Ploeger, Daniel and Mbillo, Greenman Muleh (2022) From Techno-Junk to Lifeworld-Device: notes on technological appropriation beyond the myth of progress. International Journal of Performance Arts and Digital Media, 18 (2). pp. 281-296. ISSN 1479-4713

Abstract

Through a fragmented collection of shared experiences and reflections, the two authors – from Kenya and the UK/Netherlands – give an impression of their practice-based research in Kenya into the reappropriation of obsolete technologies. In this, they connect to and work through their our own relationships with consumer culture and post-colonialism. In the context of a discussion of a traditional Kenyan ritual technology and the ideological implications of globalized techno-standardization, two example devices – found and developed by the authors – are presented that are aimed at connecting to the developers’ and users’ immediate lifeworlds.