#76 The Care of Things: Philosophy of Maintenance & Making Things Last

Rethinking Everyday Care with Jérome Denis and David Pontille

In this episode of Love and Philosophy, host Andrea explores the often overlooked but essential realm of maintenance and care, diving into its philosophical, social, and political dimensions. Joined by guests Jérome Denis and David Pontille, accomplished scholars from France, the discussion delves into how maintenance connects with the theories of care, the work of influential figures like Bruno Latour, and the interdisciplinary field of Science and Technology Studies (STS). They unpack the intricate relationship between humans and objects, examining concepts like fragility, multisensory engagement, and the distinction between maintenance and repair. Highlighting the everyday labor involved in maintaining objects and environments—from subway signs to classic cars—the conversation underscores the need to recognize and value the unseen work that sustains our daily lives. The episode draws on rich examples, including the upkeep of the Paris Metro and the care of classic Mustangs, to illustrate the profound impact of maintenance on our understanding of relationships, both material and social.

The book is available in English and French from all major booksellers:
The Care of Things: Ethics and Politics of Maintenance

00:00 Introduction to Maintenance and Care
00:30 Welcome to Love and Philosophy
00:56 Exploring Science and Technology Studies (STS)
01:40 Bruno Latour and Actor-Network Theory
03:45 The Care of Things: Introducing the Guests
04:43 The Paris Metro Signage Study
05:08 The Philosophy of Maintenance
06:09 The Role of Maintenance Workers
07:34 Fragility and the Importance of Care
11:08 Multisensory Engagement in Maintenance
12:56 The Mundane Expertise of Maintenance
42:19 The Drama of Maintenance
42:50 Maintenance vs. Repair: A Philosophical Dive
44:08 The Heroism in Repair
46:59 John Oliver's Take on Infrastructure
49:10 Classic Mustang Maintenance
54:17 The Ambiguities of Maintenance
57:17 Care as Work: A Feminist Perspective
59:28 The Cost of Maintenance
59:58 The Myth of Autonomy in Technology
01:03:25 Personal Reflections on Maintenance
01:20:16 The Role of Love in Maintenance

John Oliver Infrastructure Clip

Jérome Denis is Director of the Centre de sociologie de l'innovation at Mines Paris-PSL.

David Pontille is Director of Research at Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) in Paris.

Transcript

I discovered that I was told not to care. 

we got a, a specific, sentence maybe to, to summarize the drama of maintenance, that is to make everything go on as if nothing had happened.

as if, nothing had happened to whom. 

  📍 no house, no building, no nothing can last without some kind of maintenance. this is really closely connected to the theories of care, saying that we all need some people to take care of us at some point someday. 


Hello everyone. Welcome to Love and Philosophy. This is Andrea, and here we explore philosophical, scientific, technological, and even poetic spaces beyond either or bounds. Today we're diving into a conversation about maintenance, which might not sound very exciting, but believe me it is. And also care and our relationship with the world, with materials, but also with all other sorts of relationships because it's all connected.

But first I wanna introduce this idea of STS and also a person named Bruno Latour. Those of you who already know everything about science and technology studies, you can skip ahead a little bit, but. For those who don't, it's an interdisciplinary field and, it examines how science and technology are tangled up with all these social, political, economic, ideas that, Scientific facts, for example, or objective truths are not in isolation from all these relations. it actually explores a lot of themes that we've talked about through something like participatory sense making, for example. But it's doing it more from a sort of tech side. and how it connects to this relationality and how we might think of it a little bit differently. And one influential figure. There is a person named Bruno Latour. He actually passed away a couple years ago, maybe three years ago. And he was a French philosopher, an anthropologist, a sociologist, kind of hard to characterize, but he wrote this groundbreaking book way back called Laboratory Life in the seventies, I think it was even maybe the end of the seventies.

then he wrote another book called Science and Action, and then he wrote. Books like We've never Been More Modern. Or We've Never Been Modern. Not sure exactly one of those titles. And this was part of how SDS became a discipline because it was rethinking labs and science and what it all means and even what objects mean.

And there's a whole actor network theory which he proposed, which a lot of you might have heard of or come into contact with. And it's sort of tracing how. The associations between people and things create these patterns which are stable and which end up being what we think of as like something like society, for example.

So in this conversation you'll hear us talk a little bit about this missing masses idea, and that comes from a famous essay by LA Tour called Where Are The Missing Masses? And in that article or essay, he argued that. When sociologists try to understand social bonds or all these relations, they're sort of coming up short because something's missing and what is it that's missing?

The objects. So these material artifacts that surround us and that are, you know, always part of us from seat belts to the doors. We close to the, desks that we sit at, to all the tools that we use, which gets into sort of technology. These are all kind of like agents that are shaping us or that we're shaping, that are re-shaping our behavior.

And a lot of our responsibilities and the way that we're held together become tied to these objects. 

Or to these relations of artifacts might be a better way to say it.

So this might remind you of something like extended mind, for example, where we really start to think of the objects as extensions of, or part of, or participants in. All these other things that we're creating, and this is just more connected to the social fabric, but as you'll hear today's two guests, discuss instead of really thinking about. Objects in the way that they're presenting here, as you'll hear, the sense of maintenance, let's just say is what's different. And we're gonna get into that here, but not just thinking about the objects, but actually objects aren't even what we think they are, And the two authors of this book, which is called the Care of Things, which I read and I highly recommend. it's Jerome Deni and David Elia. Those are the two guests today, and Jerome is gonna introduce David.

And David is gonna introduce, Jerome. So I will let you wait for that. But both of them are really, accomplished scholars in different ways and they've been working at. very important research centers and universities in France and thinking about these ideas they're founding, members of various journals and groups of, people who are really influential in teaching kind of engineers and people in technical systems and thinking about what a technical system is.

So they collaborated on this book, but they've actually been. Working together for a long time. I think they say well over a decade. So they also have a relationship, which is itself, important here. And they were actually working on a Small Sociology of signage, which they did together.

I think that's the English version in 2010. And that was about the Paris Metro system. And their partnership was this sort of collaborative ethnographic research. And it was in that research that they came upon this idea of maintenance and what this really means and rethinking care, the care of things.

So this book that they wrote, which was published in French in 2022 and in English just last year, is a meditation on what it means to make things. and I'm publishing this around Thanksgiving in the United States and, 'cause I was thinking about, you know, this kind of gratitude that's part of re-imagining how things are maintained every day by us, by those around us, by various people and workers and how a lot of.

The work that's really important, whether it's in the education system or actually with the objects all around us, is a kind of maintenance. And this book is really beautiful because it kind of flips our attention and reminds us of that ongoing. Care actually, that's happening all the time. And there's something really helpful about that right now.

wonderfully they came to this because as they were studying the signage system of the Paris Metro, which is very beautiful if you've ever seen it. And they were actually looking at the writing of it. But they were thinking about the power of writing and its capacity to organize the ways we live together. And as they were doing that, someone just sort of at the end of their research said, well, you know, have you talked to the maintenance workers yet? And there were. Kind of shocked 'cause they hadn't even thought about that.

And so they went to talk to the maintenance workers of all these signs and that completely changed everything they thought they knew about the signs. in the book they write that, you know, they knew those signs and every detail by them, but then by when they were talking to the maintenance workers, the people who cared for them daily coming to see them through their eyes, everything changed.

It was completely different. And I don't know if you've ever really worked closely or behind the scenes, maybe even at a restaurant or something, but you do notice that these, when you're doing these daily work to maintain what other people take, not kind of for granted or they don't really notice, you see everything differently.

And there's something really interesting about that, and it relates to this idea of the missing mass that I brought up about Latour. This Ongoing thing that's so obvious in every day that we don't see it anymore. 

two people I should mention. One is uk, which is an artist, which we talk about a lot. I'll come back to her in just a minute.

