Aramis, Or The Love Of Technology

Product Description

Frankenstein's monster was born of human endeavour & 19th-century ignominious end but provided many lessons during his 24 years of plans & prototypes Aramis the guided-transportation system intended for Paris represented a major advance in "personal rapid transit"
- a system that combined the efficiency of a subway with the flexibility of the private automobile But in the end the system of electronic couplings proved too complex & expensive the political will failed & the plans were jettisoned in 1987 The story of Aramis of its birth & death is told here by several different parties none of which is given precedence over any other an engineer & his professor who together act as "detectives" to ferret out the reasons for the project's failure; company executives & elected officials; a sociologist; & finally Aramis itself who delivers a passionate plea on behalf of technological innovations that risk being abandoned by their makers Technology has needs & desires especially a desire to be born but cannot function without the sustained commitment of those who have created it Part novel & part sociological study Bruno Latour has written a tale of a technological dream gone wrong As the young engineer & professor follow Aramis's trail
- conducting interviews analyzing documents assessing the evidence
- perspectives keep shifting the truth is revealed as multilayered unascertainable comprising an array of possibilities worthy of " Rasbomon" The reader is eventually led to see the project from the point of view of Aramis & along the way gains insight into the relationship between human beings & their technological creations