining hours of our journey, juggling between broken Chinese, broken English and our translators. The use of the translator from my smartphone, in China, was a frequent habit to be understood and to understand, because most of the people do not speak English. Thanks to that tool, without having good Chinese language skills, I was able to communicate and to interact with the local population. Without it, I would have been as understandable as a baby, with, as much capacities of interaction. Through this kind of application, our electronic devices give us the power to communicate beyond language barriers whenever and wherever we are. On internet, translators are even more powerful because they can translate contents at once, autonomously. Even if, they still need to be improve, I use them a lot to get informations on Chinese pages I can not get without. My translator recognizes Chinese characters and transcribes them into English autonomously. The risk behind this system is to trust it too much. Because it is not perfect, because he do not really identify expressions or metaphors, translations are often approximative, sometimes wrong.

New technologies Vehicles for Transculturality

Breaking geographical frontiers New technologies break cultural frontiers by breaking geographical barriers. Through the dematerialization of things like music, books, movies, and easy distribution that the internet offers, everything and everyone is within reach. In music for example, before the age of internet, MP3, and music streaming was the age of the compact disc and tape: music on physical medium. During this previous period, music was traveling by containers, trucks, plane. Consequently, it was hard to discover local groups from foreign countries. Your musical culture was quite influenced if not, limited by your geographical position. Distribution of bands around the world was planned by few major labels which were encouraging people to listen the same thing. But music was localized, Seattle was famous for its grunge-music, Paris for its French-electronic-music, Detroit for its techno-music, Chicago for its house-music, London for its punk rock and so on. If you would like to discover indie3 foreign music out of the mainstream channel, you had to travel there or to deeply dig in your indie music retailer to find out what you were looking for. It was more difficult to discover music. Now, internet, MP3 and music streaming have broken these geographical frontiers. Through diverse streaming websites, we all possess billion of billion of songs available at once, on the spot, on our electronic devices. John Connell and Chris Gibson affirm that internet has increased the flow of subcultural musics and informations across different localities, which has help to « de-link the notion of scene from locality »4. Before to add that internet makes easier « parallel sub-cultures to become connected »5. Music genres are not anymore something really attached to the locality as before, because songs are not attached to something physical, and also because online communities are independent of any geographical positions. Places will continue to be influenced by their music history and musicians by their local communities but they are now, also, under

3 independent 4 John Connell, Chris Gibson, Soundtracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place, pub. Routledge, London, New-York, 2003, p107 5 John Connell, Chris Gibson, Soundtracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place, pub. Routledge, London, New-York, 2003, p.107

Technology and Magic a global influence thanks to online dedicated communities, social networks and music streaming. On platforms like SoundCloud, composers share their songs and influence themselves beyond geographical frontiers. Which makes hard to distinguish a song produced in France than a song produced in US, or everywhere else. As a designer, I can be influenced and enhance my projects, at once, by inspiration from all over the world. For example, to create a new kind of cooking pan for French cuisine by mixing Chinese wok with the shape of a Tajine pot from Morocco.

One big mainstream culture and more sub cultures. The apparition of the WEB 2.0, in the beginning of the 21st century , has put people as content creators and actors of it. Which has led to more interactions between users, and the apparition of a social WEB. Batteau said that, over the web, « new communities and new life forms began to proliferate »6. Through the various set of social networks available and social interactions they provided, Internet and the WEB 2.0 have contributed to blur culture boundaries. In a sense that, it has led to a connection of cultures, to a certain transculturality. Everything, Everyone is within reach. We are connected to other nationalities, other people. If, Welsch supports that: « Cultures today are extremely interconnected and entangled with each other. »7, it is in part due to that connectivity. This sensation of being connected together make us gain empathy. Especially, because it makes people closer through communities established, not on geographical orders, but on personal interests.

