Configurable Culture

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Beyond thePanopticon

• Strategic Agency in
• An Age of Limitless Information

Jonah Bossewitch Aram SinnreichMEDIA IN
TRANSITION 6 April 24-26, 2009
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Introduction
3 Persistent Myths - The data flow is too large
for anyone to notice me - Surveillance only
affects those with something to hide - We have no
control over the information we share In fact,
few issues are more vital to civil liberties in
the 21st Century.
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We Have Reached"The End of Forgetting"
Records extend, evoke, and replace
memories are increasing in volume
exponentially ..are permanent, in an ever-growing
archive are increasingly central to
identity-construction We understand amnesia how
do we cope with eternal memory (hyperthymesia)?
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Who is Doing the Remembering?
Negative Flux Neutral Flux Positive Flux
"Information flux" is a geometrical model for
conceptualizing informatic flows around the
individual
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Beyond the Panopticon
- Panopticon is central to Foucaults
knowledge/power dynamic - However, the range of
informatic architectures has widened -
Therefore, we need to add some new blueprints
to our arsenal - From concrete and steel to
glass, mirrors, and CCTV
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... What might these new blueprints look like?
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Traditional Panopticon
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Total Transparency
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Sousveillance Society
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Off the Grid
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Black Hole
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Promiscuous Broadcaster
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Voracious Collector
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Disinformation Campaigns
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Information Exchange
Receive?
Yes?
No?
Archive/ Index?
Off the Grid Black Hole
Black Hole
Facepainting Spin Advertising
Broadcaster Sunlight Laws FOIA
Ignore
Collector BioPort
Individual Collective Public
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Questions
- How does this change the moral calculus of
truth and deception? - How will
identity-construction processes need to
change? - What are the effects on interpersonal
relationships? - How will social and political
structures need to change?
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Concluding Questions
Thank You!
Jonah Bossewitch jonah_at_ccnmtl.columbia.edu Aram
Sinnreich originalsinn_at_nyu.edu