Text from zine:
“If you define a cyborg society as one in which human relationships are mediated and shaped by technology, then our society certainly seems to meet this criterion, and our phones play a starring role. But our relationships and rituals have long been mediated by technology. The rise of massive urban centers — hubs of connectivity and innovation — would not have been possible without railroads and cars.
Machines, technology, networks, and information do not drive or organize society —people
do. We make things and use things according to the existing web of social, economic, and political relationships and the balance of power. The smartphone, and the way it shapes and reflects existing social relations, is no more meta-physical than the Ford Rangers that once rolled off the assembly line in Edison, New Jersey.
The smartphone is both a machine and a commodity. Its production is a map of global power, logistics, and exploitation. Its use shapes and reflects the perpetual confrontation between the totalizing drives of capital and the resistance of the rest of us.”