6 Allen W. Batteau, Technology and Culture, ed. Waveland Pr Inc, 2009, p.78 7 Wolfgang Welsch, Transculturality - the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today, From: Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, ed. by Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, London: Sage 1999, 194-213

New technologies Vehicles for Transculturality Yesterday8, 12 people working for the « Charlie Hebdo », a French journal famous for its satirical humor, were assassinated in cold blood by fanatic religious extremists. Among them, Cabu, Wolinski, Charb, Tignous, Honoré, some famous journalists and satirical cartoonists. Facing the atrocity of this direct attack against freedom of expression and French culture, the reaction was international, beyond French frontiers, beyond French people. Users of social networks like Twitter or Facebook, have spread million messages with the motto « Je suis Charlie. I am Charlie » all over the world, translated into different languages, in order to defend freedom and honor the newspaper. These new technologies of information and communications has, within a few hours, unified people against this barbarism whatever their nationality, wherever they were, in order to stand up for their common interest : the freedom of speech. Internet and social networks have led and helped to organize several protests around the world within few hours. Through this « globalization » and that connectivity has emerged new communities and more varieties of cultures, with transcultural identities. Wolfgang Welsch defines consequences of these transcultural permeation as follow: « For diversity, as traditionally provided in the form of single cultures, does indeed disappear increasingly. Instead, however, a new type of diversity takes shape: the diversity of different cultures and life-forms, each arising from transcultural permeations. »9 In some extent, electronic devices through internet play a role in the transcultural globalization and the creation of diverse cultures, which, arise from the previous merging of cultures. Each communities are fed by transcultural permeations. I mean a community of cookers can share cooking secrets from their place, their initial culture, to create transcultural recipes which will make new cultural artifacts. For example, turning a baozhi 包子10 into a chocolate cake, in order to form a new hybrid dish: a mix of Chinese and French culture and knowledge.

8 January 7, 2015 9 Wolfgang Welsch, Transculturality - the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today, From: Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, ed. by Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, London: Sage 1999, p.194-213 10 A salted steam bun typically eaten for breakfast in China.

Technology and Magic

Geotagged tweets mentioning

#JeSuisCharlie

January 7, 2014 (11:16pm)

following the massacre of 12 people in the Charlie Hebdoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s office.

New technologies Vehicles for Transculturality

Chinese internet frontiers In China, the permeation of cultures is quite limited due to internet censorship that brides access to foreign websites, social networks and services. Chinese people can not use worldwide platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud, Instagram for example. Consequently, Chinese users are isolated from occident, and have to use their own services like Weibo, QQ, WeChat and so on. During my trip to Beijing, in December, I met a Chinese drummer at a record store, in a touristic hutong. We discussed a lot about our musical interests. He talked to me about Chinese music and especially Beijing punk-rock bands and I talked to him about French music. During our discussion, I wanted him to listen on internet the song I composed few days ago. I realized that he could not access to SoundCloud11 where my song was hosted. He had a band. I would have liked to listen but he had not recorded any tracks yet. But, he gave me few names of Beijing bands, parts of his inspiration. Back to home, I tried to find them on Google and find nothing. Curious to discover his influences, I tried to search on Baidu, the Chinese Google, where I found few records. I truly realized that we were using to different internet, two different virtual worlds. I was disable to find his favorite band on my search engine, he was not able to listen to my sounds with his Chinese connection. He was not able to discover my culture and I was not to discover his own.

a musical social network based on sharing of songs

Technology and Magic

China isolated from the international internet, behind his â&#x20AC;&#x153;great firewallâ&#x20AC;?

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New technologies Vehicles for Transculturality

Creating a community identity Users of the WEB 2.0, by creating, sharing contents and interacting form communities which exchange and share informations to build a common knowledge. On Youku12, people share videos, comments and evaluates which build a common culture. Each person by uploading, viewing, rating, sharing its content contribute to his own knowledge but also to build the identity of the whole community. This, by promoting or feeding a social service with a certain kind of contents. To explain, I would say social platforms are like empty pots at first. If users put only green seeds inside, it becomes a pot of green seeds. If they fill it by 50% of green seeds, 25% of yellow seeds and 25% of red ones. The identity of the pot changes, it becomes a pot of green seeds, in majority, with yellow and red ones. Social networks identities are influenced by the content that users put inside. For example, Vimeo is a social network more art oriented comparing to Youtube or Youku. Because, users tend to post on it much more artistic videos. Sometime, it is also the way the pot is designed which influence the type of seeds you can store inside. Indeed, the way the platform is designed will influence the nature of community and its identity. For example, Pinterest is designed as a virtual pinboard which makes better the virtual creation of moodboard, shopping lists or visual collections of pictures. Consequently, on this platform, we can find big communities of designers, artists, a community around craftmanship, but also people sharing inspiration for shopping. Our smartphones could also be compared to these pots. At the beginning, they are empty. Everyone have the same device. When user starts using it, he fills it up by contents he generates: notes, photo, videos he takes. Also, by content he chooses like his favorite songs and applications he uses. Little by little, his device starts to be personalized. At the end, it became his own and share clues on user values, his identity and his culture through contents he store and applications he use. In my phone, there are creatives application for music production, 12

