Devices, gadgets and everyday things might be the most obvious tangible entities of Mundania. Present technology. Perceivable and touchable. But what does it mean that something is tangible, and for whom and when is it tangible or graspable? How can different aspects of technologies be controlled in Mundania, and by whom? What do different people have to know about the technologies they live with? What can they know? The aim of this chapter is to approach these questions by closely engaging with some of the devices, materials and details of Mundania, and to start thinking about how they often seem to vanish.

Hands-on

To grasp something is to gain control, to have it at hand. To notice, comprehend and get in touch with it. To engage with processes, relations and devices (Dahlgren and Hill 2022). There are power dynamics at play here. Who can grasp what, who or what is under influence, and what do different people come to grips with? What does it mean that something is hands-on in a society permeated by complex technologies?

Many societies of the early 2020s are built on vast interconnected technological and organizational systems. Large-scale systems are furthermore built of miniscule components that are impossible to notice or adjust without advanced instruments. Top-secret facilities like data centres and connection points, housing a plethora of interconnected infinitesimal components.

The technologies of Mundania are ungraspable due to scale. Too large or too small. They are also ungraspable due to spatial or conceptual perimeter control. Many sites and whereabouts are secret, shielded and fenced off. The assemblages of technologies are huge and microscopic, distant but also close. When close and at hand, often also boxed in, sheltered and shielded. ‘Warranty void if seal is broken.’

Even though much of the world of advanced digital technologies is out of grasp, the word ‘digital’ pertains to something utterly concrete and human, namely fingers. Digital comes from digitus, the Latin word for finger. Throughout history, the fingers of a human have often been used for counting, and early calculating devices like abacuses are used with fingers. Devices for calculation operated by fingers are early and graspable forebears of today's systems of computation.