The Exploit: A Theory of Networks - asounder

Nodes 41
modulating, in flux, alive. If the body in disciplinary societies is predominantly
anatomical and physiological (as in Foucault’s analyses
of the microphysics of the prison or hospital), in control societies,
bodies are consonant with more distributed modes of individuation
that enable their infinite variation (informatic records, databases,
consumer profiles, genetic codes, identity shopping, workplace biometrics).
14 Their effects are network effects, and their agency is an
anonymous agency (in this sense, “anonymity” exists quite happily
alongside “identification”).
This does not mean, however, that network control is simply
irrele vant, as if the mere existence of a network does away with the
notion of agency altogether. Network control ceaselessly teases out
elements of the unhuman within human - oriented networks. This is
most easily discovered in the phenomenology of aggregations in
everyday life: crowds on city streets or at concerts, distributed forms
of protest, and more esoteric instances of flashmobs, smartmobs, critical
massing, or swarms of UAVs. All are different kinds of aggregations,
but they are united in their ability to underscore the unhuman
aspects of human action. It is the unhuman swarm that emerges from
the genetic unit.
Network control is unbothered by individuated subjects (subjected
subjects). In fact, individuated subjects are the very producers and facilitators
of networked control. Express yourself! Output some data!
It is how distributed control functions best.
The twofold dynamic of network control—distributing agency while in -
stantiating rigid rules—implies that subjects acting in distributed networks
materialize and create protocols through their exercise of local agency.
While Deleuze referred to it as “free- floating,” control does not in
fact flit through the ether dissociated from real physical life. Quite
the opposite is true. Control is only seen when it materializes (though
in a paradoxical way), and it aims constantly to make itself “matter,”
to make itself relevant.
In control societies, control “matters” through information—and information
is never immaterial. 15