Re: <nettime> A Veillance Ansatz

[John Hopkins <jhopkins@neoscenes.net>]

On 06/Dec/15 09:16, William Waites wrote:
> This short article is to try to put discussion about surveillance into
> theoretical framework.  It is far from rigorous and is more a guide to
> a certain way of thinking about the topic.

William -- good first step! While it might seem a bit facile to take a vector 
field equation (form) as a starting point, it is quite sensible in the process 
of understanding the holistic (and complex) dynamics of our living system.

If you substitute 'energy' for 'power' you will get a more universal 'equation' 
that well compares to a progressive scientific worldview on the issue. The basic 
forms of field equations were generated to model the behavior of grav/mag fields 
(in Euclidean space) -- thus a bit old-fashioned, but extremely powerful tools.

Approaching the question of observation as an energy/power/attention flow is 
something I wrote about in my dissertation while attempting to make the argument 
that broad techno-social systems may be better understood as precisely what you 
propose for the subset of the techno-social system -- networks of observation -- 
as a field of flows.

For me it is clear that this approach is far more powerful than traditional 
materialist/mechanistic approaches that assume *no* connection between elements 
of our system unless proven, rather than assuming connection (described well via 
this vector field of power flows) and proceeding with this far more holistic 
understanding (that can also be modeled by systems thinking approaches). These 
disparate artificial elements -- economics, politics, science, nation-states, 
geographies, ideologies, even personal realities -- are extremely hard to 
reconcile from a materialist (even a 'new' materialist!) worldview.

The 'veillance intensity' you speak of can be seen as the amount of attention 
(observing) that is directed towards a certain manifestation. The reason there 
is an increase in power flows is that a human 'paying' attention is actually 
expending life-energy in a directed way (in that vector field): attention can be 
seen as a directing, focusing, and expending of embodied life-energy.

Bravo for coming up with this, and putting it out there on nettime! I'd be 
curious to know more about where this came from in your praxis! Oh, while you 
call it theoretical, I don't think it takes much imagination to see that what 
you propose well-describes 'reality'. As a model for that reality, if it works 
in many cases, it becomes a good tool; it's only when the model supercedes the 
reality it models that we run into problems...

Cheers,
John


PS -- so the difference of 'sur' and 'sous' simply relates to the directedness 
(flux) of energy/power flows in the field. If only Lacan and Foucault hadn't 
been thoroughly immersed in a Newtonian model of their worlds ... life could 
have taken a more power-full turn for the many following their philosophies!

--
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD
grounded on a granite batholith
twitter: @neoscenes
http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


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