[Themaintainers] Question from a journalist

Fri Apr 19 14:10:29 EDT 2019

hey Lynn and all!

This might be a bit off topic but your email got me thinking about the
conditions that might have led us to value more innovation rather than
maintenance. These texts and the connection they make between copyright and
intellectual property laws and the original/new > copy/repetition hierarchy
are interesting.

Arindam Dutta incredible work on the nineteenth century Britain's
Department of Science and Arts, a venture organized by the Board of Trade,
and how the DSA exerted a powerful influence on the growth of museums,
design schools, and architecture throughout the British Empire deploys a
very interesting argument about the relation between the copy and the
original and the metropole and the colony. I really appreciated how the
book connects this relation to the development of specific copyright
regulation during that time.
https://architecture.mit.edu/publication/bureaucracy-beauty-design-age-its-global-reproducibility

Also, Ivan de Costa Marquez makes an interesting argument about Brazil's
reverse engineering efforts in  "Cloning computers: From rights of
possession to rights of creation"
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09505430500110887

Finally, Cori Hayden's ideas about pharmaceutical and intellectual property
n the "THE PROPER COPY: The insides and outsides of domains made public"
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17530351003617602 might be
relevant.

Best

Vero

Verónica Uribe A.

Ph.D. Student, Communication and Science Studies
University of California, San Diego
vuribede at ucsd.edu | veronicauribea.com | @veronia

On Fri, Apr 19, 2019 at 10:31 AM Evan Hepler-Smith <
evan.heplersmith at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Lynn and all,
>
> On your broader topic of the value of repetition rather than maintenance
> specifically, worth checking out Winnie Wong,
> <https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/V/bo15260849.html>*Van
> Gogh on Demand: China and the Readymade
> <https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/V/bo15260849.html>. *Pretty
> cool treatment of the "factory imaginary" that both sets up novelty >
> repetition hierarchy and situates certain kinds of work as low-status
> repetition. It's nice because it digs into both of these processes: (1) how
> work that might well be considered creative & novel or mechanical &
> repetitive gets slotted into one category or the other, and (2) how this
> opposition of creative & novel (more privileged) / mechanical & repetitive
> (less privileged) gets established and reinforced and contested.
>
> Evan
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 19, 2019 at 9:21 AM Aaron Alcorn <AaronA at livingcomputers.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Hey Lynn,
>>
>>
>>
>> I was recently talking about a phenomenon known as solder migration with
>> a computer engineer. In essence, repetitive use of computer equipment
>> causes the metal in solder to ionize and migrate on circuitry, leading to
>> system failure. It’s a years’ long process, but it is a real problem for
>> legacy systems.
>>
>>
>>
>> I am happy to connect off-list to make the introduction if you think it
>> would be helpful.
>>
>>
>>
>> --Aaron
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Aaron Alcorn, Ph.D.
>>
>> Curator | Living Computers: Museum + Labs
>>
>> D  206.342.2157
>>
>> M 206.247.0153
>>
>>
>>
>> www.livingcomputers.org <http://www.livingcomputermuseum.org/>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu <
>> themaintainers-bounces at lists.stevens.edu> *On Behalf Of *Lee Vinsel
>> *Sent:* Friday, April 19, 2019 8:20 AM
>> *To:* Lynn Berger <lynn at decorrespondent.nl>
>> *Cc:* Themaintainers <themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Themaintainers] Question from a journalist
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi, Lynn!!
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm sure others will have other examples, including examples that should
>> be coming to my mind (it's Friday!), but what first comes to me are some
>> examples that David Edgerton highlights in Shock of the Old of bicycle and
>> radio repair sectors in, I think, Japan leading to the birth of new
>> (innovative) industries there, including the much larger electronics
>> industry. My copy of Shock is at home rather than here at my office, but I
>> can get you a citation if needed.
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm very interested generally in repetition, or how I think about and
>> teach it more often as . . .  human habit . . . as well as organizational
>> routines. Both habits and routines are central to the
>> history/sociology/economics of maintenance, I think.
>>
>>
>>
>> Best,
>>
>>
>>
>> Lee
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Apr 19, 2019 at 5:25 AM Lynn Berger <lynn at decorrespondent.nl>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Hello Maintainers!
>>
>>
>>
>> Short version: I'm a journalist working on a story about the value of
>> repetition and why we usually overlook it because we're more interested in
>> novelty. I draw a parallel to how we tend to prefer innovation to
>> maintenance and want to point out that this is silly, not least because
>> maintenance is often a condition for innovation. And now I'm wondering: do
>> the people on this list have some examples of when maintenance work led to
>> new insights that led to innovation?
>>
>>
>>
>> Slightly longer version:
>>
>> My name is Lynn Berger and I've been on this list for some time. I have a
>> PhD in communications from Columbia University (I studied 19th century
>> photography and the law) but for the last six years I've been working as a
>> journalist at De Correspondent, an online journalism platform based in
>> Amsterdam. I cover technology and culture there; a few years ago I wrote a
>> piece about the rediscovery of maintenance, with pride of place for the
>> maintainers. (Those who read Dutch can find it here
>> <https://decorrespondent.nl/6816/he-innovators-gamechangers-en-disrupters-vergeten-jullie-het-onderhoud-niet/227102304-f476506a>,
>> and a short followup I wrote on repair, here
>> <https://decorrespondent.nl/7414/waarom-het-recht-op-repareren-ons-allemaal-aangaat/247027066-a9e9bbdc>
>> .)
>>
>>
>>
>> Currently I'm working on a story about the value of repetition and how we
>> tend to overlook it because we're more interested in novelty. I draw a
>> parallel to how we tend to prefer innovation to maintenance and want to
>> point out that this is missing the point, not least because maintenance is
>> often a condition for innovation.
>>
>>
>>
>> And now I'm wondering: do the people on this list have some examples of
>> when maintenance work led to new insights that led to innovation?
>>
>>
>>
>> I'd be grateful for a few good and concrete examples. And for your time,
>> of course!
>>
>>
>>
>> Thank you in advance and keep up the good work (!)
>>
>> Lynn.
>>
>>
>>
>> Lynn Berger
>>
>> De Correspondent <http://www.decorrespondent.nl/lynnberger>
>>
>> Barentzplein 7BG
>>
>> 1013 NJ Amsterdam
>>
>> @LynnBerger1984 <https://twitter.com/LynnBerger1984>
>>
>> 06 24102193
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Assistant Professor
>> Department of Science, Technology, and Society
>>
>> Virginia Tech
>>
>> leevinsel.com
>> Twitter: @STS_News
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>
>
> --
> Evan Hepler-Smith
> evan.heplersmith at gmail.com
> 339.203.1096
> evanheplersmith.com
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