Translations: Artifacts from an Actor-Network Perspective

Abstract iPods, MP3s and file-sharing networks perform a series of actions that are often reserved for human agents, such as the intellectual and taste-driven labor involved in selecting, sequencing, and rediscovering forgotten sound recordings. At the same time, the familiar understanding of artifacts as stable, material, objective things “out there” is also being eroded by the infinite replicability, malleability, and ephemeral flickering of things online. These trends lead to questions regarding the ontological status of artifacts and reopen the question of how to distinguish technical and material artifacts from human and social relations. In this article, the author explores actor-network theory's (ANT) concept of translation, which advances an alternative framework for understanding the role of artifacts in everyday life.