Wirelessness: Radical Empiricism in Network Cultures (Hardcover)

How has wirelessness—being connected to objects and infrastructures without knowing exactly how or where—become a key form of contemporary experience? Stretching across routers, smart phones, netbooks, cities, towers, Guangzhou workshops, service agreements, toys, and states, wireless technologies have brought with them sensations of change, proximity, movement, and divergence. In Wirelessness, Adrian Mackenzie draws on philosophical techniques from a century ago to make sense of this most contemporary postnetwork condition. The radical empiricism associated with the pragmatist philosopher William James, Mackenzie argues, offers fresh ways for matching the disordered flow of wireless networks, meshes, patches, and connections with felt sensations.

For Mackenzie, entanglements with things, gadgets, infrastructures, and services—tendencies, fleeting nuances, and peripheral shades of often barely registered feeling that cannot be easily codified, symbolized, or quantified—mark the experience of wirelessness, and this links directly to James's expanded conception of experience. "Wirelessness" designates a tendency to make network connections in different times and places using these devices and services. Equally, it embodies a sensibility attuned to the proliferation of devices and services that carry information through radio signals. Above all, it means heightened awareness of ongoing change and movement associated with networks, infrastructures, location, and information.

The experience of wirelessness spans several strands of media-technological change, and Mackenzie moves from wireless cities through signals, devices, networks, maps, and products, to the global belief in the expansion of wireless worlds.

無線性——即連接到物體和基礎設施，卻不確切知道如何或在哪裡連接——如何成為當代經驗的一種關鍵形式？無線技術跨越路由器、智能手機、網絡筆記本、城市、塔樓、廣州工作坊、服務協議、玩具和國家，帶來了變革、接近、移動和分歧的感覺。在《無線性》一書中，Adrian Mackenzie借鑒了一個世紀前的哲學技巧，以理解這種最當代的後網絡狀態。Mackenzie主張，與實用主義哲學家威廉·詹姆斯（William James）相關的激進經驗主義為將無線網絡、網絡、補丁和連接的無序流動與感知感覺相匹配提供了新的方法。

對於Mackenzie來說，與物品、小工具、基礎設施和服務的纏繞——傾向、瞬息萬變的細微差別和邊緣色調，通常幾乎無法被簡單編碼、象徵或量化——標誌著無線性的經驗，這直接與詹姆斯對經驗的擴展概念相關聯。'無線性'指的是使用這些設備和服務在不同的時間和地點進行網絡連接的傾向。同樣，它體現了對通過無線信號傳輸信息的設備和服務的激增的敏感度。最重要的是，它意味著對與網絡、基礎設施、位置和信息相關的持續變化和運動的高度意識。

無線性的經驗涵蓋了幾個媒體技術變革的方面，Mackenzie從無線城市、信號、設備、網絡、地圖和產品，到全球對無線世界擴展的信仰。