But the other is John Oliver from last week Tonight. Check out the link in the show notes to a little clip from last week tonight called Infrastructure, which we mention in this episode because it's this kind of parody of. Some of the things we talk about, how, you know, whatever, it's not sexy to think about maintenance, but actually maybe it is.

some of the key themes that we talk about here are fragility in that way.

And, rather than celebrating just robustness and autonomy in all these things. There's something actually about fragility and ongoing maintenance and relationships and care that is actually really strong and not at all. what we might think of when we hear the word fragility, for example, it's actually this wonderful paradox or this beyond kind of either or idea of the fragility of life and the care for it being actually what is maybe our strongest embodiment and our strongest.

You know, reason for even being here and wanting to be here. And then of course we also talk about attention a lot because that has a lot to do with this and this meta attentional engagement is a big influence for them. The idea that nothing happens, but then everything is happening in that nothing, so to speak.

It's sort of the key element and noticing it. makes all the difference. And then maintenance versus repair is a big theme that you'll hear us talk about. So something breaks, like, you know, on a big scale and we have this big emergency and then people come and repair it. and those people usually end up being heroes or something when, when things have to be repaired.

In a sort of contrast, but actually not even only in a contrast, but a deepening actually. There's this ongoing maintenance, which is like the daily pulsation, I think they call it this rhythm, this pulsation of attention and, ongoing care that sort of prevents breakdowns most of the time. So it's odd that we have the breakdown, or at least when things are running in a certain way, which we hope will continue, We also talk about this invisibility and this missing quality, which I think a lot of us feel in different ways right now. And maybe this is an interesting way to put a finger on what is that feeling of this missing, something missing or invisibleness that we need to see clearly again, also just a celebration or they, they talk about thinking with.

Maintenance workers and people that are doing this and how it actually transforms the way you're in the world. And, um, the person I mentioned is kind of a, she's basically an American artist who wrote this whole manifesto for maintenance art. And I really would suggest you look at her work, U-K-E-L-E-S-U, Kless, and she has this whole wonderful manifesto, coming for.

on the side of maintenance, so to speak. she says something like, I'm an artist, I'm a woman, I'm a wife, I'm a mother. I do a hell of a lot of washing, cleaning, cooking, supporting, and those are just sort of everyday things. But I wanna exhibit them as my art because they are art. And not only her, she talks about, you know, other people who are doing these everyday so-called everyday things, but actually.

Those things are holding life together, and they're very artistic if you just put your attention on them in a certain way. Her masterwork is this thing called touch sanitation, and that was from, I think it was around the same time, Bruno Latour was writing his first book end of seventies or early eighties, and she goes around and shakes hands with every maintenance worker in, or every sanitation worker in New York City.

And telling them thank you. And like, just putting her attention on them and seeing them, because they literally hold that city together. I just mentioned her work because we talk about it here, but we don't ever explain it. And it is a kind of thread in their book. Also, this sensibility, a lot of the conversations I've been having lately, I, I think most of 'em I haven't published yet, but you'll be hearing them coming.

Because I have these conversations months before they air, and some of them, I, I have the conversations and they never actually go public, but a lot of them, are talking about touch instead of thinking about sight and vision and eyes all the time. a a lot of people seem to be turning towards this idea of touch and the senses in a, in a deeper way, and the sensible and sensitivity and tact and tactile.

So you hear those words a lot, or at least they come up a lot in the book. And I'm pretty sure in our conversation too, the way things feel and touching them, repairing them, sewing, washing the dishes, you know. taking care of each other. Holding each other is a kind of, you know, care that's also like, you know, just daily sort of the way we touch each other.

All of that is part of these ideas here, We are gonna engage with that, on different levels in this conversation. And it goes even deeper in the book. There's a lot of beautiful examples what I hope you get out of it is just thinking about when we think about this moment, now that we're in wherever we are and about our future, then maybe it's not about being autonomous individuals only, but also, this power that humans are so good at caring for each other. We actually, we have this wonderful superpower of care and of allowing our fragility to bring us into much more strength and innovation  📍 and, and that, that takes patience and humility and of course, love. And that those are actually powerful things.

Those are powerful things. Humility, attention, patience, love. These are actually superpowers. I really believe that. So on that note, let's go on into this conversation. I hope you enjoy it. And happy Thanksgiving. I'm really thankful for you. I'm thankful for whatever you do today that gives anything of love, humility, patience, or care.

On any level, just know that it's important. Even if nobody seems to see it, it matters. All right, here we go.

Welcome to Love Philosophy. Thank you so much for being here. I was gonna let you both introduce one another or introduce yourself as you see fit today. 

Yeah. One another is a good idea. So here is David Ponti, who is a researcher as a French National Research Center, uh, and also a member of the Center for Sociology of Innovation, uh, from an engineer school, uh, a called Mining Schools School, uh, in Paris.

And this is Jerome Denis, who is actually the director of the CSI in, uh, Paris in, uh, min Paris, uh, school of mine.

I was actually there not too long ago. so I actually have a good visualization of, of your university. I was walking and going into the museum with all the beautiful rocks and Nice, it's, yeah, I loved it. I love seeing all those rocks. Wow. I, I was really spectacular.

It's just so you know, so I'm actually, envisioning you. Okay. 

You have an idea of the kind of book. 

Exactly. so we're gonna talk about this book, which I wanna show the cover because I just love the cover. I mean, I'm sure there's different covers, but. the care of things, ethics and politics and maintenance. So how did you come to the subject? How did you come to one another and how did you come to this subject? You can start anywhere with that, but I'm very interested in it. 

So, one another. It's, it's a very long story.

it began in, uh, in the end of the 1990s actually. Uh, we are, we were doing our PhD, not, not together, but we were on the same team. So we were quite young. it, it's more than 25 years ago. Uh, and may, maybe David can explain, he, he was working on, um, scientific signature, co-authorship and stuff like that.

And so progressively we decided we, we do that sign and, and do research, uh, together. and that's one of the outcome of this decision made in, I don't know, maybe, uh, 88, 89, 90, 98, 99 maybe, probably. 

That actually fits very well with the care and slowness and over time. So, but did you wanna add anything to that?

yeah, we, we can. We cannot dive into old decision if we did all, all along this journey. but at some point, uh, very early, we, because of the topic of our, respective PhD, so, uh, I was working on scientific authorship and John on other thing related to writing in organization and, work settings.

And, uh, at some points of writing, uh, come up, as really, uh, a topic to investigate. And, uh, we did different, research, separately, but always talked about what we did separately. And at some point we came with a, a collaborative investigation, in the early, uh, it was in 2000 5 0 6. And then, uh, we, uh, really, uh.

Go into these urban signs in Paris, inquiry. And, uh, we were really into, uh, the, the design and the production of those signs and how they, organize shape, all the subway settings, all the corridor, all and everything. So as some, as writing as a powerful, uh, means to organize and discipline people into this, uh, area.

And at some point, in this, uh, investigation, maintenance, really a prize. It was not part of the topic. It was not a decision to, investigate, uh, study maintenance. But it's really, uh, come up from the field, almost at the end of our inquiry because, uh, we were in this, uh, meeting with, uh, one of our.

Let's say the main, format, uh, the, the, the main informant. We, we were, discussing, uh, all we did and, uh, if, uh, something is missing and we were almost, saying goodbye and, uh, she, this kind of flash, uh, and say, oh, uh, TDU went to the maintenance department and, uh, followed the maintenance guy.

And we were no. So it, it was a new start for, for the investigation. And at the same time, um, Graham thrift, published a paper, uh, in 2007. The, the title was, is, out of Order. And so we realized, uh, how far, uh, this two years in investigation, one to design and the other one to maintenance, but this subway science, was not only, uh.

A monograph, but, uh, it, it really relates to, uh, uh, broader, uh, concern in academia, and not only in academia, but to different, uh, people, organization, practitioners. And so the decision come here, after the maintenance, uh, present herself, have something, uh, interesting, we decide to, to dive into it.

