The Object and the Other in Holographic Research: Approaching Passivity and Responsibility of Human Actors

Abstract

This article is written in the framework of actor-network theory (ANT) and presents the results of an ethnographic study of the holographic research laboratory in Sofia, Bulgaria, conducted during the period of 1993-1997. It focuses on the microlevel of laboratory practice — the intimate relationships between scientists and the objects they are studying. The article specifies the constrictions imposed by the concepts of “laboratory” and “experiment,” and advances a new concept of heterogeneous couple. The “coupling” is a process in which the initial asymmetry between “active” and “passive” modes of behavior changes toward more balanced and “distributed” patterns of interaction. Theheterogeneous couple is defined as an elementary form of (social) life between human and nonhuman agents. The notions of ANT are mirrored with notions borrowed from the non-orthodox phenomenological tradition. Using Levinas’s notions of passivity and responsibility, the scientist is considered as a “hostage” of the nonhuman beings he or she discovers and gives names.