THE RESPONSE OF THE MACHINE: EXISTENCE AND RECOGNITION
How we recognize ourselves through machines.
What machines are good for is their responsiveness to us. Being able to hold a machine—or a part of one—and receive some action in return is the entire point.
This is, for example, the reason for preferring mechanical to membrane keyboards on a visceral level—we can feel the keys we push, we can even feel the strength they exert with their own forms in order to remain upright until we touch them. We can hear the heavy clacking they make in response to our fingers, speaking to us in their own way. There is something alienizing about silent membrane keyboards, which accept our touch silently and with hardly any physical exertion in return—in a way, by their unresponsiveness, they separate us from the word, allowing us to forget our very own existence within it even as we act upon it. The touchscreen keyboard is even worse.
Mechanical keyboards, by responding to our presence with their own, remind us of our own existence. They perceive us as we perceive them, but they make no demands of us; we can speak to them as we wish, typing whichever words we please. They will speak back to us through touch and sound, but never tell us to speak differently. Is this not the same unity we seek in love or sex?