And so we, uh, we organized different panels in conferences, to, uh, meet with different people we didn't know before that. And, uh, discover different topics and objects and the way the, these colors, deal with the way they, they are maintained. So at some point we became part of what we call to brand it maintenance and ripper studies.

I think it's becoming actually a real world, it looks like. I mean, I, the more I look, the more I found, which is always a good sign. But I like that you came across this in a way that was a surprise. as I was reading the book, which of course is about maintenance of things, and we'll get into that.

I did find myself thinking a lot about writing and about, uh, research and about the other topics that I imagine had led you into it. There's definitely a lot of resonance there, which maybe we can come back to or you can say something about any time. But but just, you were, you were looking at the signage or the writing of the metro signs in Paris, which are very special.

Yeah. And then that was a big project and it was sort of at the end that someone said, have you talked to the guys that are doing the maintenance? And you were like, ah, no. And you went to do that. And then in the book you say it changed everything in a way, like everything, I don't, I'm not sure exactly how you say it, but somehow everything that you had thought, was different after you talked to the maintenance people.



This is very important because, uh, this is a, maybe, maybe a specificity of this book. We, we, we are not philosopher, we are sociologists or STS uh, scholars.

Uh, but there is this idea that we needed, maintenance to, to, to do philosophy in a way or to understand their own philosophical problems, let's say it like that. So maybe to, yeah, to, to put it in the nutshell, the, the, at the end, at the first end, at the face end of our, investigation, we consider that, the power of science, uh, the ability to organize the world, of way fighting systems.

and especially the Paris one, was, um, I don't know. The source of this power was, IM immutability, and, and, uh, Omni, omni presence or, or the fact that the, the boards were standardized, the signs were standardized, heavily standardized, and they were made in a specific material, very sturdy material.

That was how, uh, a lot of people, told us. So we were like very, first Bruno, later Ian, we were, we were Ian in a way, uh, saying that Okay. It. iMobile I at tables, and this is how, they are so important. the first, the first rounds we did, with the maintenance, so we separate each other and, and one, uh, went with two guys and, and the other with two other guys for the whole day.

For the, for the first, uh, our first, uh, investigation in the maintenance department. And everything we, we, we imagine, uh, and we knew about science, seems to be, yeah. Not exactly like it is in the, in the real, in, in, in, in, in reality or, or in the corridors or in, uh, in the station on the platforms and, and stuff like all, all the places, because there seems to be the, these signs seem to be fragile.

They change, they were not, all up to date, uh, they were here, they were. There were things that were not in, absolutely not in our picture, uh, in the, in the first, part of our investigation. And what changed at first is that we thought that we were wrong. That we were completely, uh, I don't know, it was a, a misinterpretation at first.

And so we said we have to, to put everything we knew and, and we felt that science, in the bin. And, and just to completely start over, uh, our, our, investigation, but. Thinking about it and reading about, uh, maintenance, and, and, and, and really especially reading about care. We will go about that, uh, further, I imagine.

But reading, but, reading, uh, the work of Amaral, uh, and the idea of versions and, and progressively we understood that it was not that one version was the right one. And, and the, the first one was the wrong one. It was that the idea of immutable iMobile were performed by, the fragile signs that were taken care, taken care of by, by the maintenance.

So the idea that maintenance produce generates, the solid, uh, completely standardized version of the site. So we reconciled the two sides of our investigation eventually. but it, it changed everything because, especially we were really, we were completely in depth with the, the first, uh, bru tour and Mena Kris, uh, uh, sociology with objects, and artifacts and the idea that matter is important, matter matters, in social relationships.

And, and generally when you say that in social sciences, you think as matter as something that resists, and, you know, people doing this to say that matter matter is important in social sciences and in social relationships. And so we just, we, we progressively understood that. the point is ob obviously matter matters, but also in terms of fragility and of people taking care of, of matter and of objects and, and of artifacts, which is not exactly very present in the first actor network theory, studies, even if in the first malish papers, repairers maintainers are present, they are not completely erased in, uh, works.

it's, it's less, it's really, they, they, they are less visible. And actually, uh, Suzanne Lista wrote a, a very important paper in which she wrote, uh, that there is no reasons to put aside maintenance. So she didn't really dive into it, but. Uh, she, she really, she, she insisted about that, discussing Bruto, and the sociology of, door los, a famous Bruto paper.

maybe just to add, uh, two few thing, uh, that change, is the way, because, um, at that time we were not in the center for Sociology of innovation. The, the, the thing is that, being laurian a Christian, we were, let's say, into innovation and following different kind of innovation, and in writing practices.

uh, and so the, the thing that changes, uh, to step aside a bit from innovation and understand how maintenance is related to it or not. the second. The other, not the second. The other thing that change is the way that we, uh, make room for maintenance and making room for maintenance is, to investigate some parts of the world that are no more designer and users.

Just to, to be quick. 

To try to make it a little bit general. One thing that comes to mind for me when I was reading this and when I hear this is it, there's a similar pattern I think that I've experienced in different areas of life, and one that I think is very general that maybe everyone would understand if I express it, is when I started studying neuroscience or science.

I had this idea of it, which is, I think, comparable to the way you might've thought of those signs. it's a solid object. I think it fits with the lator concepts. it's solid or in a sense. And then the closer I got to it, what, what I would say becoming part of the maintenance in a way.

the more I couldn't really believe in that and it became much more complicated. And yeah, there was a kind of a rupture, which was leading to a lot of further insights, but also, have you have to recognize this fragility that I had been putting a lot on it not being fragile in a way.

I don't know if that makes, um, much sense to either of you or if that opens anything for you, but I just wanna put it there for people who don't, maybe I've never read Bruno Latour or, How this opened out of a clear either or sort of situation into, in the book, you talk a lot about fragility and multisensory and multi-dimensions.

It just becomes intra related. and that moment seems like an important one 

Yes. So first thing is there is, uh, important connections with science studies and the first labor laboratory studies, which mean that people really observing how science is made is concretely made, uh, is a, is a very good way to, to grasp, uh, and to understand this fragility.

Uh, and this. Processual making of, of for instance, or Michael Lynch did, uh, at the end of the seventies and the beginning of the eighties. So one of their main gesture was to, uh, acknowledge, this fragility, this heterogeneity, uh, of the science practices.

But then the science and technology studies went with technology, uh, to the T of STS, uh, and the discussion somehow was displaced around mainly innovation as, uh, that it's, uh, said and, and, and more, uh, large settings of. Uh, discussing not the, the fragility of innovation may, uh, it's, it's a bit like that, but the hetero heterogeneity of the trajectories of any innovation to just to, to, to criticize the idea of you have, uh, research and development and then, and then market studies and then, uh, users, uh, who adapt, adopt, or not a technology.

So the, the, the, the technology studies, uh, in science and technology studies did that mainly. And when they insisted on, the role of objects and artifacts, it's like in material culture studies. and, and in, uh, the, the what? Yeah. The first Ian text about sociology with object. And with artifacts, they almost forgot the fragility, uh, part of, of it in a way, uh, to insist that we live, and human, uh, humans live, uh, among artifacts which participate in the organization of the society.

Uh, and, and this is what called the missing masses. And, and he used to, to criticize sociologists, saying that, okay, you, you, you, you are, uh, speaking about, uh, social relations, but only with humans. And this is completely stupid because, uh, humans couldn't. Do society if they didn't have any, uh, object, if, if they were naked.

Uh, it's, it's, uh, it's, and this is why we're not exactly like, uh, monkeys. Uh, so that that's the first aspect, uh, of it. And this is why fragility and heterogeneity and pro, pro, uh, processes are important in science and technology studies, but intrigued not as much, uh, when it comes to dis to, to discuss the importance of artifacts or, or objects.

