The ways in which digital technologies find themselves integrated into society are influenced to a significant degree by cultural conventions. In Western culture there is a tendency to consider digital technology in terms of hardware and software that is introduced into various processes to enable us to work more efficiently and better negotiate our domestic and networked social lives. Such conventions render digital technologies transparent and invisible and in doing so defers our realization that technology is  always  with us; everywhere and in everything. This culturally reinforced attitude obscures our perceptual experience of "technology-being-with-us." In response, this paper examines our relationship with technology through exploring alternative, non-Western conceptions of interdependence. In support of this study we examine a series of cultural activities practiced in Korea in order to appreciate how the hardware and software associated with digital technologies can be perceived as non-human entities. This discussion will extend onto an analysis of selected artworks by Nam June Paik, before turning attention to the Japanese media art movement  Device Art . The characteristics of this genre --- noted for its particular relation to Japanese cultural influences --- will be examined to reveal how everyday technologies are used to create interactive experiences that promote a sense of "technology-being-with-us."
['In Dae Hwang', 'Mark Guglielmetti', 'Vince Dziekan']
Super-natural: digital life in eastern culture