Chinese Youtube equivalent

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Technology and Magic filming, drawing, photo editing; applications to communicate like WeChat, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail and so on. In the device of Chanel, there are mobile payment applications like Alipay, or mobile shopping applications like Tmall, Taobao. Also, a few social network applications like QQ, Weibo, WeChat; and a lot of video games because she needs to kill her time during subway rides before and after working. We both had the same empty phone at the beginning, now, we have a totally different device.

Transcultural exchanges limited by the frame Meeting people online, foreigners with a different culture is not the same as living in the same place, meeting in real. On one side, because identities of internet users are hidden behind the screen. As drawer Peter Steiner said « On Internet, nobody knows you are a dog »13. Indeed, people on internet can choose their own identity, under the cover of a username, they can interact with each other almost anonymously. Few, are services which require a real authentication. When we talk to strangers through internet, relationships and interactions are only based on trust. It is easy to mislead anyone, because the context is missing. Owing to the fact that online, we have just a limited point of view, like in a photography, we cannot see out of the frame. Before to come to Shanghai, I have watched online a collection of photos and videos of the city and I thought it would be a futuristic city full of new technologies, a city ahead of his time. I thought that everything would be grey, white and aseptic, with skyscrapers full of neon lights. In short, a futuristic city from science fiction movies. In fact, there is a bit of that in the Shanghai environment, but I had no idea that it has also this atmosphere of a developing country which remembers me Morocco, where my grand parents live. I mean the resourcefulness of people: turning a tree into a clothes dryer, transporting anything and everything on a scooter like a sheep, fishbowls full of fishes, or some big water-cans. And also life conditions like non-potable water, street food barbecue, people sleeping in their shop, various sanitary problems and doubts, messy traffic and so on.

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Peter Steiner, On Internet, nobody knows you are a dog, The New Yorker, July 5, 1993

New technologies Vehicles for Transculturality Even if, now, people can do some tourism without leaving their couch, surfing and discovering places on Google Earth for example, it will never replaces the experience of living in the real place. Because traveling through internet can not reveal all the complexity of the real world, in terms of sensations, emotions, memories, discoveries and social relations. I can watch one thousand blogs about people living in India and become aware of what is going on there. But can I really say I have extended my culture? Of course not, because I did not experience the act of living there. I have grown my intellect, but not my culture because I have not appropriated that culture into mine. It is the difference between theory and experience. You think you know how it is, but it is always different when you get there. That is why, informations provided on the web to some extent are false images misrepresented by our imagination until we live the experience of those informations. We can not really understand what is going on in other places if we have not experienced the context of such informations.

To conclude, electronic devices as new technologies of information and communications help people to be closer by connecting themselves beyond their locality, beyond their language differences. Users are linked under a global network according to their own interests. They build online communities which influence them. They extend their knowledge through collaborative and social interactions which aim to share informations. By enlarging their knowledge, their personal culture evolve. Their own cultural identity is enriched by a combination of different influences from other cultures, other lifestyles. This hybridization of our cultures, as a result of our worldwide connectivity, online communities and the massive sharing of informations, leads to a gain of empathy. Indeed, by sharing informations and communicating we tend to better understand the others. But, China tends to be excluded from this worldwide connection.

