Minor technologies

Last updated: Tuesday, 02 July 2024

Extrapolating from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s essay “Kafka: Toward a Minor Literature” (1975).

Minor literature involves using a major language in strange, intensive ways, making the language “stutter” and “take flight”? It uncovers the revolutionary potential within major literatures; the “becoming-minor” of great works.

Minor, not (necessarily) small. A relative position to major/big technology; equally a question of scale and of power. Minor feelings, and rearguard yin tactics? Not just critical/oppositional; seeking a more slippery, oplique positioning.

  • A characteristic of minor technologies is that everything in them is politics
  • A minor technology is that which a minority constructs within the grammar of technology
  • A characteristic of a minor technology is that in it everything takes on a collective value
  • A minor technology is an intensive utilisation of technology — it utilises the inner tensions of technology — Christian Ulrik Andersen & Geoff Cox, “Toward a Minor Tech” (2023)

The struggle for autonomy of expression.

the quality of being minor … does not only involve using master frameworks to express alternative views, but can also include exploring other formats of engagement that are distributed and non-linear. — Teodora Sinziana Fartan, “Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions” (2023)

Minor tech … becomes cumulative through this sense of the collectivity forming at the core of its production, which generates active solidarities across communities, practitioners and artifacts – a solidarity that cements itself as a collective utterance. — Teodora Sinziana Fartan, “Rendering Post-Anthropocentric Visions” (2023)

Repurposing existing systems and platforms as ‘technologies of possibility’; counterpoints to the ‘universal ideals embedded in technologies’ (Fartan 2023).

Zines, DIY publishing, community radio, bicycles, the Fediverse. What else?

  • [⎈] How can we distinguish “minor” technologies from “major” ones? Consider how this distinction plays out in practical scenarios. Can you identify contemporary “minor technologies” in everyday life or specific fields (e.g., education, healthcare, communication)?
  • [?] How do minor technologies reveal or challenge power dynamics? Are there historical precedents of minor technologies effecting significant political change?
  • [&] Compare with: appropriate technology?

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