Critique of sensoric mediality – An experimental approach to chains of translation between the analog and the digital

Abstract

By reconstructing a basic temperature sensor and its chains of translation, the text presents a new approach to experimental media archeology, critical making and speculative design. Based on this experiment, the text proposes to investigate how sensoric mediation transforms data into operational signals, challenging the myth of ‘raw data’ as unfiltered representations of the environment and the clear distinction between analog and digital. In a micro-analysis, the text reconstructs the translations between the analog and the digital as processes of virtualization, through which what is processed by the computer shares an efficiency with what it refers to, without being of its nature or substance. In order to better understand how autonomous machines adapt to their environment by means of such translation chains, without assuming an isomorphic representation of the world or direct access to the environment, the text follows the first steps of such chains of translation in detail. Experiments with a simple temperature sensor and an Arduino microcontroller show how often unreflected and black-boxed pre-decisions flow into the necessary sensory mediations. This in turn sheds light on new forms of co-existence between humans and autonomous, sensor-based machines such as autonomous vehicles or robots.