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Conclusion

Four years later, I chose to study interaction design because I was fascinated by new technologies. I remember when Microsoft Xbox released the Kinect. It was a sensor which made possible the use of the Xbox game console without any gamepad. You could play and interact with the machine without pushing buttons, only by your body gesture. I wanted to unravel the mystery behind new technologies. This research has helped me to highlight and to understand elements which make new technologies of information and communications « magic » mediums. But it has also contributed to reveal why they are so addictive and to understand the role of magic in this addictiveness. It addresses the thematic through my global point of view, led by anthropological interviews of Shanghainese people and references. I frequently widen my considerations to global users of these technologies when my thoughts can be widespread, when they do not concern only the Shanghai context. The anthropological research I have led in Shanghai has conducted me to find answers to explain the strong attachment that Shanghainese users have related to their smartphones. First of all, if they are so fond of those devices, it is due to their usefulness. Facing the size of the city of Shanghai and the country of China, the inhabitants use them as a tool to break distances. Indeed, by using their smartphones they can do their shopping online while they are in the subway. They can order food without leaving their office. They can communicate with their family living in an other province. This usefulness saves their precious time and is reinforced by the fact that a smartphone is a customizable object. It can be adapted, at once, to suit the need of its user. It is the notion of software which allows the user to change its usage according to his request, to make it adaptable and evolutive.

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Technology and Magic Then, they are attached to their smartphone because it is a social standing indicator. Genuine social phenomenon, possessing a smartphone is required to communicate with others through social networks like WeChat and not being excluded from the connected population. I mean being unable to share interests online with them, unable to use some services like Taxi ordering and so on. This research made me understand also why new technologies are tinged with magic. By magic, I mean the fact of providing tremendous powers and being incomprehensible for users. If we can consider our electronic devices as mysterious devices, it is because they have taken the same functioning schema of our brain. I mean a duality: mind - brain for human and software - hardware for the machine. The software part can be compared to our mind because it can evolve and adapt to circumstances thanks to malleability of computer code. The hardware part is similar to human brain because it supports the software, as the brain supports our mind. This relation is really complex because it encompasses several areas of competences like: electronics, computer programming and design, to fully unravel this complexity. It is due to this difficulty to completely understand new technologies without all the skills that our electronic devices appear as mysterious and incomprehensible. But it is beyond doubt that magic plays also a role in the addictiveness behind electronic devices. What makes new technologies of communications and information attractive and fascinating is their powers. I mean their faculty to provide us an almost unlimited number of tools in one single object, but also, their ability to connect us, together. They transform our identity thanks to the instant access to the world wide network that internet supplies. And, furthermore, the transcultural accessibility to any kinds of content that the Web 2.0 allows, at any time, everywhere. Content is generated by users which contribute to fulfill the biggest collection of the world knowledge. The best example is the collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia which contains a part of this transcultural knowledge. New technologies also preserve identity by stocking all user memories, all his multimedia contents, all his personal datas inside his electronic devices: smartphones, tablets and computers. Those devices, at first empty, become the reflection of userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s life, of his identity, by being constantly transformed and enriched by him. They are connected to his life, they are fed by his quotidian events: a new contact, a photo taken during a party, a movie recorded at a friendâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s birth106

Conclusion day, his agenda, and so on. They constitute a second memory, more accurate, based on facts instead of emotions. Those powers encourage the intimate relation people have with their devices. At that point, loosing them or forgetting this smartphone in a taxi would be a disaster, is not it? This case would lead to the partial deletion of userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s memory, but also, to the incapacity of user to communicate with friends and family. He would be deprived of his quotidian comfort, spending more time to go eating at the restaurant, to pay his bills at the counter and so on. Furthermore, he would be deprived of accessibility to informations. Without being able to find any addresses, he would have to find them on a paper map. Unable to listen to music, watch movies or play video games during his long subway ride. Even worst, he might have to talk to his wife during dinners or to his friends during parties. The question we could ask today is what kind of human those new technologies will shape, in the near future? How new technologies of communications and information will change humain beings? Will we be smarter or stupid, facing this quantity of informations and knowledges available? How will they shape our future identity? Will we have more wisdom concerning the use of these new technologies? Or, on the contrary, will we be more addicted and more enslaved by those ones? Facing the arrival of the internet of things and hundred of smart products connected to internet which will help us, and improve our daily lives; I guess life will be easier and we will be more dependent. But we need to avoid forgetting our human skills by assigning those to the machine. Those questions are the responsibility of interaction designers which are the link between those technologies and users. We might educate users and guide them toward a glorious future where new technologies are at the service of users and not users enslaved by new technologies. We also might consider the part of the population which have no access to those technologies to avoid excluding them when we create new services using those ones. Finally, maybe the magic in new technology is to live this brutal change of our daily life, and to do not know, toward which evolution they push humankind.

