Decay, Maintenance and Repair Symposium - Session Two

Abstract

Laura Forlano - TITLE: "The Best Sleep of My Life: Automated and Networked Medical Devices as Sites of Feminist Technoscience". This paper takes on the tensions between the imaginaries of automation and in networked medical devices and the realities of lived experience by analyzing “the world’s first hybrid closed loop system,” a recently released insulin pump and continuous glucose monitor (CGM) system. In particular, through autoethnographic accounts of living with these devices, I develop a multi-scalar theory of broken body thinking that collapses the world onto the body, which suggested a different set of concerns, relations, contingencies and processes within discussions of decay, maintenance, repair and care.

Priya Jain - TITLE: "Every Little Thing: Documenting and Repairing Historic Facades in the Digital Age".

Lisa Marks - TITLE: "Repairing as Making: From a Single Stitch to the Fabric of a Cultural Practice". Decay, Maintenance, and Repair happens at a variety of scales. At a small scale we examine how we treat the natural mistakes of handmade materials; some of which are repaired in-process, and some of which can bring new methods to light. At a large scale we can look at the many endangered crafts worldwide. As we experience the decay, can we leverage our new technology to maintain and possibly even repair the practices that have helped us build tradition and techniques? In this talk we explore the process of repairing as an integral part of making and how that can contribute to a final outcome at a small and large scale.