On the Social Implications of Invisibility: The iMac G5 and the Effacement of the Technological Object.

peter D. Schaefer
Meenakshi Gigi Durham, University of Iowa

Abstract

The iMac G5 represents a contemporary trend in the design of new media objects, whereby technology is rendered invisible by its seamless penetration of the surfaces of everyday life. This effacement of technological objects has economic and cultural implications: it helps prevent seeing connections between the circulation of global capital and the use of media in a local context. We argue that the ostensibly neutral form of media is implicated with social inequality, so reconfiguring our relationship to the materiality of new media within our immediate surroundings is critical.