Can a shower head save the world? is the title of an article in the lifestyle magazine “Couch”. The world that is supposed to be saved does not appear in the further course. Instead, the article pours out a simple-minded high-tech world that uses AI to monitor the world of aging skin and automatically and exclusively secretes the genetically optimal care products directly from the shower head.

Donna J. Haraway calls this pattern of displacement by technological fantasies “a comic faith in technofixes (or techno-apocalypses).” But she doesn’t dismiss it; she knows it takes  constructive work on technology. How can we use inventions? Which ones are likely to “make us relatable” and propose solutions in “urgent times”? “Wet lip services” does not provide answers, but it encourages to stay with the trouble.

Pictures:
Oliver Gather /  AI Art Generator Craiyon. Accessed in February 2023.

Texts:
Annika Saunders. Kann eine Brause die Welt retten? – In: Couch – Die Dinge, die wir lieben. Hamburg. Ausgabe Oktober 2021.

Donna J. Haraway. Staying with the Trouble. Making Kin in the Chtulucene. Frankfurt/New York. 2016.