Talk by Katryn Evinson, Heyman Center Public Fellow/Humanities New York, 2018-2019

In a project I am currently developing as part of the Public Humanities fellowship, I am working with elder communities constructing alternative narratives about technology and decrepitude in order to open up new ways of thinking about technology that are detached from instrumentality and productivity. The project culminates with a series of workshops where participants experiment with obsolete and broken technology to develop their own creative works whereby they aim to engage other meanings of technology concerning repair, recycling, and non-instrumentality. In this paper, I will share the findings obtained so far from the workshops while providing a theoretical analysis of the paradoxes risen as a result of the encounter of the aged and technology.