The Simulation of Surveillance: Hypercontrol in Telematic Societies

Description

This compelling book is an exploration of the imaginary of perceptual control technologies at the beginning of the twenty-first century. William Bogard constructs a 'social science fiction' of how the revolution in simulation technology reconfigures and intensifies the role of surveillance in war, work, sexuality, and private life, enabling forms of control which hyper realize our experience of time, space, agency, and society itself. His is a critique of the imaginary in which control breaks free of its prior limits, an imaginary of unmediated perception with effects everywhere in fantastic systems for the relentless conversion of objects, events, and people into information.

'A fascinating exploration of the relation between surveillance (Foucault) and simulation (Baudrillard) ... The simulation of surveillance is sophisticated theoretically, but quite accessible, studded with concrete examples that illustrate the phenomena in question.' Mark Poster, University of California, Irvine