So that's the first point. So what you say about, the fragility and the, and the material heterogeneity is really important because this is the first thing that, that struck us when we followed, uh, the maintenance in, in Paris Subway, uh, metro in Paris, uh, metro or subway. Uh, is that. They were dealing with the science, in a very special way.

that is as something that is some, some things that were constantly, uh, transforming, that were constantly changing. and actually of course, sign boards for them was, were very important. But it was not only signboards, it was rust. It was, uh, the wall, and, and, uh, and, and the materials, with which the, the, the wall is made, uh, and the materials of the signs itself and how everything interact.

And so it's not only fragility, I think fragility was the, the first thing that really struck us. I say, oh, they are not as solid as we thought. But then we discovered that what was very important for maintenance is this material transformation. And, and this is very important to us because, uh, they taught us in a way.

And they, they, yeah, they taught us to, they helped us to understand what dollars, for instance, or dollars and, and what said about, uh, the craftmen and the idea that these are the kind of people who are able to plug themselves into, into the flux of matter, which is something, or materials, the flux of materials.

When you read this, this is quite abstract, you can understand, but it's quite abstract. And when we, you follow maintenance, it's very concrete. It's exactly what they are doing and it's exactly their problems. They want to understand how matter react, whole materials, uh, interact, between each other. and, and, and this is really, uh, crucial to to, to to, to get these lessons from maintenance and to understand how.

They deal very, very simply with very, uh, huge problematic, issues and philoso issues, philosophical issues. And I remember during our first presentations and our first communications, uh, we met with Karen Bard, in a, in a conference. Uh, and, and we did one of our first presentation, uh, about the signs that were, uh, fragile that were, uh, broken and, and saying that they are not as iMobile and imu.

And she, she was very nice, but she disappeared after that. So we never met again. But she, she really, she run in after our presentation and say, okay, you are exactly explaining Very simply what I try to explain to people and they don't understand, but this is not us. This is maintenance. And so, and I think it's very important because it's.

The way maintenance, live in the world and, and the way they are experiencing material world that can help us thinking, very crucial and important, uh, issues or, or, or, yeah. Matters, uh, philosophical issues, philosophical matters, and even of course, political ones.

I, that's great. That's exactly what I was hoping to kind of start to unpack is it seems like this is what a lot of that literature was calling attention to, but not about objects, which is very weird in a way. it's almost like we had, we're doing an excavation, we could only handle so much, and now we can now we're like looking a little deeper somehow.

it seems a continuance of, even as it has to kind of criticize a bit, which is interesting and, and actually part of, you know, the rhythm of the book in a way. so I, did you have anything you wanted to add there, David, before I go on or? 

I don't know, depending, because you, you mentioned, um, multisensory or everything, and to follow on what you just said, I can add pure on that.

mm-hmm. Because to, um, to consider, uh, things or object not as much as table and, uh, with, uh, very clear boundaries, but as flows, uh, actually involve, those kind of people to, uh, to engage bodily with those things made of flows and processes. And we discover and they, they really took, we learned from them how, uh, of course this is about noticing.

Noticing. And so the, the eyes and the vision clear, there's so much about that, that maybe I can, it's not, I can skip a bit because it, it's obvious. They, they see the world, they see the thing they see. Uh, Jerome already get into a bit of it, but, uh, vision is always articulate with other sense, senses, senses.

Uh, and depending on situation, depending on the, the kind of things, they are dealing with, it can be smelling, it can be hearing, it can be touching. Touching is really also another one. But one, one more time is depending on the settings, the kind of maintenance work that is involved. And so, uh, the, the point is that, uh, depending on configuration, we can, um, make a kind of a hierarchy between the difference, uh, bodily engagement and sense, sense senses that are involved.

But the point is not toward this kind of, uh, cartography, I don't know. Uh, the point is that, uh, this is always multisensory. And, uh, this is always something that involve different kind of, part of the body that, uh, is clearly related to, uh, rules and objective. Because those people, come with, uh, they are monetary to the situation.

They don't come when, when we are in professional and organizational setting. Of course, they don't come just to see or to smell or no, they're, this is mandatory and in advance, they must, must, know or imagine or anticipate what they're going to tea, smell and do. But what is very important in, in this multisensory, um, aspect is that it's.

On one part to confirm and to go into what the rules and the, you know, the, the, the framework actually, uh, already, yeah, organized and frame. But, uh, by multisensory, uh, involvement, they also, they are also open to surprises. What o overall name what, what the rules already anticipate, what, what come up.

And, uh, this is part of our very, of their, uh, expertise on, on this, uh, part. 

Yeah, it's, it's a bit cartoonish of me to say this, but in reading the book, one I, you can kind of imagine that you go back into the body when you start to talk to the maintenance people again. I'm exaggerating, but it's almost like it's all in the head and it's this kind of, um.

Thought experiment in a way. And then it becomes really bodily and, and the senses and, and it's interesting the movement that comes there in the book, and you can correct me or whatever if this doesn't make sense to you, but to me it's, it is hard to talk about, which is why I wanna try to talk about it.

But it becomes more mundane in the sense every day kind of way. in the same way we, we were, I was talking about science. It's this thing that seems wonderful and perfect, it's this object that's there, and then it becomes a process that sensory and embodied and it becomes so rich and at the same time, nothing happens, uh, in a way because it becomes so consistent and ev all the time.

What does that bring up? I know that's a lot, but I'm, and it's messy. I'm just trying to see how we can get into this. 'cause it's not a very clean cut. It's fractal. 

No, but it's very important and, and it's, um, and I think it's really, um, it's, it's crucial of the, of the question of the maintenance.

Uh, and, and maybe, but we, we, we can address this question maybe, uh, later, but it's maybe the differences between, uh, focusing on repair and focusing on maintenance because, so this is, there is this idea that there is a, a, um, very concrete bodily, commitment. Uh, and, and the senses are, are really important.

First aspect is that. It's also the case in settings where maintenance, operation interventions are equipped with, tools because of course you have a lot of maintenance interventions, uh, that are equipped with things to, to, to look throughout something, for instance, or, or with, uh, sensors and stuff like that.

So, but, but, but you cannot do without bodies. and this is super important and actually even the, the high tech tools, uh, that are used nowadays are intention, uh, with the, the, the importance of the body and the senses. Uh, and, and you have really interesting, uh, situations. Nowhere in which nerve resist, to, to, to, uh, high tech, uh, tools or instruments to, to, to keep their expertise and their bodily expertise and their, their sense sensory expertise. So this is important. This is, that's, that's the first aspect, but then it's. Again and again. And this is what Cle the, the artist, the conceptual artist we discuss with, uh, all along the book.

And she was on the cover of the French version of the book, where a performance, uh, say it's, it's something that you do. Every day and you have to do again. and a lot of people, actually participate in, in, in doing. and so it, it's, it's unnoticed even if it's not completely invisible, it's mainly unnoticed.

So it's a very, it's, it's something that, that is, uh, in the, in the, it's not, it's absolutely not in the foreground of, of our experience of, of most of people experience. So, uh, the idea that it's a background activity, repetitive one, and, and sometimes really not, not as fun as that to do, uh, is super important to us because it's still an expertise and it's still, something that not, not everyone can do.

Uh, and it's not as easy. And this is, this was also important to us because. When we, when we got into the subway stations with the maintenance, we discovered, for instance, how they are able to pay attention to things that we didn't notice. Noticed at first at all. So we weren't able even to look at things correctly.

and, and of course we were not able to touch things and to understand how, what was happening here and what should be done, of course. but still they do that every day. their pay grade is not great. Uh, and it's kind of a dirty job. Dirty work. Something that is, uh, made by Yeah. Uh, people, mostly rationalized people, uh, men mostly in urban settings, women at home.

