Reading :: Aircraft Stories (second reading)

Aircraft Stories: Decentering the Object in Technoscience
By John Law

I originally reviewed this book over 15 years ago, and was not kind. More recently I reread it. And, although I still don't like Law's style, I found that parts of the argument stand up well. So in this second reading, I'll focus on those parts.

n.b., I read the Kindle edition this time around, so I won't include page numbers.

One of the central issues Law tries to address is "fractional coherence," which "is about drawing things together without centering them." Specifically, he examines representations of a fighter jet which was not completed, noting that it "comes in different versions. It has no center. It is multiple. And yet these various versions also interfere with one another and shuffle themselves together to make a single aircraft. They make what I will call singularities, or singular objects out of their multiplicities. In short, they make objects that cohere." Law's focus in this book is how such objects are made to cohere. He adds: "a fractionally coherent subject or object is one that balances between plurality and singularity. It is more than one, but less than many." Fractionality, he adds, is a metaphor for avoiding dualisms.

Furthermore, he argues that fractionality is distinct from perspectives: "inconsistency between different performances reflects failing coordination between different object positions rather than differences between external perspectives on the same object." In Chapter 2, he examines strategies of coordination: in his case study, a brochure for the TSR2 fighter, he identifies "a series of mechanisms that work to connect and coordinate disparate elements." These include syntax, physical structure, tabular hierarchy, perspective, cartography, system, and speed/heroism. He adds that "once we look at things in this plural way, any singular object immediately becomes an effect -- and a more or less precarious effect."

Later, he identifies singularity with modernism and multiplicity with postmodernism, arguing that the oscillation (and tension) between the two bears investigation: "It is much more interesting and productive to explore oscillation between certainties than to take a position in the debate." "Heterogeneity is an oscillation between absence and presence," he declares.

Law later refers to this project as an "academic pinboard" that consciously avoids a grand narrative.

Do I recommend reading Aircraft Stories—again? Yes, I suppose. I am not a fan of the "pinboard" approach, but I understand the project and why Law felt that this would be a good approach for exploring it. Still, I found the (more conventional) first chapter to be more rewarding than the exploration of the brochure in subsequent chapters.