Empire of Signals: Techno-Ecology without Nature in Japan

Abstract

Along with the development of technology undermining the traditional notion of humanity in Judeo-Christianity, a variety of debates on beyond-human phenomena have emerged since the late twentieth century. However, without waiting for these debates, outside of the West, similar phenomena have occurred even before the late twentieth century. This paper will explore the non-representational forces of human–technology relations in Japan, focusing on the transition of the technological environment from the 1960s to the 1990s. An affective continuum between humans and natural or artificial things, including modern technology in the 1960s, was formed through material interfaces. However, in the 1990s, when electronic technology began to be used to control sensory signals in detail, the equilibrium of representational and non-representational forces became unstable. The paper illustrates an alternate type of humanity-centered limitation which would help to relativize the dominant Western context