ABSTRACT
The song had to sound on the first Monday of December 2019, at noon, throughout the country, sung by the sirens themselves. It would mark the end of the siren and a new beginning at the same time. The preparations for the event were in full swing. Siemens, the international corporation producing the sirens, and the Institute for Physical Safety (IFV), the Dutch agency responsible for the system’s management, were willing to support the materialization of the idea. A political economist and influential advisor to the French president François Mitterand in the 1980s, he did not shy away from bold statements. Scholars in Science and Technology Studies (STS) have argued against finalist approaches in the history of science and technology because the sole focus on surviving scientific insights and technologies in such studies resulted in attributing success to the inherent qualities of facts and artefacts.
