Fantastic land of cosmotechnics: Hui and Dostoevsky

Exploring the “cosmic” component of Yuk Hui’s cosmotechnics, the author of this article demonstrates how, in Hui’s approach, the material basis of technology disappears, giving way to symbolic constructs: ethical and cultural norms (discovering the Dao within oneself, finding balance), proclaimed as the source of a certain technics, prove capable of producing a set of connections and relationships that construct a “cosmos” that is absolutely complementary to any possible formations (other cosmoses) nearby. Proclaiming the need to seek alternatives to the destructive model of technology of Western civilization, Hui effectively presents the Chinese source of technology as preferable over others (Chinese harmony versus Greek tragedy, continuity versus rupture, etc.). In part, responding to the challenges of Hui’s , the author of this article proposes to examine the literally “grounded” foundations of technology in Russia, turning to an analysis of “land” as not a spatial toponym or a designation of the low and dirty, but as an existential-cosmological reference point and using examples from both canonical literature from different periods of history and the experiences of radio amateurs at the beginning of the twenty-first century.