The Exploit: A Theory of Networks - asounder

132 Edges
criminal cases, psychological profiling has given way to DNA matching.
In consumer products, commodity logistics have given way to
RFID databases. Genomics are the universal identification of life in
the abstract; biometrics are the universal identification of life in the
particular; collaborative filters are the universal identification of life
in the relational.
The twentieth century will be remembered as the last time there
existed nonmedia. In the future there will be a coincidence between
happening and storage. After universal standards of identification are
agreed on, real - time tracking technologies will increase exponentially,
such that almost any space will be iteratively archived over time using
Agre’s “grammars of action.” Space will become rewindable, fully simulated
at all available time codes. Henceforth the lived environment
will be divided into identifiable zones and nonidentifiable zones, and
the nonidentifiables will be the shadowy new criminal classes.
RFC001b: BmTP
A technological infrastructure for enabling an authentic integration
of biological and informatic networks already exists. In separate steps,
it occurs daily in molecular biology labs. The technologies of genomics
enable the automation of the sequencing of DNA from any
biological sample, from blood, to test-tube DNA, to a computer file of
text sequence, to an online genome database. And conversely, researchers
regularly access databases such as GenBank for their research
on in vitro molecules, enabling them to synthesize DNA sequences
for further research. In other words, there already exists, in many
standard molecular biology labs, the technology for encoding, recoding,
and decoding biological information. From DNA in a test tube
to an online database, and back into a test tube. In vivo, in vitro, in
silico. What enables such passages is the particular character of the
networks stitching those cells, enzymes, and DNA sequences together.
At least two networks are in play here: the informatic network of the
Internet, which enables uploading and downloading of biological information
and brings together databases, search engines, and specialized
hardware. Then there is the biological network of gene expression
that occurs in between DNA and a panoply of regulatory