Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T20:56:47.741Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Programmed Life and Racialized Technesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 February 2024

Anaïs Nony
Affiliation:
University of Johannesburg
Get access

Summary

Abstract: In chapter 3, I revaluate the models of interpellation (Fanon, Althusser) from the point of view of Big Data ideology (Rouvroy) to consider the implementation of programmed life and “premature death” (Gilmore) in today's digital society. The chapter engages debates in surveillance studies and questions the making of racialized bodies by telling the story of Thierry Kuntzel's work of art Hiver, la mort de Robert Walser presented at the MoMA in 1991, which focuses on the themes of terror, death, eroticism, and sexuality. In this chapter, I engage the pre-emptive models of data extraction to question the racialized technology of societies of incarceration and control. Kuntzel's piece usefully addresses the subjects of history that are written upon by technology and the wider consequences of technologically driven narratives of survival and resistance. I argue that race in relation to video technology is a problem of discerning the cause from the conditions of implementation of racist politics in societies.

Keywords: racism, surveillance, technology, video, Thierry Kuntzel

Tools, in this way, capture more than just people's bodies. They also capture the imagination, offering technological fixes for a wide range of social problems.

– Ruha Benjamin

Let us try not to miss the target here: choosing which technological evolution we wish to emerge in our life world cannot be done without first having chosen which governmental rationality one wishes to have ruling our society.

– Antoinette Rouvroy

Where Darkness Matters

It is July 1991 in New York. You enter a dark, wide, shallow space at the Museum of Modern Art and see three mural-sized video projections along one wall. Confronted with the large scale of the installation (each image is ten feet high by seven feet wide), you stand against the opposite side of the room, attempting to grasp what is being presented at once. The three videos begin simultaneously with a saturated white light that gradually fills the space of the room. Slowly, the central panel, which functions independently from the two others, reveals shades of grey that give shape to a figure. The camera goes back and forth above the central figure in a regular and continuous fashion, following a path that gradually expands the field of vision, creating a scanning and electronically programmed quality to the image.

Type
Chapter
Information
Performative Images
A Philosophy of Video Art Technology in France
, pp. 109 - 140
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×