And this is part of all this, question of invisible work in general. So, and somehow, and we are really connected then to cle work, uh, and, and, and all our performances. Our idea was how can we make. This, uh, expertise, but very mundane expertise matter. Uh, how can we, take maintenance into account and, and in a very large sense, because into account in our stories in the way, for instance, we, we explain the relationships between humans and, and technologies, for instance, but also, take maintenance into account in, in, uh, accounting practices and, and in prices and, and in salaries and in and in, uh, all, all these important aspects, which is not, detailed in the book, but it is part of, of what we, we do and, and how we, we also talk to people and, and other kind of research we did.

How can we have a fair price, for instance, for, for, for maintenance, because of course this, activities are, uh, mainly the ones that are. considered, as, costless or, or, or not, not, they are undervalued, in most of of situations, not all of them, but in most situations they are undervalued.

So the idea of bringing to light, uh, these expertise and this bodily expertise, which is still mundane, is super important to us. 

One phrase I that's coming to mind is the one about normal normalcy. They, they're taking care of normalcy and I was even thinking about how much of the most important jobs from teachers to, to maintenance workers are doing that, because it's so consistent and so important, overlooked, which is part of that weird paradox too, that.

That comes. Um, but you raised this point about, well, there's a couple things hanging in the air. Like uk UK or ukulele. because that's so rich and it's, we weaving through the book, but the idea of like innovation and development and also, the idea of there being a difference between repair and maintenance.

 well, first, David, if you wanna say anything about, about the other, Did you have any comment? 

Yeah, we, we got a, a specific, uh, sentence and, uh, maybe to, to summarize the drama of maintenance, that is to make everything go on as if nothing had happened.

Right. And actually, uh As soon as you, you followed maintenance, actually a lot of things happen. So, uh, as if, uh, nothing had happened to whom. And, uh, clearly this is, uh, one of the clear distinction we try to, uh, underline between maintenance and repair. Uh, and so, uh, to, to pull up what Joran just said about cle maintenance, she really into maintenance and the mundane, repetitive, boring activities.

and at some point, uh, repair, um, what are are gonna dis uh, the distinction I'm going to dive into is not on the reality is more on the, uh, approach and more on what you, uh, put forward and backward. So this is the, the two words. Do those not, refer to different realities? They refer to the same. But, uh, depending on if you, uh, switch at the forefront, maintenance or repair, you got a very different, uh, picture of, uh, what you are, uh, describing.

Uh, so maintenance, this is really, uh, okay, repetitive, boring, and, uh, actually most of people that are involved at some point in, in it, doing the, we, you know, cleaning, uh, different, different, uh, clause or d So it's very different situation and, uh, made on a very, uh, regular mundane and let's say boring, uh, rhythm.

And a continuous one repair is, oh. In this, uh, contrasting, uh, attempt, is more, uh, a clear cut activity that come after something broke after a kind of event. And this is another event that response to the first one you got, repair that com, uh, in front of the scene, in, uh, action films. You got all those kind of, uh, very, uh, famous actors of, of course men, with muscles and everything that that save the world.

So just underline too much, but just to explain the thing. You got one event and, uh, repair is another kind of event that repair, so that bring back to the, the thing, the situation, the institution toward to normal C as you just mentioned. And so this is, uh. Really, uh, something that, uh, that is binary, uh, contrary to maintenance, that is continuity.

And, uh, you get this kind of, uh, different kind of actors, uh, with let's say, heroes or people that save the world or the situation. And, uh, in maintenance, uh, it's, I noticed. And, uh, ongoing, uh, activities made by regular people just to, to contrast too much. Yeah. But to, to, to make it, no, 

it's great.

There's these layers and I think it relates a lot to time and to attention to noticing all of these things that you're, you're layering in, that we're trying to talk about. So there's this way in which, things go on and we, we focus on development or innovation maybe because it's so every day and so overwhelming to be aware of all the time.

there's a lot of reasons maybe. But then there's a rupture and something happens, like we have an emergency and something has to be repaired and then everyone focuses on it and those people doing the repairing sort of become the focus. And that's often maybe confused with what we, we've been talking about here.

And I think it, when it comes to the noticing and to the time and to the care, this matters a lot. And also to what Jerome was saying about this isn't just like, this is in all kinds of areas of society. In a way we're talking about approach to the way that we are living too,  And what we prioritize as, you know, people living in different places at different times. So I just wanna bring all that up, all those layers. And I think maybe we could, you, you can say whatever you wanna say, both of you, but then maybe we can talk about an example, or, or more than one example, the yesterday.

Toni, what is the news? 

Uh, yeah. No, we have, um, we have, we cannot have, we have several stories. Uh, maybe we can start with, uh, our, one of our, hero quote unquote, uh, is John. Uh, 'cause we have, we, we use a lot of, of.

performances from, uh, UKS, but we also use, uh, one particular, uh, episode of last week, tonight, uh, a late show from, uh, John, uh, who we love really, because he's super interesting and his team, uh, is really a great team, uh, between thorough investigation and, and, and sketches and, and, and jokes. Uh, and so he has, in 2015, he did this episode about infrastructure and, and actually it turned out to be an episode of, of about maintenance.

And he said it is very hard, uh, to understand, how, how much maintenance is invisible or unnoticed and how much is in important. And he said to, if you want to understand that, you can just imagine a movie, and a movie, uh, and, and, and movie about, great catastrophic and, and great breakages, and where you have these, very famous actors who are playing the role of the savior.

And so he tried to to, to, and you, you can find it on YouTube, you,  he filmed, uh, um, a trailer for a movie who can be about maintenance. And it's very funny because very concretely what, what it means, for instance, to, to maintain a bridge. And he says, and you look at people, you know, just, adjusting, um, I don't know the term in English.

Um, 

Screw, 

let's say screw for instance, or, or watching for leaks and, and saying, is it big leak? It's not big link. And, and so he used very famous actor to do that. and, and, uh, a music that is very suspense, suspenseful music and stuff like that to, to make it understand so that that's for instance.

And, and in, in front of that, uh, he said that, of course if the, the bridge would, would explode. and, and people, bringing pieces all together to, to, to manage to have some kind of bridge so the, the, the car could, could, could, and I don't know, escape something or it would be a much more, uh, valuable movie than the movie about mag.

and you have a lot of that for, for, for, for, for cars, for instance, you can, or, or for, yeah. Let's say for cars for instance. And, and we worked with, uh, uh, Elia Al, uh, who, uh, who owned a, uh, Mustang, uh, herself and, and, uh, also who did a really nice book about m ang classic ang uh, owners. And for instance, in 

France, right?

Classic Mustang owners. Yes. In Europe or you're in France? In Europe, 

yeah, in Europe. In Europe. Uh, she's just for 

the American viewers, because Yeah. Yes. This is important. A special thing. A different thing. 

Yes. This is a very strange thing because in Europe, uh, uh, classic Mustang are, are really, uh. They, they're not as, they're not really costly because they are not, cars for, for museum at all.

But, but they are cherished because I think we, they represent something like the, like America Yeah. 

For 

the Mustang. So most time that's important. And so, so a lot of people have one. they are not rich people, they have, you know, they have to wait a lot, uh, uh, to, to have, uh, a plastic Mustang.

And of course you could insist on the, the, the, I don't know. Yeah. Accidents and breakage and use. But, but what she, was interested in and what we. We worked on with her was the daily maintenance, uh, of this classic Mustang. And what is really interesting is that people are afraid, they are worried about the continuity of their car and of their car's authenticity.

will it really remain a classic Muslim, uh, if I have to change this or that because of, of norms and standards or of, just because, you know, uh, some, some, uh, equipment is not available anymore, for instance, or you have to, to put, um, different kind of things. You have to change the brakes, for instance, because it's more secure to have brake.

And, and what is really interesting is first. We, were, uh, talking about multisensory, uh, expertise. the owners of these cars, uh, feel with their body everything that could go wrong with their car when they, when they are driving it. And it's really, it's, it's even, uh, touching in a way because you, you understand in the description she gave about these people and then in the interviews that they really are, plugged into, uh, with their feet, with their back, with their ears, of course, but with the end to the vibrations of the car, for instance, for, for the sounds of the car.

