Jackson’s essay focuses on and differentiates not only the technology available but also the psychology involved between the twenty-first century and the past. In particular, he focuses on our sense of disposability regarding matter, to an extent including commodified other people.

He states that we perceive our world as artificial or temporary, a phenomenon I agree with and believe has occurred as long as consciousness has existed. One must continuously supply oneself with water, air, doos, etc; the inevitable competition encourages self-centeredness and the consistency reinforces it. This instinct would have lessened over time, as most people (though not all) at least usually have access to their basic needs. Now, we compete for what we want, a distinctly socioeconomic shift.

For instance, phones are a social signal that are temporary, arbitrary, and require upkeep/repair. Yet people usually wish to purchase entirely new (therefore “better”) phones and only seek repair due to the cost. “Repair is about space and function,” Jackson writes, “…inherits an old and layered world…above all, repair occupies and constitutes an aftermath.” It manifests the pace of society. It’s worth noting that that society is more singular than ever before, in large part due to technology.

Repair bridges our fulfilling our actual needs and wants and fulfilling those internalized/brought on through society with the mediums of media and technology. We feel compelled to not just own but show that we own (therefore being able to afford much, therefore being more desirable). However, most of us cannot afford every single thing we want for any reason. Thus, repair exists. It also occurs to me that sentimental value can influence the attitude/repair/replacement of items. This concept has presented an obstacle for some: companies like Apple purposefully limit the extent to which one can reuse and repair their technology in order to force continued purchases and updates.

I enjoyed this article because it really does force you to think about where things go after you throw them out and or return them. iPhones don’t just dissolve in landfills, ships don’t sail forever after you step off them, and people make mistakes. Our minds often work in the mentality of out of site to of mind. In reality the things we create do go to a final resting place, either to be rebuilt, taken apart or destroyed. All of this I agree with and Jackson does make a convincing argument for the significance of repair to human existence

The question I was left with was, at what point does repairing becoming recreating. I know that Jackson says that repairs lead to innovation and I agree that this is true, but at what point does a repair cause an object to lose its character as a singular entity and transform into something entirely new.

The definition of repair is “fix or mend (a thing suffering from damage or a fault).” Taping over holes in a hose with duct tape is a repair, stripped a boat for parts isn’t. That ship as an entity is gone, each piece now has its own role in the modern economy. I think back to when I use to play with legos. I would create the pre-designed structures and spaceships and I’d set them aside to play with later. My brothers and I would all then play with our various lego creations together. Meaning that our creations would inevitably break into hundreds of unrecognizable pieces. We were then left with a choice, recreate the broken ship from memory (no child keeps the box and or directions after a lego creation is built), or take the parts and create something totally new.

Whenever we would try to recreate the ship something would inevitably go awry. It would be a dilapidated, misshapen shadow of its once self. Yet this was ok. It had taken on a new form. We did not pretend it was the same spaceship because it wasn’t that one had broken and become this new thing. Sometimes that new thing was even better than the first, because I didn’t try to repair it, instead I decided to recreate it.

Jackson recognized the importance of restructuring broken systems and objects, but he believes that these actions still fit under the umbrella of repair. I just feel his definition was a little too broad and by making everything seem like a repair of whatever similar invention came before it Jackson unintentionally undermines the importance of mistakes in the process of human creativity.

Jackson’s discussion of repair as a form of innovation brought to mind Apple products, which are designed to be as difficult as possible, or preferably impossible, for a consumer to repair at home. There are dozens of stories from consumers who brought their products to the Apple help desk only to find that the issue was a bit of dust in the charging port or that Apple refused to repair the device at all and suggested replacement or upgrade. Apple technicians are prohibited from repairing any phones that show signs of consumer attempts at repair, including off-brand replacement phone screens. Despite the intentionally troublesome design of Apple products, dozens of repair companies spring up, and several YouTubers have gone viral for their home-repair videos. Although none of these issues would exist if Apple did not make it so difficult and expensive to fix their products, or even if they always agreed to repair the devices as part of the company services, anyone who decides to fix their own phone or tablet learns more about the technology that they use every day, and none of those troubleshooting solutions would exist either. If the secrecy and obstacles did not exist, neither would the workarounds, and both general and technical knowledge would suffer for it. In scientific research, several discoveries have been made on accident when attempting to understand a separate problem; I imagine the history of technological advancement reveals similar experiences. Necessity and creativity combine, in this case, and lead to innovation (or, to better follow the phrase, invention).

Upon my second reading of this piece, (shout-out to DIG 401), one passage I didn’t pay much attention to the first time stuck out to me. On page 229, Jackson speculates, “Can breakdown, maintenance, and repair confer special epistemic advantage in our thinking about technology? Can the fixer know and see different things—indeed, different worlds—than the better-known figures of “designer” or user?” 

We’ve discussed before how so many products nowadays are ‘designed for obsolescence’, and how difficult it is to get things like computers and phones repaired. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I repaired anything, other than the shoe I repaired for the project assigned in our seminar. At least based on what my grandparents and older family members have told me throughout the years, it seems like previous generations were much more tapped into the kind of “broken-world thinking” Jackson talks about. In poor rural communities like where my grandparents grew up, if something you needed broke, you had to either repair it, or figure out a way to replace it with whatever objects you had lying around. Generally speaking, we don’t do that anymore, and the people who do have the special knowledge required to repair digital items like iPhones now carry a sort of social and economic capital, making ‘fixing’ a valuable skill.

These thoughts lead me to wonder – as older generations and their skills die out, will there be a revivalist ‘Fixer Movement’ to replace the current Maker Movement? Or perhaps as the world acknowledges all the e-waste it’s producing, will giants like Apple democratize the repair of its products?

While reading the article for Wednesday, I was particularly interested in the section on Edward Burtnsky’s Shipbreaking #4 and how the picture and what it represents was used to discuss the themes of breakdown, maintenance, and repair. His picture captures what happened to 80 percent of the world’s ocean fleet once the ships “die” or go out of commission. While this process is routine and normalized, it is still shocking to read about because the process is visibly removed. Overall, I appreciate how this article draws attention to and argues that breakdown, maintenance, and repair are understudied and under represented both physically and digitally today.

Burtynsky’s picture specifically reminded me of a place I visited a year and a half ago. While I was abroad in Greece, I visited the island of Zakynthos which is famously know for Ship Wreck cove (pictured below). Navagio or Ship Wreck cove is where a ship wrecked in 1980 and has been untouched ever since to serve as a tourist attraction. As seen in the pictures, the ship is placed aesthetically in a beautiful untouched and isolated cove where visitors can explore history, absorb beautiful views, travel to a remote area while simultaneously viewing a rusted and decomposing old ship.

In comparison to the scene in Burtnsky’s Shipbreaking #4, Ship Wreck cove is similar because it shows the breakdown process of an old and decomposing ship. However, it situates the ship in a public and very visible manner that the tourist industry is able to make money from. Therefore, this is a counter example or potentially even an exception to the main argument of the article. I think it is even ironic how the breakdown process is being celebrated and recognized as beautiful, when a majority of ships are sent to breakdown in a remote and isolated part of the world.

Pictures taken from my visit at Ship Wreck cove in Zakynthos, Greece.