ABSTRACT

From an anthropological perspective, cultural theory has a rich history of documenting and studying different formations in different cultures. Culture is involved in our individuation into singular entities in society through our interaction with artifacts as well as through its organizing potentialities. Hansen aims to guide us towards a new reading of phenomenology, where topological culture individuates not as reduction but rather as a “direct response to worldly complexity. Through the autonomy of topological culture it is possible to conceive of dimensions of human experience, which are, their independence from consciousness notwithstanding, given in and as conscious time with technical mediations. As ubicomp technologies develop, spread, and become integrated into human activities, they individuate into diverse specificities such as tools used in particular contexts and activities. Individuation occurs within and as a part of the realm of language, the first and most ubiquitous of human tools.