Haptic Visions. Valerie Hanson
molds the human even as the human builds the computer” (How We Became Posthuman 27; see also Hayles, How We Think, Chapter 4). The interaction, the “flow,” may then create longer-lasting patterns and, as with Hayles, above, Manovich and others have pointed out that the habituated patterns may also affect how the user responds to other interactive situations and technologies beyond the STM (136). As Manovich comments, for example: “As we work with software and use the operations embedded in it, these operations become part of how we understand ourselves, others, and the world” (136).
Indeed, one benefit of studying specific interaction dynamics that reach beyond the particular instrument, such as electron tunneling, movement in x, y, and z directions, and GUI use, is to see how the dynamics that structure STM interactions may influence trends in instrument use, such as the various uses of computer media—and through computer media, other scientific and medical visualization technologies. The fact that interaction dynamics such as rastering and GUI are also common to other technologies supports the claim that they may indeed become habituated interactions, so that one expects to manipulate, to interact with atoms, much like one expects to interact with an onscreen digital image. The dynamics thus import their own rhetorical power to the use of visualization technologies of which the dynamics are a part. It is no surprise, perhaps, given the presence of dynamics such as electron tunneling, movement in x, y, and z directions, and GUI use, that the STM includes such an emphasis on manipulability and interaction, but what is unique is how these operating dynamics combine to help create the particular space of flow in which users are persuaded of the manipulable, almost tangible, atom. The coordinated operating dynamics encourage specific interactions from image viewers in order to read them, as Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 discuss. The dynamics also affect the productions of the STM in ways that become important to understanding the rhetorical possibilities and changing discourses of nanotechnology in which atoms become tangible and able to be manipulated.
Interaction and Envisioning: Images, Information, and Atoms
In addition to the effects on the user discussed above, the combined dynamics of electron tunneling, movement in x, y, and z directions, and GUI use that help constitute the STM also help shape its productions, such as the image produced by the STM, the concept of information implied in this process, and nanoscale phenomena—such as atoms—that become visible through the imaged information. The following sketches trace the effects of the dynamics described above through productions of the STM in order to elaborate on what is persuasive about the STM, and to show the significance of the dynamic constitution of the STM. The following discussion also articulates aspects of the space of visibility created by STM use, and suggests how STM dynamics may affect our understanding of the nanoscale and of our world, as well as how we may have also changed in order to see atoms and molecules.
Imaging Interaction: The STM Image
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