Fifteenth #2: On names

How names echo our past and influence our perception of what technology can do

Examining the names we give technologies and how they echo our past; how metaphors create vivid imagery and cause us to lose understanding of their material and environmental impacts.

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Pluralism (2016), Deborah Roberts

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Pluralism

Pluralism is a series of prints by Dr. Deborah Roberts. The print shows the names of over two hundred Black American women typeset in Times New Roman. Red lines appear under the names, indicating that they have not been recognised by the software.

The prestige of Times New Roman is in visual opposition the zig-zag effect under each name, making their rejection impossible to ignore. It is as if the software collectively refuses not only the names but also the people and their culture.

“Names and how they are pronounced, revered, and understood reveal a lot – about classism, stereotypes, and history.” — Deborah Roberts in conversation with Lise Ragbir, director of the Art Galleries at Black Studies, University of Texas at Austin. Excerpt taken from Black Futures, pg. 312.

But this is only the beginning. In this article, I want to reflect on how names relate to technologies and uncover how they shape our imaginations of what we think technology can do.

Naming technology

The Netscape Navigator web page loading animation (1994) from Version Museum — a name communicating freedom to explore, while also mirroring neocolonial metaphors of discovery

Names are atomic elements of a classification system — from flowers to birds, taxonomies and their resulting names respond to the ontological need to impose order on a complex world.