Mediating change: translation and mediation in the context of bricolage

Technology transfer has become recognised as a key factor in people’s efforts to implement information technology in diverse spheres of modern life, and particularly at the workplace. However, ‘transfer’ is a unidirectional conceptualisation of the processes of technology design and implementation. It veils the work of interpretation, mediation, and reshaping involved in the processes of ‘technology transfer’. Moreover, the obstinate focus on discrete, isolated devices, and technological fixes provides us with blinkers that cut off from our view the complexity of the integration of a heterogeneous amalgam of new and old technologies, traditional and newly evolving work practices, organisational structures, and economic, social, and cultural contexts. In this paper we describe the collective efforts of a multidisciplinary team of researchers and practitioners to embed new technologies into the existing bricolage of tools and work practices in aesthetic production.