Introducing the Act of Looking at Technology-in-Operation

The essays in this issue of Technology and Culture's Public History section ask, what does it mean when publics look at technology-in-operation? Building on the increasing turn toward visual analysis in the history of technology, the section explores what forms of looking emerge when encountering technology in the public realm. Is this looking modulated by how people understand that technology to function? Does technology's operation alter or control these shared forms of looking? What happens when publics look at technology-in-operation, but fail to see it? The topics in this section, ranging from the gradual integration of television sets into domestic spaces, to technologies conditioning the appearance of food, to the engineered landscapes of highways, explore these questions.