English Translation of Simondon ON MECHANOLOGY (first 8 minutes)

Q: I have already had the opportunity, Mr Simondon, to tell you of the extraordinary impact that "The Mode of Existence of Technical Objects" has had on all that you have achieved. But with our admiration is mixed a certain astonishment. We often wonder how a thought as firmly focused, as yours is, on the problem of individuation came to mechanology, to the study of the technical object as such? S: I understand. In fact, I wouldn't know how to explain it, there is always an element of academic chance. Nonetheless, it seems to me that there is a real relation, inthe sense that a technical object exists, is constituted first of all as a unity, a solid unity, an intermediary between the world and man, an intermediary perhaps between two other technical objects. The first phase of its development is above all a phase of the constitution of its unity, a phase of the constitution of its solidity. Take a tool: what is essential in a tool? It is that it is a relation, of course, an intermediary between the body of its operator and the things he acts upon. But it is also that it must first of all, to be a good tool, it must have a firmly fit handle, be well-constituted. Then one finds, depending on the different cultures, a handle fit by collar, socket, snap or groove. These are different solutions, which are appropriate for hard wood, for medium wood, or for the soft wood of Northern countries. All of these solutions are rational, if we bear in mind the two constituents of the metal head and the wooden handle. And if one realises as well that the very nature of the tool is to establish a constant and non-fallacious relation between the body of the operator and the object he acts on. There is an individuality, but it is an internally consistent individuality of the object itself, even of the tool. Lets not take, for the moment, any other technical objects. I have taken the most elementary example, which for instance Leroi-Gourhan studied in "Milieu et Technique" and "L'homme et la matire" (i.e. of a handheld implement such as an axe or a hammer). Q: But if we go on to the machine itself, the same principle of individuation is found, the same phenomenon of individuation is found, but perhaps dialectised. S: Yes, it is found. It is found because the almost necessary starting point is the resolution of a problem by the appearance of an intermediary, which is often a new machine part. The wheel for example is a new part, which in a cart intervenes perhaps as a roller or log at the beginning, but which intervenes later and essentially when it has an axle, when it is fixed in relation to the chassis of the cart or of the wagon while still being able to roll on the ground. For this intermediary to be viable, to be "reliable", as our industrialists say, it must be solid, in both the ordinary and the Latin sense of the word, that is to say all in one piece. As it cannot be, in general, wrought in one piece, it has to be assembled, and the technique of assembling is the artisanal technique of solidity, whose goal is to make a single block out of several. For example, the fastening of wheels from the beginning was above all a system of interference fit: it's the big iron circle that our cartwrights heated in the fire before putting it around the wooden parts of the rim so that it grips them by cooling and contraction. And the good hub is a hub which allows a solid assemblage of the spokes. The old debates on wheels with spokes and on the intersection or non-intersection of the spokes, the slope of the spokes relative to the vertical plane of the vehicle these are debates concerning the first phase, of let us say the first phase, that of the individuation and of the stability of the wheel as a technical object. Later, other phases occur, but the starting point is that a wheel must be a wheel, and that a wheel must be one object and not several. Q: And no matter what the later complexity of the technical object e.g. a machine, if one can still use the concept of a technical object, and of a complexly constituted machine, does the same principle apply? S: At the beginning, for a machine to exist, it must first be viable as a living being is viable, that is

to say it must be non-autodestructive, it must be the site, if one can call it that, of exchanges that make it stable. Imagine a lamp that caught fire, that did not have the regulation that permits the combustion to remain stable, that lamp would be fated not to exist, precisely because it would be self-destructive. In other words, the unity of the functioning, the stability of the functioning, its internal coherence are the conditions of existence of any technical object, as well as of any machine. A heat engine, the first Diesel engine could not exist because it had not been designed so that it would not explode. The mixture made by introducing the fuel into the air was produced before compression. Diesel's second motor was the one in which a fine spray of diesel fuel under very high pressure is injected at the end of the compression, and serves at the same time to initiate ignition, as at that moment the air is at a high temperature, which permits the igniting of the diesel fuel. The first motor was self-destructive since it exploded, the second motor isn't. Q: This perfectly establishes your relation between mechanology and the principles of individuation that you have explored. S: Yes, put simply, that's it. Later, moreover, we can see that to get to a higher level of complexity, technical objects usually need to have circuits of information, that are not just implicit circuits of information, that one could call associated associated circuits. For example: a lamp that the more it heats up, the more it aspires air which cools it down, stabilises itself. But it does so by the intermediary of this current of air, which is not information in the proper sense of the term. Nevertheless, its functioning involves a form of implicit, implied, internal information. On the other hand, in much more complex machines it is necessary to make an explicit use of information, which is conceived and treated and separated out as such. This is what we see in all the machines that make use of electronics for servo-mechanisms and controls, or which even have hydraulic controls. But implicit information, permitting the homeostasis and stability of the object, already exists in a simple ancient oil lamp.