Mitsuhiro Hayashi
Arts & Cultural Studies Review, Issue 2 (40), 2019, pp. 181 - 195
https://doi.org/10.4467/20843860PK.19.010.10905Along with the development of technology undermining the traditional notion of humanity in Judeo-Christianity, a variety of debates on beyond-human phenomena have emerged since the late 20th century. However, without waiting for these debates, outside of the West, similar phenomena have occurred even before the late 20th century. This paper will explore the non-representational forces of human-technology relations in Japan, focusing on the transition of the technological environment from the 1960s to the 1990s. An aff ective continuum between humans and natural or artifi cial things, including modern technology in the 1960s, was formed through material interfaces. However, in the 1990s, when electronic technology began to be used to control sensory signals in detail, the equilibrium of representational and non-representational forces became unstable. The paper illustrates an alternate type of humanity-centered limitation which would help to relativize the dominant Western context.