And they know the sounds that are okay, for instance, but they are also able to. To, to, to pick the sounds that are quite strange and to be very careful of the next occurrence of this sound. And if it's too much, you have to go, for service, the car and, and just to verify everything. Okay? So for instance, this car owners are experts of their cars.

lot more I think, uh, than most of people with their regular cars. Of course sometime listen very, uh, intriguing, uh, sound, for instance, but not as, as they can do it. But what is important also is that they are worried about it. They, they really are. So this is, uh, uh, disquieting attention. It's something that they are, obsessed with and they can become obsessed with.

Uh, and then definitely gets 

to the care care thing. Having been around a lot of people in a lot of different cars, what you're, I think what you're talking about there is sometimes people collect cars and it's a very different kind of 

Yeah. 

Thing than this way of being in relationship with the car and this continuity, which I think relates a lot to what, what you were both saying about the maintenance workers earlier too, just to kind of make that connection.

it's a more bodily, everyday relationship. It's just Yeah. Just to put that in. 

Yes. And, and, and they, and they are, they are listening to the car. So, so in a way they also are, um. They, they pay attention to what the car has to say in a way. Mm-hmm. Or has to, to show, in terms of fragility, for instance, and this, so this is a, this is a real, uh, relationship.

and when they need to intervene on the car, which is the other side of the things, which is. Almost every month, with this card. they try not to intervene too much. and they discuss with the whole community of, uh, classic must owners to check if it's, it's still a classic Mustang give they do this or that, or change this or that, which is very interesting.

and, and one mm-hmm. Important aspect of it is this kind of cars to be to, to, to really be, a plastic mustang. They have to, to, to drive it. Uh, it cannot be collected, and, and, and remain, at, at ease somewhere completely mobile. Mm-hmm. 

It reminds me too, I mean, in the work, in the book, you also talk about Mona Lisa.

And there's something similar going on there, but just at a different level that nobody ever sees, in terms of keeping it the Mona Lisa, but it's always changing too. but this is a more personal everyday Yeah. Level. But did you have something, David, that was coming? 

Uh, I, I don't know if you, you agree or if you want to, to touch on this, but, um, this, uh, continuous, uh, relationship, uh, also, um, shed light on the ambiguities and, uh, the, let's say dark side of, of maintenance because, uh, those, uh, car owner worried, uh, but at some point the, the relationship is too much for them and they sell the car.

So that, uh, really, uh, puts, put, uh, the, the. The attention on the way maintenance is not that beautiful or, uh, something very, uh, positive or whatever. Mm-hmm. And so to be clear, we are not for maintenance. We really, uh, like it as a topic to be investigated and to learn from maintenance, but not as something that to uh, to push for or to, to say maintenance of anything is good and so on, on this, uh, on this, uh, very ambiguity of maintenance, uh, the ambiguity is, uh, bo for the thing and for the people that take care of it.

you can destroy this thing. You can, Mona Lisa, not this one, but other, uh, painting, uh, have been destroyed. So you. You, you, you really, uh, miss the thing. You try to, to, to inspire you try to care 

for it so much that you destroy it. Is that what you mean? Yeah. Because I'm thinking about in the book too, you talk about care as work and that is a really important point that this is, and, and I guess we need to kind of draw some lines, like we've been talking about care, but we haven't used that word Exactly.

So, but also, yeah, in the book, it's very obvious that this is work and it's not easy. And I think that's what I was trying to get at too with the, with the attention thing and how it can be very hard to pay attention to everything that's happening in this way that has to be done. If you are the maintenance worker or the person taking care of the Mona Lisa or with the car, it's so sensory that it actually takes a lot of energy too, in a way.

So I'll let you both. Whatever might come up there, but. 

Yes, it took energy. And, uh, it's, uh, just to follow up on, just to connect what with, with this, but to, to follow up on, uh, what the, the ambiguities. it's only, um, it's harsh and it's harmful. You can, uh, you can, uh, not, not only destroy your miss, the thing you try to, uh, to, to maintain, but you can also, hurt yourself with the tools, with the product, with everything.

And so, uh, in some situation, maintenance is, is not that, yeah. Positive or Mm, like 

working on the bridge in the Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's dangerous to be taking care of the bridge. 

Well, care is work, uh, on the expertise, uh, knowledge, uh, whatever things apart. But, uh, this is work also on the, the way, uh, the bodies are really put at, uh, at the.

Test and modern than test. So 

yeah, that, that's, that's an important aspect because, so e every kind of maintenance is not work, uh, in a, in a strict sense, but saying that maintenance and care is work is completely connected to feminist fairies, uh, about care. And of course why we call that the care of things, it's because we found very important and crucial resonances between, what we were looking at and, uh, the, the, the theory and the feminist theories of care, uh, and which is very interesting in that Fernando Dominguez Rubio, who is a friend and a colleague who worked on, on Mona Lisa, uh, around 2015 and Steve Jackson who, uh, did this, um, beautiful paper in 2014, uh, rethinking Repair, where we were all together.

paying attention to some kind of maintenance, uh, phones, with or, or computers for Steve, Mona, uh, and then contemporary art, uh, with Fernando and our subway signs at first. And we all did this connection without knowing each other, with the ethic of care, which is very interesting because, and then we, we very quickly became, uh, colleagues and friends because we wrote to each other, in the work of La Houston, for instance, also, or, um, uh, a lot, a lot of people actually.

but we all have this vocabulary of care and it's super important because there is tons of, uh, uh, lines of, of, of thinking and, and reflection, between care of people and care of things. It's not the same, obviously, but, and one of, one of the line is fragility, of course. Taking fragility, uh, as, as a starting point.

the theories, uh, feminist theories are more likely to, to, they, they, they, they use the term vulnerability, which is not exactly the same, but it's. It's quite, quite, uh, of course, uh, close. Um, but work is in another aspect, the idea that it's work. Uh, so it's not, it's not as easy as it seem. it's costly and sometimes, uh, it's, even a matter of health for workers.

and, and a way to put this is, and, and it's another way to say that for us it's important to make maintenance count is at what costs a thing can remain the same, uh, at what costs, economic costs, but also human costs. A bridge, for instance, or a nuclear plant, to say things that are less romantic than that monies are, for instance, at what human costs.

This remains in place. And this is very important because, and this is the third aspect of, of, uh, the discussion with the theories of, of care is that, uh, and I'm missing the, the point, yes, it's this objects are generally, presented or, or, or casted as autonomous as something that lasts, uh, for, for themselves.

and, and, and they, they are not actually, they need people to take care of them. our computers or infrastructure, tons of things needs people, needs maintenance to, to, to remain the same or, or, or, or to stay in place, to stay functional. and this is very clear, for instance, in architecture, when you saw picture, uh, and, and you, you look at, uh, uh, architecture journals.

You don't see anyone. Uh, sometimes you see an inhabitants, uh, sometimes you see a user, but you never see a er. And if, no house, no building, no nothing can last without some kind of maintenance. So this idea of this need work, this is really closely connected to the theories of care, saying that no people is, autonomous, we all need some people to take care of us at some point someday.

And so we are all interconnected. And so this is also this struggle against, uh, the myth of, of autonomy, uh, autonomous people and autonomous thing. and, and this is an important, really important aspect. Which comes with the idea that, uh, people can, uh, get hurt, doing maintenance of course, and they can die, doing maintenance.

And it's very, in some situation it's very problematic, but it's also come with this idea. Okay, so this things that seem to be only material that seems to be only technological, actually take, people maintenance, who sometimes, uh, are, getting hurt, uh, or getting sick, doing this maintenance, we should put them in the same picture.

that, that the picture, uh, that describe all that, that, that sell, this beautiful infrastructure, for instance. 

Yeah. It reminds me of the ecology of fragilities. Ecology of fragilities is something that comes up in the book. Do you have each have about 10 more minutes or do we need to wrap it up real quick?

