Science Fiction and the Limits of Narrativizing Environmental Digital Technologies

Abstract

Contemporary authors of science fiction have taken up the challenge of imagining digital technologies whose functions and effects elude human awareness. Such technologies differ from earlier examples in their environmental aspect, brought on by networks that operate at levels “above” and “below” those of a human subject. Another way to describe environmental digital technologies is through the concept of assemblage, involving not only many forms of human labor and material resources, but also collectivities of entities performing cognitive acts, circulating information, interpretations, and meanings. While these collectivities obviously do involve human subjects pursuing different interests, the way that the assemblage functions as a whole does not correspond to human levels of behavior, perception, or scale.