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SOURCES PERSONAL TREASURE BOX BIBLIOGRAPHY Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborg, 2004, ed.Oxford University Press Edward L. Shaughnessy, Exploring the Life, Myth, and Art of Ancient China, 2009, ed. Rosen Pub New York Manfred Clynes, Astronautics, September 1960 http://web.mit.edu/digitalapollo/Documents/Chapter1/cyborgs.pdf Robert K. Logan, Understanding New Media: Extending Marshall McLuhan, 2010, ed. Peter Lang International Academic Publishers

WEBOGRAPHY Camille Gicquel, Mais au fait, c’est quoi le Quantified Self ?, Regard Sur Le Numérique (RSLN), March 01, 2014 http://www.rslnmag.fr/post/2014/03/01/Mais-au-fait-cest-quoi-le-QuantifiedSelf-.aspx Ian Tucker, How Selfies became a global phenomenon, The guardian, July 14, 2013 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/jul/14/how-selfies-became-a-global-phenomenon James Kilner spoke at a National Portrait Gallery panel discussion, The science behind why we take selfies, BBC, January 16, 2014 http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-magazine-monitor-25763704 Lauren Maffeo, Ghost in the Cloud: Dealing with data after death, November 13, 2013 http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/11/16/ghost-cloud-dealing-datadeath/

Terence Lee, Chinese selfie photo app BeautyPlus edits your face: Enlarge eyes, look slimmer, TechInAsia, August 5, 2013 https://www.techinasia.com/beautyplus-selfie-app/ Vamien McKalin, Sony creates selfie camera that looks like a perfume bottle: Future success or future failure?, August 24, 2014 http://www.techtimes.com/articles/13913/20140824/sony-creates-selfie-camera-that-looks-like-a-perfume-bottle-future-success-or-future-failure.htm

VIDEOGRAPHY Apple, la Tyrannie du Cool, directed by Sylvain Bergere, December 13, 2011, Documentary http://boutique.arte.tv/f7106-apple_tyrannie_du_cool Andy Martin, Selfie, 2014, short movie http://www.andymartin.info/shortfilms/selfie.html, Black Mirror, 2011, TV serie, United Kingdom, created by Charlie Brooker Be Right Back, from Black Mirror, Episode 1 Season 2, 2013. Jamin Warren, Can Video Games Be A Spiritual Experience? May 22, 2014 http://youtu.be/vK91LAiMOio Tron: Legacy, 2010, Film,125 minutes, American, directed by Joseph Kosinski

MAGIC TOOLBOX BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen W. Batteau, Technology and Culture, ed. Waveland Pr Inc, 2009 Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborg, 2004, ed.Oxford University Press Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964 Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is The Massage, 1967, pub. Bantam books

Multi-authors, The first web-published book, January 2000 http://www.livinginternet.com/i/ii_mcluhan.htm Robert C. MacDougal, Digination: Identity, Organization, and Public Life in the Age of Small Digital Devices and Big Digital Domains, 2011, pub. Fairleigh Dickinson