Yeah, it's okay. 

Okay. yeah, this, this reminds me of the ecology of fragilities, but also that it could sound like that we're trying to say that maintenance is better than development or innovation or something. And I know that's not what's being said here. So also the deeply disquieting aspect of it, I think relates to what both of you were just saying, that it can be harmful, but it's also uncomfortable or, I, I wanna get into that a little bit about, how you see, like, maybe even how this has changed your perspective of everyday life or something. Or what do, what is this doing? When we start to think about care of things, it is different from cares of people, but as you express in the book.

These are changing the way we, our capacity almost for care is changing here in a way that reflects in all aspects of society. how can we talk about that part of the book a little bit?

I was thinking it was a question about our own experience, but actually it became, uh, in the same sentence. The whole, the whole globe. Yeah. 

You can take it with your own experience if, if you want. 

It's not that easy to, 

you don't have to solve the global perspective. 

Okay. I can try only on the, my own experience, actually I was raised, uh, let's say in the middle range, uh, class.

Uh, but my, uh, grandparents really care about think and to last. To, to every, everything we had, uh, is really, was really important for them to last. Mm-hmm. You know, when you are a small kid and you are always on your knees and never on your feet or everything like this, and they go up, you know, think of your pants.

So just to, to mention, and so at that, uh, let's say that, uh, for a long time it was okay, this is a generational thing. We don't care of it that much now. And, uh, all those, uh, investigation we did with Jeroma really make me think differently. Of course, from there, worried and, uh, of course there are no more there now, and I'm in my own experience.

It, it, it, it became very, um, important, uh, not only to, uh, make them. Important and actualize in some sense what they, uh, taught me when I was young. it's really, uh, connected also to, uh, you know, climate change and everything today, but so it, it, you know, it, it's really connected and I reticulate things I, uh, learned, uh, when I was a small kid, uh, with my, uh, my bike and everything and try to, to have it to last, uh, but at some point to replace a report because, you know, innovation, because, just to, to explain, I did, a long, uh, for a long time I did, uh, freestyle BMX and, uh, in that spot, the part, uh, are breaking.

But, uh, at some point I, uh, I used to change a lot. Not because they break, because I want some new ones and, and so all the thing, uh, uh, all all the, the, the thing we did with j. More than 15 years on maintenance really, uh, made me think, uh, switch it, and, uh, really think differently and at home and, uh, with my boys, yeah, I try to, to explain them very differently, because, uh, of course, uh, we are, uh, hold daddy, uh, that, uh, is very boring.

But we try to, to have something more political in a very feminist sense, the political in the kitchen, political in the, the room, not political, uh, at the ground level to, so to speak. 

Yeah. I, I, in a way, you sort of bridged the nested, all those different worlds. And Jerome, I wanna hear your experience, but I just wanna say, I wanna ask, did it, did it deepen?

I'm thinking about my grandparents, and they had a farm and you had to take care of everything. And there was a noticing and a kind of sensual connection to everything in, in similar ways to what we're talking about here. And not to romanticize that, but to have it sort of taken for granted and then to grow up and, you know, a pretty wealthy kind of family where you could just get new stuff when it broke.

And that was kind of more my childhood after that, those early years. I guess what I'm trying to get at and ask you about is, for me it was about, realizing that when you care for things and when you can notice them and engage with them, they mean more, and the, the experience becomes richer and deeper.

It can also become more overwhelming and more disquieting in the way we've talked about, but there's something in there that feels, important. Did, did, did you, did you realize that too in this experience with Jerome and also just even in the way you started looking at the signs differently or. This whole project that has now become a book, has it deepened something?

I mean, would you say it's, um, added kind of, or expanded your own perception or way of noticing in any way? 

Yeah. Maybe just one sentence in Jerome gonna go. it's really, uh, connected to what John just said before about, uh, it interdependencies now, uh, every time I'm, uh, looking, touching, whatever a thing, it's not only a thing, it's always a lot of, uh, connected people, uh, rules, uh, IDs, values.

It's really a, a chain of interaction between very different things. E even if I, I cannot, uh, acknowledge and identify all the, uh, com compose of the network. Let's let, yeah. To say differently, this is really a flow. This is no more, uh, stable, and autonomous, autonomous things. 

That's, that makes a lot of sense, especially with what Jerome said, realizing the ecology of it.

But, okay. Jerome, so what about you and your personal, 

uh, world? Yeah, my personal, but it is also, I think, uh, also connected to, to the, um, the marginal aspect of your question is that I realized, I, I knew that, but I really realized how much in 50 years, uh, and, and even less, uh, a whole kind of, uh, model of consumption, had been, uh, installed, by, uh, a certain kind of capitalism, and which hyper consumption, uh, basically has replaced everything that is brick and, and then that's the carelessness.

At the idea of, at first, we, we were obsessed that mins were experts in paying attention to, to things, to fragility. And then what I really understood, uh, eventually was that we were all experts of that, a few years ago, a few decades ago. Uh, it was just the way things were supposed to be. We, you, of course, because things are expensive, uh, and, and, and maybe for, uh, effective, uh, reasons, but also for very, uh, mundane economic reasons you would make them last.

It's completely abuse. And it was completely obvious in num in very, very, uh, numerous situations and, and, and a lot of situations. And then how come? So I reversed the aspect. How come we. Could not pay attention to these fragilities. How come we didn't care? we, and the we is very situated, or who come, I didn't care, for instance, uh, for, for some things.

And I discovered that I, I was told not to care. Uh, and, and I remember, uh, uh, a post cast we did, uh, a few years ago, a French one. And, and, uh, and the podcaster, the, the woman who were inter uh, interviewing us just called her dad. And her dad said, and she said, you knew how to take care of things, but, but you didn't talk to me.

How come I, I don't know how to do that. And, and he answered to her, yes, because we want you to, to, to bother with that. We want you to, to enjoy life. Which means that comfort and modern comfort was designed with carelessness, were designed with the idea of you don't have to, pay attention to, to things.

And that transformation. But there is another important aspect, and, and, and it's important that even in your, question you connect the two, it's sometimes overwhelming. So you do, there is a risk of ableism, uh, in, in this situation of we should all pay attention to everything, every time. Of course not, of course, not of course.

People cannot bear, this, this idea and, and they cannot stand to, to, to pay attention to everything or to worry for everything. And this is the, the, the question for most and owners, for instance. But for everything, of course, when I, when I, I don't know why I take my, my, my bike bicycle and I go, in the, in the street in Paris, in B Michel.

I have to pay attention to the fragility of the road. Uh, but not too much and not, uh, some things are supposed to, to, uh, to last and some people are specialized in, in, in taking care of them. And it's a good thing too, you know, the distribution of this work. So the point is, is more taking, paying attention to their ecologies and their dependencies.

And this is the, the, the last point you mentioned, uh, with David is, is that, that the point, the point is less paying attention to every kind of fragility of things, but of. People who are, who could be involved in the becoming of the things with you. So it's also a matter of re repopulating, the, the picture.

Uh, it's not only a relationship between you and the thing, it's also, you know, uh, taking this interdependency into a consideration and then maybe asking, is it worth it or not, or is it, but that, that's maybe the, the, I think the most, the, the thing that really, uh, struck me eventually was this idea of carelessness and the configuration of carelessness as comfort, uh, which is quite troubling and disturbing at least.

Yeah. And I, there would be a whole other podcast there about, you know, how that relates to technology and kind of our mindset today. but I think it's very rich to, to think about the care of things right now in that context, in the way that you're presenting. We talk a lot about beyond dichotomy or holding paradox here, and it, that doesn't mean, you know, choosing one or the other of these is somehow better, but just that realization that people are maintaining and they're, and it's a disquieting difficult and enriching sensual process.

Just that kind of a noticing is almost like a meta layer, to some of what you're discussing, you know, in these situations. That gives something, I think about a way of being in the world right now and thinking of it through these, uh, this lens more as an ecology. but to, to kind of end, I, I wonder about.

