Goodbye Privacy

Via Institinto Guapo, me entero que el mes pasado tuvo lugar la Ars Electronica, que es un festival de arte, tecnología y sociedad que se desarrolló en Linz (Austria) desde 1979, un festival futurista que tiene muy buena pinta.

“Goodbye Privacy” ha sido el tema central del festival de este año, debido a la importancia cada día mayor de los temas de videovigilancia, nuestra ámbito privado pasa a ser público y todas las tencologías que están cambiando nuestra cultura diaria. En resumen como se han modificado drásticamente nuestras esferas públicas y privadas.



Mobile and ubiquitous—no longer just here and now, but being present wherever you want to be, whenever you want to be. These long-nurtured yearnings that have been projected so euphorically onto new technologies have now materialized into the reality of our time. A reality that is woven from a network in which every user is a node, every exit simultaneously an entrance, every receiver a transmitter too.



At any time, at any place, we’re capable of switching into telematic action mode, of reaching anyone and being accessible by all. With the aid of our avatars, blogs and tags, we assume digital form and adopt more or less imaginative second identities. Emerging at a rapid clip are completely new types of the public sphere featuring new rules of play and (sometimes even) new hierarchies. But it’s not merely technology, information and communication that have become omnipresent. To a much greater extent, it’s we ourselves: traceable at all times and anywhere via our cellphone’s digital signature that makes it possible to pinpoint our location to within a few meters; classifiable via the detailed and comprehensive personality profiles that we unwittingly leave behind as the traces of all our outings in digital domains.What’s occurring in the wake of these developments is a far-reaching repositioning and reevaluation of the political, cultural and economic meaning of the public and private spheres.