technology

Standby refers to an operating state in which energy continues to flow despite an apparent shutdown, thus allowing for sudden reactivation. This special issue mobilizes the notion of standby to understand its capacities and conditions as a mode of organizing sociomaterial lifeworlds.

Today we live in a vastly transformed state of things: the artifice of artefacts is evident all around us. A parliament of communicationtechnologies, from RFIDS to Bluetooth devices, constantly exchange information and network all around and through us. Wireless networks of communication, control, and cooperation proliferate in mysterious ways, all speaking an infra-language of organization, inscribing new techniques of governance.