Mini-Project 1 — Heidegger and Your Technology

Distributed

Friday, September 11

Due

Sunday, September 20, 11:59 pm

Turn in

The project, plus a form document of about 250 words

Weight

10% of the course grade

The project itself

Three requirements.

1. Cite, refer to, or integrate a specific passage. Not Heidegger in general—a claim you can point at and cite by page. Some general areas you might turn to:
   • Bringing-forth (poiesis) and the four causes — pp. 6–12. Making as letting something appear, rather than a craftsman imposing a shape on matter.
   • Challenging-forth and standing-reserve (Bestand) — pp. 12–18. The Rhine and the hydroelectric plant: a thing shows up as stock, on call and orderable, there to be drawn upon.
   • Enframing (Ge-stell) and destining — pp. 19–25. Not a machine and not an attitude—you can’t just change your mind and poof. The way of revealing that puts things on call in the first place, which we didn’t choose.
   • Freedom and the danger — pp. 25–28. The danger isn’t that the machines hurt us. It’s that this way of revealing crowds out the others, including the one that would let us notice Enframing itself.
   • The saving power, and art — pp. 28–35.
2. It’s about a technology you engage with. Be specific: not “social media” but the app you opened this morning; not “AI” but the model you used, for what task, with what prompt, and in what capacity. Say which version, which device, which platform, and when you used it.
3. There’s a result. This can take lots of different forms: something you found out that you didn’t already know on Wednesday. It can be small, and it can go against Heidegger.

Some forms this can take

Pick one, combine two, or propose your own.

• Short essay — 800–1,200 words. One passage, one technology, one claim you argue for.
• Self-experiment — go without something for a set stretch, or use something deliberately and differently. Set it up in advance: what you’re doing, for how long, and what you’ll record. Keep the log as you go rather than writing it from memory afterward. A week is plenty, and three days can be enough. Turn in the log plus your account of it.
• Do something with an AI system and document it — the whole transcript, plus what you were trying to do, what it did, and where the reading fits. The transcript is evidence, so keep it complete.
• Two encounters with the same thing — a chicken in an industrial broiler house and a chicken in somebody’s backyard who lays the eggs you eat and has a name. Both give you eggs. Say what else is different, and whether Heidegger’s vocabulary names it. You’ll have to take the industrial side from reporting or video rather than a visit—say which. The same setup works for any two ways of meeting one kind of thing.
• Audio or video — 5–8 minutes. A walk-through, an interview, a screen recording of the thing doing what you say it does.
• Photo essay — 8–12 images, with or without captions. (The captions shouldn’t have to do all the work, or else why do a photo essay?)
• Something built — a redesign, a mockup, a small script, or an existing interface annotated at the points where the ordering happens.
• A demonstration — five minutes you run for us in class, with the write-up.

If you want to do something that isn’t on this list, run it by me by Monday, September 14. The answer is usually yes.

The form document — about 250 words

A separate file from the project. Answer these four:

1. Why this form? What can it do here that writing about it can’t? (If you wrote the essay, answer for the choices inside it—this passage, this technology, this case.)
2. What did the form make hard, or leave out? Say what you couldn’t get at in the medium or media you chose.
3. Where is Heidegger in the thing itself? Point at it: the minute in the video, the third photo, the entry on day four, the exchange in the transcript. Not where you describe him—where the claim gets tested, denied, affirmed, altered.
4. What surprised you? One place the technology did something your reading of it didn’t predict.

Turning it in

Post your project to your website by Sunday, September 20. To make collecting the projects easier, I may also post a Canvas dropbox for the URL.

What I’m looking for

• The passage is used, not just mentioned. You can point at the page, and the project would not make sense without it.
• The technology is specific, and I can tell you actually used it.
• There’s a result—something argued or found, rather than a summary of the reading with an example attached.
• The form document answers the four questions about this project.

AI on this project

The course policy applies: disclose what you used and what you used it for, in a citation at the bottom of the project or a longer methodology report as your actual use requires, and be able to account for every claim you turn in. Recall these elements of the policy specifically:

Undisclosed use is an honor code matter. If an AI system is the technology you’re studying, that use is part of the project. Ask me if you’re unsure.