“I think that the figure of the nerd provides a beautiful template for analyzing the transformation of the disciplinary society into the control society. The nerd, in his cliche form, first stepped out upon the world stage in the mid-1970s, when we were beginning to hear the first rumblings of what would become the Cambrian explosion of the information society. The nerd must serve as comic relief for the future-anxieties of Western society. And the transformation I'm talking about is already in full swing: the police gaze of 19th- and 20th-century disciplinary society made visible the individual, which is illuminated by power. In our burgeoning technological control society, the individual is x-rayed and algorithmized. Even worse: the individuals x-ray themselves, willingly putting themselves on display.”

—  Johannes Grenzfurthner

via Boing Boing http://boingboing.net/2016/04/14/the-story-of-traceroute-about.html

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Johannes Grenzfurthner photo
Johannes Grenzfurthner 48
Austrian artist, writer, curator, and theatre and film dire… 1975

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