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8 - Technical memes and assemblages

from Part III - Combinations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  aN Invalid Date NaN

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Summary

This chapter proffers the linked concepts of 'technical memes and assemblages' as embodied clusters of material, social, cultural and psychological phenomena, as manifested in the reproduction of building types and other artifacts. It then proceeds to a definition of the technical meme as the primary agent of cognitive extension and cultural transfusion by which the extended self assimilates and interacts with the material and social environment. It is suggested that, with appropriate adjustments, assemblage theory offers a suitable framework for exploring the grouping and wider effects of technical memes. The chapter looks at some of the more significant coevolutionary assemblages of technical memes in history that changed the shape of human transportation and urban life. It concludes with a brief discussion of some of the related social effects generated by those assemblages in the course of their evolution.

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