Conversation and Figuration from the Horizontality of the 2.0 Decade

Sammanfattning: This thesis concerns the 2.0 decade, the decade when the social web started to develop. The main research objective is to contribute to our embedment in Internet technology in a conscious and livable way. The thesis is part of a general attempt to improve our understanding of the transformation taking place in the development of the web. We live in a time when knowledge contexts are moving from expert knowledge towards conversational knowledge. My research is mainly presented in the form of five essays. This thesis can be described as a conversational analysis of knowledge processes during the 2.0 decade. The 2.0 decade came to life in the wake of the information technology bubble in the end of the 1990s. The first decade of the 2000s was the decade when 'the Web' became 'Web 2.0' and the energy of the Internet switched from monetary speculations to conversations. Everyone wanted to start conversations and build digital technology, which induced conversations. Like the concept Web 2.0, this thesis came to life in the wake of the information technology bubble. It presupposes the knowledge relation between humans and our technology to be conversational rather than rational. This basically means that digital technology is not a tool but an integrated part in the person assemblage. There are many important thinkers embedded in this thesis. Some of them are more important than others, notably Gilles Deleuze and Donna Haraway. However, the thesis does not analyze the text of other thinkers, it involves them in the conversation. Important concepts as assemblage, rhizome (Deleuze) and cyborg (Haraway) are participants in the text rather than being its objectives. They are part of the general experience behind the essays, together with all the persons I have linked up to and the digital technology I have tried to become with. To become with (or develop together with) technology means to acknowledge the idea that technology is more than a tool. It is something within, not something external.