Technology Studies
Technology is the total field of any physical, technological, economic, social, and other processes used in the creation of goods and services or in their realization of goals, including scientific research. Many people confuse technology with science, but they are not the same. Science, on the other hand, is a branch of pure mathematics that studies the behavior of a particular matter on a macroscopic scale. Whereas technology deals more with systems at a smaller scale and can be studied theoretically as well, it deals more with specific technologies.
The broad terms of science, technology, and engineering are used to describe scientific knowledge and the physical sciences combined. Technological progress is a general term that refers to improvements in technology over time. It is sometimes used as a synonym for progress in information technology. In popular speech, however, the term technology is often used to describe specific technologies like automobiles, television, telecommunications, personal computers, and the internet.
Technologists can be grouped into two major categories, those who are concerned with studying technology and those who are interested in applying it to practical ends. Those who study technology are usually categorized as “techno-geologists” and those who apply technology to practical ends are called “techno-hamartists.” A form of scientific philosophy known as object and method is a key tool for both of these disciplines. The discipline of theoretical science attempts to describe and explain nature using a set of general rules or principles. This system does not offer explanations of specific technologies since they are chosen on an empirical basis and subject to further study.
One of the main areas of inquiry in science is that of how various technologies affect one another, both as a whole and in their interactions. Two main areas of inquiry into how technological systems work include those of engineering and technology studies. Engineering is a discipline of study that studies how materials are constructed, developed, used, and maintained in any given environment. The areas of study involved in engineering include micro-fabrication, machinery, and mechanical engineering.
Technology studies seek to answer many broad questions about how technological systems interact to produce particular outputs. One of the first questions asked in this particular area was how art related to technology. Schatzberg first distinguished between the arts and technology as a matter of history. He claimed that the nineteenth century saw a transition from the development of art to the development of technology. The arts, he claimed, emerged as a byproduct of the development of technology in the early twentieth century.
The analysis of art and of technology therefore splits into two distinct strands: the subjective view of art, which are the subjective view of culture, and the objective, scientific view of technology, which is the objective view of technological systems and materials used to create and maintain particular technologies. Within the scope of this paper we shall be investigating the relationship between art and technology and their historical development. It will be hoped that the results of this analysis will shed new light on the developing understanding of both these important social concepts. Finally, I would like to conclude by briefly considering the relevance of the Schatzberg theory in light of the developments in digital technology.