Posted January 15th, 2010 by Armin Medosch
This text argues that the erosion of privacy is not a by-product of information and communication technologies, but a systemic property of informational capitalism. The foundational myths of the information society motivate and legitimise the building of control systems applying probabilistic techniques to control future risks. At the root of this configuration are antagonistic labour relationships which have determined the path of technological development since the Industrial Revolution. Those tendencies have reached a culmination in the recent neo-liberal crisis. The digital commons offers itself as an incomplete and tentative remedy.
Note: This text is a draft version of a contribution to OPEN, Cahier on art and the public domain, Nr. 19. This text benefitted substantially from written comments by Brian Holmes and John Barker.