A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Simondon, Control and the Digital Domain
Authors: Rantala Juho, Muilu Mirka
Publisher: Sage
Publication year: 2023
Journal: Theory, Culture and Society
eISSN: 1460-3616
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764231201337
Web address : https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/02632764231201337
Self-archived copy’s web address: https://research.utu.fi/converis/portal/detail/Publication/182420447
Deleuze put forth a description of fluid control in computerized society in his text ‘Postscript on Control Societies’. With the help of the philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, we can broaden and complexify this view and understand digital systems through the concept of modulation. These modulatory systems intervene in human individuation by controlling individuals as ‘dividuals’. In contemporary digital technologies, like blockchain platforms, the modulatory dividual control can be fierce and even total. Simondon’s concepts of pre-individual, individuation, and transindividuation present us with an ontology for this contemporary mode of control and enable us to better understand the complex relations between the being of humans and technical networks.
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