Technologies To The People

Posted: September 25th, 1996 | Filed under: English | Tags: , , , , , , | No Comments »

Technologies To The People

by Iris Dressler,
«Technologies To The People» In 1996, Daniel García Andújar founded the concern «Technologies To The People,» which brought the «» on the market the same year: a combination system made up of reading device, special credit card, and public online access, which allows the homeless and other fringe groups to enter the world of plastic money and E-commerce. The trademark-protected «,» whose design announced the i-Mac Generation in 1996, is perfectly marketed with a corporate identity and comprehensive advertising campaign—flyers, posters, and merchandising materials. Nothing is missing except the corresponding product. Andújar is not concerned with virtual capital for all, but more so with naming the structures of exclusion so gladly denied during the course of the omnipresent cyber-euphoria.[...] Read the rest of this entry »

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Street Access Machine®

Posted: February 2nd, 1996 | Filed under: English | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | No Comments »

isam press

Presented with original posters » Products offered by Technologies To The People (TTTP), the company founded by Daniel G. Andújar, range from the ® over the Recovery Card® and Internet ® to the Personal Folkcomputer®. All of these (fictitious) products and technologies aim to allow the socially underprivileged to participate in the emergent information society. While the Internet ® promises »access for all«, the ® and Recovery Card® enables beggars to accept payment by credit card. The project unmasks the belief, propagated by those who manufacture the associated products (and by »Californian ideology«*), that a democratizing potential is inherent to technology. The world shown by TTTP on its posters and leaflets is neither more just thanks to the deployment of these new technologies, nor is it accessible to all — despite the claims made by providers of telecommunications applications. Even if they use the latest info-society tools, beggars remain beggars, the socially marginalized remain socially marginalized. Technologies tend to reinforce, rather than alter, social structures. When the project was presented in Hamburg in 1996, a (bona fide) mail was received from Apple, announcing the company’s interest in the (fictitious) product range of TTTP.** (Inke Arns)

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