Well, I was thinking about when you both go to the Metro now, if it's different, if you're, in that sense that you're hold, you've, you're, you're holding things a little bit differently. Not every day maybe, that you're aware of all these people around you as you go through the city on your bike or through the metro or whatever that are.

If that What is, what has this brought to that relationship? you know, with the students, I'm just bringing up a few things. You can go wherever you wanna go with it, 

Well, of course we, we, once we, once you have this in mind, you cannot, navigate the world exactly the same because you pay attention to fragility of things and to people who take care of them. And actually the, the, the mo, the very modest, but also very ambitious aim of the book is for each reader to end it closet and don't look exactly to the world, uh, in the same way.

Uh, and this is in a, in a way, it is a matter of percept. And the book is something like a percept, uh, more than a conceptual book, you know, and, and this work, uh, and this quite immodest, but a lot of people are saying, oh, wow. We don't, we don't go to the subway and we don't see the same thing. We don't clean exactly the surface.

So this is, and this is very simple. But, and this is our political, uh, contribution, which is very mundane one, but perceptual one. This is very, super, very, very important to us. Fuso. It's also, it's something personal, but it's also something we want to do with maintenance. And this idea of paying attention to the attention of others, the maintenance who take care.

And regarding teaching. Uh, of course this is something that are important because, I teach, uh, and, and, and, uh, uh, David too, but, uh, a bit less because he's more in a, more a researcher, something that is, specialty. In France, you can be only researcher, but you teach a little bit. But, uh, I teach to engineers, and to, uh, so, and, and to very light engineers.

It's like, it's not the Ivy League, but it's something like, like the in French, they will be very important people as as soon as they leave the school. And trying to debunk some things, some aspects of, especially the idea of autonomy in technology, autonomous technology, and saying, no, no, no, there is no autonomous, there is never auto.

And each time you say that a technology is autonomous, uh, you are doing a kind of force and you say, yeah, you are leaving a lot of people aside. Uh, and, and this is problematic, because it is also a matter of value. Uh, and if you put them aside, you, you say that this is the thing only, who is valuable and not our people.

Of course, for AI today, all the, the, the work of, uh, annotators and, and, and people who are, uh, trying to make this thing, uh, work as if they were autonomous are crucial, for instance. So this is an aspect of how this, kind of research can, uh, enrich, uh, and which, uh, the teaching. 

Wonderful. That could almost be a whole other book about the autonomy.

Yeah, 

I mean, that's such an important point. I'm glad you put it in there at the end, but I also just wanna highlight it a bit because that opens up a whole other world right now in terms of technology. Okay. But what's coming up for you? 

Uh, yeah, clearly I'm not a teacher. Um, 

But I can, I can talk about the professional setting and not the, the teaching, but the students, uh, that are doing PhD with me and, uh, that's really changed the way, uh, I, um, envision their project and the way I managed to, um, yeah, really to take care of what they want to do and, uh, what they want to do, not only with, uh, this kind of topic, but they want to do in their life.

Would the project itself, uh, in the academic world or not? this is not a problem to me, but, uh, I really take more time to really, uh, let's say go deeper into it and just, uh, and not just trying to, uh, infuse or, explain how to do a good PhD. Yeah, of course I'm still on this, but this really a tiny part now.

Mm-hmm. I try to really understand who they are, what they try to do with this topic, uh, how the topic, the, the object, the scientific objects relate to their, their own experience and take really care of it and try to manage to drive all this course to having a good PhD. But this is not, um. It really sense the way I, and the time I take, I take very differently the time with those people.

So this is not teaching, this is really, uh, to accompany, to accompany someone with is her goal. And, uh, it takes, it takes a lot, but at some point, uh, it's no more, uh, at some point, not on every, uh, or every PhD student, but at some point, uh, it's relates to a two person going, uh, in a, yeah, not to be okay work, no, you know, on the road.

But, uh, yeah, to, to, to have a few step on the same road for, for, for a time. And for some, they, they're no more PhD student because they, they, um, they defend the p and t. But uh, we are close friend at some point because of this new. Time I try to investigate. 

Wow, that's actually really moving, because I think that in a way is what the book, kind of what you were saying, Jerome, it, it gives people something that's deep, that it's hard for us to put into words.

But I can just say, having talked to a lot of like really successful, famous people, whatever, that almost all of them end up talking about a supervisor or a teacher or a PhD or somebody who did kind of what you just expressed, uh, that, you know, changed their trajectory in a way. And it's a get, it relates to a lot of the things we've been talking about, about what you don't really notice or see in the everyday and all of that.

But also I think that it gets at something like meaning and care in a, in a way that makes it worth all of this that we're going through and doing. so on that note, I always ask if anyone has anything they wanted to say about love, because we didn't bring that word up. I have to at least say it. We've been talking about it, but I don't know if you, if you think it relates, um, if not, you don't have to answer.

But I wanna at least ask if you have any relation to that word that comes up, before we go. But I also wanna say thank you for the book and for taking that moment and meeting with the maintenance workers and following that. That energy because I think it's doing something important right now. But that's it.

So anything you wanna say to close or anything we didn't talk about? You wanna be sure you say then this is your time and thank you. 

Yeah. Thank you for having us. Uh, um, no, love is quite important actually. And, and Steve Jackson has a few words on, on this idea of, of if you could love, uh, our artifacts and the things we are living with, uh, maybe a lot of things will, would change, uh, in the world.

So, uh, it's a bit romantic, but I think it's important. And for instance, we, we didn't mention that, uh, other kind of very special maintenance we, we followed is graphic removers, uh, in the street of Paris. And there is no doubt that they really love Paris. Uh, and, and they even love graffiti actually, but they love Paris.

And, and, and the way. They, they take care, uh, of, the stones, the facades. Uh, and, and the way they try to, to remove, uh, the graffiti is something that, like an act of love, which is, uh, important to understand if we want not to, to be too, too much, uh, uh, critical, uh, about the, the big picture of refugee removing of course, which is, which can be problematic in a political way, but discovering that the guys that are on the streets and that remove graffiti actually do love Paris and try to do the best to take care of the city in a very material way is, is fantastic.

It's really super interesting. 

It adds something to being a part of the city too, when you know that, that that feeling is part of. How you're experiencing it every day. It reminds me of something someone just said about love is sometimes what's holding you that you don't even feel like when you can't feel it, it's still holding you.

And it's interesting to think of the city like that in terms of those people caring for it from that spirit, but, and Debbie, 

um, mm-hmm. Uh, maybe just to say that, um, they, uh, so graffiti removal, love Paris, uh, in a very different way, but in a, how to speak in a, uh, as much emotional sense that, uh, writers themselves love Paris.

and, um. I don't know. Um, I, I'm a bit shy about emotional and love. I'm not sure how to articulate it, and maybe I can have a very short sentence. But, uh, I really love this, uh, interview and I really love the, the way you put, uh, our ideas, uh, in Quest into question and will pick, um, very, uh, differently. Uh, because of course, this is not the first interview, uh, not about the English version, but talk about the book.

And I really love the, the way you articulate the topic. 

Thank you. That actually brings us back to that idea of writing that  📍 I brought up at the beginning too, and because it's such a big part of that city too. And I do think all these are connected.

You know, the writing of the book that you did, the writing of the city, the reading, the way I read it, Maybe that's its own kind of ecology that we can't. Fully see, but maybe the listeners can, can grasp it. So thank you. this book did something for me and, um, I'm already sharing it with lots of people and and, uh, we hardly got into it. So for everyone listening, pick it up in French or English or is it in other languages too yet? 

No, not yet. Okay. 

All right, well, thank you both so much. I hope you have a beautiful, uh, afternoon there.

And stay warm. 

Thanks so much. Yes, 

bye 

bye. 

Thank you. Bye 

bye.