WEBOGRAPHY Emerson Rosenthal, Dive Into The Clouds In This Code-Generated Music Video, The Creators Project, July 29, 2014 http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/en_au/blog/premiere-dive-into-the-clouds-in-thiscode-generated-music-video?utm_source=tcptwitteranz Frank Schirrmacher, The Age of the informavore, edge.org, October 25, 2009 http://edge.org/conversation/the-age-of-the-informavore Gordon E. Moore, Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits, pub. Electronics, pp. 114–117, April 19, 1965 http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~fussell/courses/cs352h/papers/moore.pdf Helen Wang, Why China Will Lead Innovation in Social and Mobile Commerce, Forbes, August 25, 2014 http://www.forbes.com/sites/helenwang/2014/08/25/why-china-will-lead-innovation-in-social-and-mobile-commerce/ Hubert Guillaud, A quoi sert l’innovation ?, internetactu.net, January 7, 2014 http://www.internetactu.net/2014/01/07/a-quoi-sert-linnovation/ Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid?, TheAtlantic, July 1, 2008 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-usstupid/306868/ Steven Levy, All eyes on Google, Newsweek, April 11, 2004 http://www.newsweek.com/all-eyes-google-125003 Steven Millward, China’s mobile commerce spending to surpass $50 billion in 2014, nearly double last year’s total, techinasia.com, April 3, 2014 https://www.techinasia.com/china-mobile-commerce-spending-2014-will-surpass50-billion-dollars/ Unknown, The Age of the Bamboo Slip, china.org.cn, 2003

http://www.china.org.cn/english/2003/Jun/66332.htm Unknown, »Moore’s Law” Predicts the Future of Integrated Circuits, computerhistory.org http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1965-Moore.html

VIDEOGRAPHY The Wachowski Brothers, Matrix, 1999, film GANGNAM STYLE M/V - Psy, 2012, videoclip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0 Alain Damasio, sci-fi author, Très Humain plutôt que transhumain, TEDxParis, October 6, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cR0T5-a6YTc Apple, la Tyrannie du Cool, directed by Sylvain Bergere, December 13, 2011, documentary http://boutique.arte.tv/f7106-apple_tyrannie_du_cool

HUMANIZATION OF INTERFACES BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen W. Batteau, Technology and Culture, ed. Waveland Pr Inc, 2009 Benoît Drouillat, Petit dictionnaire du design numérique, Designers interactifs

WEBOGRAPHY Carl Franzen, Michel Gondry talks technology, his latest film ‘Mood Indigo,’ and why he can’t use an iPhone, July 21, 2014 http://www.theverge.com/2014/7/21/5923233/michel-gondrys-mood-indigointerview-q-and-a

Chine Labbé, interview of Bill Buxton, “The best interaction design is transparent, almost invisible”, RSLN mag, June 15, 2011 http://www.rslnmag.fr/post/2011/06/15/Bill-Buxton-%E2%80%9CThe-best-interaction-design-is-transparent-almost-invisible%E2%80%9D.aspx Hubert Guillaud, A quoi sert l’innovation ?, January 7, 2014 http://www.internetactu.net/2014/01/07/a-quoi-sert-linnovation/

VIDEOGRAPHY Duncan Robson, Percussive Maintenance, September 21, 2013 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=insM7oUYNOE The Verge, Project Ara: building the modular smartphone, April 15, 2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQqudiUdGuo

New technologies Vehicles FOR Transculturality BIBLIOGRAPHY Allen W. Batteau, Technology and Culture, ed. Waveland Pr Inc, 2009 John Connell, Chris Gibson, Soundtracks: Popular Music, Identity and Place, pub. Routledge, London, New-York, 2003 Peter Steiner, On Internet, nobody knows you are a dog, The New Yorker, July 5, 1993 Wolfgang Welsch, Transculturality - the Puzzling Form of Cultures Today, From: Spaces of Culture: City, Nation, World, ed. by Mike Featherstone and Scott Lash, London: Sage 1999

Acknowledgments

First of all, I would like to thanks a lot my supervisor and anthropologist Karolina Pawlik for her good advices during all my research and her encouragements about writing. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Chanel, Mickael, Qian Shi Jie, Rasul, Lujia, Berlina, Chengyu who has accepted to sacrifice a part of their afternoons in order to answer my questions and to share their experiences. I would like to thanks also the Shanghai hackerspace XinCheJian and the FabLab XinFab, for its welcoming and for helping people to discover and understand new technologies. Special thanks: To Berlina who gave me, at the beginning, a good overview of the Shanghainese context concerning new technologies. To all my friends, and especially, my roommates Gauthier and Maxime who supported me, who helped me, who shared their own stories about new technologies and who made me think and improve my reflection. To my best friends and classmates from Interaction Design: Ariane, Gaetan and Clara for their support, their thoughts and their advices. To my family

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