User:Pleun/rwrs/Essay II Text

This essay, like last one, has a small project connected to it. Last time it was a little webpage to connect different texts that followed the original of Walter Benjamin. Now it's a webpage that contains a project where I wanted to for one day really realise how it feels to live in a society of control. I did this by filming everything that filmed me for a day, and also the points I crossed where I checked in or out of a system. WARNING: The website is very heavy, as it has a lot of video's. Project website:WMWY

I had, to say the least, a very shitty April month. Which is no excuse, but my text might still be quite rough. I feel like I'm trying to compress a huge subject into one essay, so I see this more as a starting point to explore and unpack further in next texts. Plus: I'm trying a for me new way of writing where I let the texts I read sink in first and than write more from my own perspective.

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Introduction

My parents tell me a small anecdote of me as a child sometimes, where they portray me as the most happy and tractable child. My childless uncle also comically describes me as “a walking Have Children commercial.” It goes like this:

When my parents were building their modern white octagonal house, I was only two years old. I could walk, I could crawl and play in the sand on the building plot. One day, a concerned neighbour came by to ask my parents if they weren't afraid of me running away, as there were no fences or anything around the plot. But no way, they said. They only had to draw a line around me in the sand forming a circle around me and tell me not to cross it. And I wouldn't. And I never did.

The rest of my life I would continue to stay within the now imaginary lines in the sand. I would explore its borders and move from circle to circle, but I would never fully cross the lines. I was also afraid of grass apparently. But come on, grass is super scary.

To me this anecdote explains my fascination with control, borders and legislation. I try to be aware of where my and others' lines in the sand are and if, how and why we (need to) cross it. When is it necessary to make people cross a line?

One line forming a circle represents its own territory with its prescribed rules. Where there is a line there is always the conflict of how to deal with that border and the rules form it. In our current society the lines in the sand are fading. Which leaves us in a confused in-between state of figuring out how to deal with the new and old ways of governance both. The new system of control gives new opportunity with new found freedom, but also with a cost. How do we behave towards this system? Can we express ourselves within this system? And can we do that without crossing old lines or without escaping the current structure? The main question: “How do technologies of the self shape or manifest in current network culture / society of control?”

Societies Through the Modern Era

When modern society was born it started out as a society of sovereignty. One where the functions where “to tax rather than to organize production and to rule on death rather than to administer life.” (Deleuze, G (1992), Postscript on societies of control, p. 3) It was a quite basic form of governance where there were a few standard principles, norms and values mostly based on religion and practicality, that were the guidelines to a good life.

Due to a combination of factors like the industrial revolution, the ideals of the enlightenment, Napoleon and the consequences of them like urbanization and an improved infrastructure in and around the 18th century, society changed over time from a society of sovereignty to a disciplinary society. In this disciplinary society all form of activity and engagement with society was institutionalized. A day in the life of someone in a disciplinary society would mean traveling from institution to institution. Each of them closed environments with its prescribed rules and duties. From 'the family' to 'the church' to 'the school' to 'the factory' to 'the library' to 'the hospital.' Each of those would educate, tell how to behave, what to be, how to act and basically how to be normal and fit in.“But in their turn the disciplines underwent a crisis to the benefit of new forces that were gradually instituted and which accelerated after World War II [...]”(Deleuze, G (1992), Postscript on societies of control, p. 3)

New technologies in the 20th century, with the computer as a main influence, is changing society again to its latest form: the society of control. In this deterritorialized form of society pattern and code creates a network of data that controls and governs society. Therefore people have a newfound but contained freedom. As long as their willing to share and give information of themselves they have access to and can participate in society. An example of this is the Dutch public transport card (OV chipkaart), which allows you to travel anywhere, with any kind of public transport, as long as you agree to check in at certain points and check out at others and with that give information on where and when you travelled. There are more and more electronic cards in our lives that work that way. Cards for discounts in the supermarket in exchange for information about what you bought. Cards for shops, buildings and institutions. A day in the life of someone living in a society of control would mean a constant exchange from information for access and power. Information is access to more information is power is information is access to more information... and so on. On the internet this exchange is very noticeable. For almost every website that exchanges data (like the news), provides a service or connects people by forming a network you have to create an account or a profile and therefore provide your personal information. On networks like Facebook the more information you give and thus the more active you are on the network the more visible your content is, the stronger your network is.

On the street however, I think this exchange of information to access is less clear. So I decided to for one day film everything that films me, which automatically makes me pay attention to and almost search for means of control on the street. I did this within the project 'Watch Me Watching You', in which I had the simple rules: 1. film everything that films me for a day, 2. film for at least ten seconds up to one minute depending on the background of the footage and the risk of being caught, 3. film it from standing position with the phone you are already carrying around and 4. make sure you follow your day and travel routs as you would normally do. Minimize the influence it has on and disruption it causes to your day.

The last rule was the hardest one to follow, because after only walking to the metro station from my house in the morning and traveling to school I had filmed more than 22 cameras and my travel time had multiplied by almost four. There is more information on the website of the project (WMWY), but I like to share two remarks. I noticed that when people know that they are being filmed and it becomes personal because it's an actual human doing the filming, they start to avoid the camera. While the only people in my footage are people being filmed anyway. After a while I got quite paranoid and started to develop agoraphobia (fear of public spaces). Which leads me to the questions I started to ask in the introduction: how should we, in our day to day life, deal with this society of control? What is the influence on our self of this constant exchange of personal data?

*Topics to unpack in future texts: 
1. The role of institutions like the factory in disciplinary societies
2. Databases and protocols as control mechanisms, digital labor (immaterial labour) 
and participatory surveillance in the society of control.

Technologies of the Self in the Age of Societies of Control

*Topics to unpack in future texts: 
Governmentality: governing at at distance.

Conclusion

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Bibliography

For this essay:

Postscript on societies on control – G. Deleuze (PDF)
Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault (PDF)
A declaration of independence of cyberspace – Barlow (PDF)
Black transparency – Metahaven (PAPER)
Masters Of Reality (Chapter: Nudge Nudge) – Steve Rushton

For next essay(s) extending this one:

Discipline & Punish – Michel Foucault (PDF) (To dive deeper into disciplinary society)
Foucault and Databases – Mark Poster (NEED TO GET IT)
‘protocol’ – A. Galloway (NEED TO GET IT)
The rise of the network society – Manuel Castells (PAPER)