Everything involves ergonomics and functionality. No idle space, no hiding place, no secrets, so that everyone can occupy his/her most productive position and never spill out of it. It’s not that surveillance is permanent, but the possibility is always at hand.
It’s enough to let suspicion take root and fear will take care of the rest. Have you noticed how it used to be the small white camera mounted in the street, the airport, metro stations and public spaces… and now? Big black bulbs surrounding a masked entity. You never know exactly who’s being spied on, whose hands the thing is zooming in on. Bulbs that are attached to the wall, planted atop a thin post or hidden in the corner of a room… concealed like a moist eyeball. Deciding on the right moment to snatch their prey and have it admit to some crime far from the civic corridors.

They’ve been implanting electronic chips into our cats and dogs for the past fifteen years, so that Max or Kiki won’t get lost. It’s faster than a tattoo and it seems less cruel. It’s smaller than a grain of rice and any vet can scan it in a second.

They’ve also been implanting electronic chips into the shoulders of club goers in Rotterdam and Barcelona, and undoubtedly in other places too. It replaces the VIP card. It’s fashionable, high tech, groovy, simple and it’s technicoloured. It’s also very practical; there are no more unknown faces in the VIP lounge. Paco, Barry, Tommy, Robby, Stacey or Jean-Jacques can be scanned without being inconvenienced. The doorway itself recognizes them.

A microchip under the skin. They’ve been thinking about it for years. And how do you think they’ll sell it to us?

IT’S FOR YOUR OWN GOOD

The walls and floors are riddled with thousands of cables like so many secret passages. They carry a huge flow of information about all of us, our habits, our struggles, our beliefs and our dirty little secrets.
No need for follow-ups. You do half a job and technology does the rest. It was planned that way.

Humans will eventually have blank lives. Worn to the bone, brought into line by constant pressure. Do you remember yoghourt? It used to be straightforward yoghourt; sweetened or not, sometimes with added fruit. Now it seems to be a protective curative food chronicled by alternative science magazines. There’s a camera in your yoghourt.

The whole world will have to get on the straight and narrow. The demographics demand it. As the customer base increases, uniqueness is less tolerated. It’s pure logic. Simple technical cohesion.

And after all, it would be quite amazing if we all had millions of receptors in our bodies alerting us in all accuracy about the slightest anomaly or flaw. Immediate diagnosis, early intervention… bliss, in other words.

How could you not want to apply this to the world at large?
All of us already have access to satellite images of the world, but not yet to the possibility of real time analysis. It will soon be so, though.
“So why are you scared? Do you have something to hide, maybe?”

The problem arises when the desire for autonomy is considered to be an act of deceit.

DECEIT

He doesn’t like being observed
He keeps hoping for clouds,
And a blind spot
In some abandoned corner
And even there

A true seductress is wary of the ruses of the seducer.
The child who dinks around with Photoshop will be eagle-eyed when it comes to photo manipulation.
A computer hacker will protect his gear better.
The only way to understand how permeable our private lives have become is to throw oneself wholeheartedly into the mania.
Scrutinize someone, anyone, preferably a stranger. Then follow the thread of information through the media, the internet, the press, phonebooks, friends, photos, telephone, GPS, banks… You need only ask.
Faced with the result, ask yourself what the possibilities are with the right technical equipment and legal authority. See what I mean?

We are so translucent that we are barely tulle; the fabric isn’t even visible anymore. All that’s left are a few stains.

**************

Just as air pockets wander through the atmosphere, every now and then, a pocket of freedom bursts out of the power framework. An obscure uterine hole where new worlds sprout. A cheerful and boisterous hole, which generates other holes and other cracks. Freedom is an acrobat. It jumps from hole to hole like a child jumping from white tile to white tile. One grey tile is enough to mess everything up. One step out of line and you will be absorbed.
It’s a question of choice, a question of faith.

***************

Freedom lives within us. Ask Diogenese.

Useless corollary: if I smoke liberty, what’s really important?
That it consumes itself or that I enjoy it?