This is not how most contemporary technology actually behaves.

Ursula Franklin offers a broader way of understanding technology. Rather than treating technology as a collection of discrete objects, Franklin describes it as an organisation of knowledge, labour, materials, processes and ways of doing things. A technological object therefore does not begin and end at its physical boundary. The systems that produce it, distribute it, make it accessible and teach us how to use it are also part of its technological condition.

I encountered this in a much less philosophical way while trying to buy electronic components. Throughout the practical research, I worked with small things: sensors, microcontrollers, motors, wires. Almost all of them were easy to find online. I could order a sensor in a few minutes. I could find its documentation, watch somebody connect it on YouTube, copy a piece of code, search an error message and probably find someone who had already encountered the same problem. Yet I kept noticing that another kind of access was becoming harder to find locally.

A lot of specialised electronics shops are disappearing. The same one my boyfriend came to collect his materials for 20 years, just closed a year ago, replaced by a new-coming apartment complex. Once very big store in Antwerp already turns itself into an education center, teaching kids to build toy cars. Another one in central Brussels and another one in Den Hague is now moved to warehouse, only opens to collect online delivery. I fortunately found one small electrical shop in Schoten, but it only opens upon appointment. The son, who runs the store after his parents retirement, said he only do fixing now, the components I need already sits on the shelves for years, waiting for some enthusiast kids come to collect for their hobby. “Everything moves online” he said. What I missed was not simply a shop. It was a place where a material could arrive together with a conversation.

I could walk in holding a component and say: this is what I am trying to make. And someone might answer with another question.

Online, there was often more information than I could ever use. The problem was that I needed to know enough to find it. The difficulty was not always finding an answer, but knowing which question to ask.