This week we had a reading about political change and riots. Here are my thoughts from chapter two of the ‘Critical Art Ensemble’: ‘The Mythology of Terrorism on the Net’:

‘The total collection of records on an individual is h/er or her data body—a state-and-corporate-controlled doppelgänger. What is most unfortunate about this development is that the data body not only claims to have ontological privilege, but actually does have it. What your data body says about you is more real than what you say about yourself. The data body is the body by which you are judged in society, and the body that dictates your status in the social world. What we are witnessing at this point in time is the triumph of representation over being. The electronic file has conquered self-aware consciousness.’

  • This is an interesting contrast to how we think about data in terms of surveillance. There was a lot of talk around the issues in collecting large amounts of data, and how sometimes it can tell a lot about you, but sometimes the important bits get lost in the masses - when we search for things that may not be there. This excerpt definitely touches on how your data lets you fit in socially, and what its simple existence means, rather than its content.

‘Herein lies a substantial clue as to why some people fear the disruption of cyberspace. While the organic body may not be in danger, the electronic body could be threatened. Should the electronic body be disrupted, immobilized, or (heaven forbid) deleted, one’s existence in the realm of the social could be drastically effected.’

  • I don’t know if I totally agree with this, but I think this will be the case pretty soon in the future (I’m mostly focusing on the social media data body). There are still a good amount of individuals who choose not to participate in social media who do okay. I’m sure they miss things, but nothing that couldn’t be compensated elsewhere.

‘Once we moved CD [civil disobediance] out of the realm of the physical, where disruption is localized and avoidable for those who accept their data body as their superior, we were suggesting their erasure as a consequence of political objection. What is frightening to CAE about this scenario is that electronic erasure is perceived as equivalent to being killed in a bomb explosion. Now the perception exists that the absence of electronic recognition equals death.’

  • What I’m taking from this is don’t let your life be determined, dictated, consumed, defined by your online self.

‘If the virtual functions and is perceived as a superior form of being, it becomes a monstrous mechanism of control for the class that regulates access to it and mobility within it.’

  • Hence defining its erasure as death…hopefully we can move away from this.