Suzana Alpsancar 

I am interested in the discursive constitution of »the« computer and computing. My research focuses on the debates and arguments concerning the cultural impacts of computers. There is no simple answer to the question, what a computer or computing is.  To a lesser extend there is a consensus of how computing as a technology relates to our »Lebenswelt«.

Rather a cloud of more or less bright conceptions of what the computer is and its settlement in society circulate. One aspect of these conceptions are the (functional) models of computing and/or computers for example: virtual reality as a computed space which an exclusive logic, the computer as a brain-machine or computers as a medium to network people.

I hypothesize that each of theses models correlates with a certain technology (device), certain ideas of how this technology will affect our culture. Within a setting of discursive arguments these aspects form the conceptions of computers and computing. The conceptions change over time, affected by societal experience with the technology and the technological development.

Furthermore I guess, that nowadays conceptionalizing of computers dissolves within the paradigm of ubiquitous com-puting on the one hand and a diversity of computing devices (GPS, RFID-tags, smart environments, PDAs, smart phones etc.) on the other hand. Probably there can be no more talking of computers covering the bride range of computing-phenomena.

I analyze the discursive constitution exemplarily by investigating Vilém Flusser's ideas of computers. Subsequently I com-pare them with current philosophy of computers as well as Mark Weiser's vision of ubiquitous computing.