The Function of Representation in a "Smart Home Context"

Abstract

In our society, we seem almost completely engaged in a variety of representational processes. By rendering events and processes “still”, they can be more easily manipulated and transferred into a stock of movable resources which can provide the possibility to control. It is in that context information technology can give us power. In this article it is argued that in order to understand information technology we must begin with representation. I will illustrate such a perspective by a case study that puts a smart home-technology in focus and exemplifies how it may let us deeper our knowledge about IT, how that knowledge is constructed, what actors are involved, what drives them and what kinds of issues are at stake.