In the current issue

Conference Report
Yoel Bergman, "Thirty-Eighth Symposium of the International Committee for the History of Technology"

Essay Reviews
Simon A. Cole, "The Faces of Biometrics: Lisa S. Nelson, America Identified; Kelly A. Gates, Our Biometric Future"

Orit Halpern, "Affective Machines: Elizabeth A. Wilson: Affect and Artificial Intelligence"

Philip Mirowski, "Minding the Cybernetic Gap: Andrew Pickering, The Cybernetic Brain"

Megan Mullen, "Demystifying Some Momentous Changes: Richard R. John, Network Nation"

Casey O'Donnell, "On the Back of a Flying Gryphon: Soaring
Over/Through the Global Game Industry: Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter, Games of Empire; Bonnie A. Nardi, My Life as a Night Elf Priest; William Sims Bainbridge, The Warcraft Civilization"

Technology and Culture
January 2012

Conference Report
Thirty-Eighth Symposium of the International Committee for the History of Technology
"Consumer Choice and Technology," Glasgow, UK, 2–7 August 2011

Yoel Bergman
ICOHTEC's thirty-eighth conference was hosted for the first time in Scotland, in the city of Glasgow, renowned for its universities, museums, and remarkable contributions to world technological heritage. Conference members met on the impressive premises of the University of Glasgow (fig. 1, above: The main building at Glasgow University, Gilmorehill Campus. Photo, James Williams.) where the local organizing committee, chaired by Ray Stokes, worked diligently for the meeting's successful outcome.

In twenty-five panels, veterans and newcomers presented their papers, many based on specific historic-technological cases examined through a wide social context. Organized by individuals or the program committee, the panels were usually held in several sessions, each with three speakers and lasting ninety minutes. Participants explored "Consumer Choice and Technology" in various ways, including consumer-driven innovations, gender and consumption, marketing and culture of consumption, power and producer–consumer relationships, technology and the household, museum consumers, technology's past monuments, and consumption of information technologies, food, and health.

The theme also appeared in panels that over the years have become focal points for new and ongoing research, such as social history of military technology, playing with technology, fuel and energy,music and sound and the history of technology, civil engineering, climate control, engineering development, history and education, and technology education. The panel on a new British Science Museum exhibition of artifacts belonging to the eminent Scottish engineer James Watt fit well in the conference's venue. The exhibition is based on 6,500 items that have been preserved intact in Watt's workshop, closed since his death in 1819.

The conference was made possible with the kind support of the Lind Foundation, the Centre for Business History in Scotland at the University of Glasgow, the University of Strathclyde Glasgow and the University of the West of Scotland, the National Museums Scotland, the City of Glasgow, the Glasgow City Council, the Ballast Trust, the Foundation for the History of Technology, and ICOHTEC. During the conference ICOHTEC was cordially hosted in Glasgow's elegant city hall.

Hans-Joachim Braun (Germany), former ICOHTEC president and an enthusiast for the arts, gave the traditional Kranzberg Lecture (fig. 2, right: Professor Hans-Joachim Braun giving the Kranzberg Lecture. Photo, Slawomir Lotysz). He examined the complex question of creativity as manifested in technology and arts, ending with the conclusion (and hope) that the riddle of creativity will not be solved by the many savants who treat the question.

As in previous conferences, members gathered for the general assembly. They were first briefed by president James Williams (United States) and secretary general Timo Myllyntaus (Finland). Journal editor Mark Clark (United States) described changes in ICON, the organization's annual publication. Past hard-copy volumes, holding invaluable papers by both members and nonmembers, are now planned to be made net-accessible in subscribed libraries. Wolfhard Weber (Germany), involved with many volumes, called for a step-by-step process to safeguard the intellectual rights of ICOHTEC. Upgrades to the website and new links in the social network were discussed by energetic webmaster Slawomir Lotysz (Poland). Treasurer Patrice Bret (France) described a new and easier membership payment process for students, due in part to an increasing number of student applications. Keeping members posted during the year on academic events, on new literature, and on ICOHTEC in general is the task of newsletter editor
Stefan Poser (Germany). Prepared and sent monthly, his letters are being enjoyed lately by wider circles of readers, who find the data helpful in their academic pursuits. The assembly approved three new members for the executive committee: Maria Elvira Callapez (Portugal), Masaaki Okada (Japan), and Klaus Staubermann (United Kingdom). All are longtime contributors to the annual conferences.

Since 2008 ICOHTEC has awarded young scholars a yearly prize for the best recently published book, and two roundtable sessions were held with the winners of 2010 and 2011. Anne-Katrin Ebert (Germany) compared the use of the bicycle during the first decades of its existence in the Netherlands and Germany, demonstrating how the practice of cycling was embedded in discourses on themes such as the mind, the body, and machines; thermodynamics; and nationalism. The second winner, Christopher Neumaier (Germany), studied the patterns in sales of diesel cars as compared to conventional cars in West Germany and the United States from the 1950s to the first years of the twenty-first century, explaining the differences through a comprehensive investigation of the factors that influenced consumer choices in both countries. Prizes were donated by the Fundación Juanelo Turriano (Spain). The prize committee, headed by vice president Dick van Lente (Netherlands), with members proficient in several languages, continues to encourage book submissions to promote studies by young scholars.

All of the panels are described in the conference program; each merits a detailed review that cannot be made in this report. Nevertheless, a brief exposition of representative papers and panels can provide an overall impression of the scope of issues (fig. 3, below).

FIG. 3: An attentive moment in one of the panel gatherings. (Photo: Slawomir Lotysz.)

The program committee organized the panel on success and failure of consumer-driven innovations. In the first session Richard Vahrenkamp (Germany) argued through specific cases in the United States and Europe until the 1950s that the retail food sector was the driving force for product development,mass production, and distribution. Advait Deshpande (United Kingdom), on the other hand, provided an example from modern telecommunications in the United Kingdom where the power of end users to dictate their needs became more complicated with increasing fragmentation, denationalization, and competition. Anne Sudrow (Germany) observed that the interwar shoe industry in Britain and Germany disliked the changing preferences of consumers, since it was a threat to routine operations in manufacturing. This was resolved gradually by the conceptual turn of producers and the advent of market research.

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©2012 by the Society for the History of Technology.