ANOPTIKON
An exploration of the invisible Internet
Escaping Darwin’s hand
anoptikon.com (EN > FR)
From the preface / afterword of Philippe Quéau
Anoptikon obviously opens up a considerable field of reflection on the future of our “being in common” at a time of what is known as the “anthropocene”, as well as on the role of networks and algorithms in this respect.
Umberto Eco had used the neologism anopticon as opposed to panopticon[1], the totalitarian prison model devised in the 18th century by Jeremy Bentham and criticised in the 20th century by Michel Foucault. Eco saw the panopticon as “the ideal of the total absence of responsibility on the part of the supervisor” and proposed the anopticon[2] as its surrealist opposite: “a prison built in such a way that the supervisor is the only one who can be seen and has no way of seeing the surveillance”.
Isaac Asimov had already used the same word anopticon[3] to designate an imaginary tool, devoid of any optics, but which, paradoxically, could serve either as a telescope or a microscope, using “force fields”.
Olivier Auber transcends these past meanings: by the magic of a simple k, he gives the word anoptikon the meaning of “invisible cosmos inhabited by a networked being”.
Is the anoptikon a kind of “noosphere”[4] , in the style of Teilhard de Chardin? No, not at all.
For Olivier Auber, the anoptikon is structured by anoptical perspectives whose networked being occupies the “vanishing points/codes/quanta”. This networked being can be defined in many ways. Here is a small selection of its attributes:
It is an “unknowable” being, but it is also, and without contradiction, “an effect of our cognition”. It lives “hidden in each of us, perhaps among us”. It is “an entity that surpasses us” but also a “product of our imagination”. It secretes “a particular time”, while being “a carrier of evolution”. It manifests itself as a “living condensate” that “resists all measurement” precisely because it is, like any quantum entity, “infinitely sensitive to measurement”. We can hope to observe its effects when a collective enters into conversation with itself in conditions where “all concepts are symmetrical, i.e. play equivalent roles”.
It is perhaps this last idea of “symmetry” that best defines the essence of the netwkorked being, and which marks the radical difference that separates it from what Olivier Auber calls the “imaginary being”, this mythical and vertical construction whose necessity he absolutely rejects, and whose danger he even underlines, like a Marx who castigated the “opium of the people” in his time.
Indeed, the networked being, unlike the gods of yesteryear, “requires no sacrifice” on our part. This is a very important element.
We know that, from an anthropological point of view, the question of “sacrifice” goes back to the dawn of time. The oldest tradition that still bears witness to this is that of the Veda, which affirms that the very origin of the Cosmos comes from the “sacrifice” of Prajāpati, the Creator, and Lord of creatures.
It is the divine “sacrifice” that has made the world possible, and in this sense it constitutes the “navel of the Universe”. Three thousand years after the Veda, the Christian “sacrifice” took up the idea from another angle. Christianity proposes, to conceptualize the new type of divine sacrifice, the idea of “kenosis”, that is, the “recess” of the divine, for the benefit of its creation.
In my opinion, Anoptikon proposes the beginnings of an anthropological revolution. It finally makes the “sacrifice” obsolete, on the one hand by showing the symmetry and absolute indeterminacy of the networked being, on the other hand by demonstrating the asymmetry and determinism of the “imaginary being” to the point of putting them into equations: “If many of us are willing to sacrifice ourselves, it has nothing to do with responsibility, love or compassion, it is an extreme consequence of our attention asymmetry. The behaviour of sacrifice (or suicide) is the ultimate signal that members of our species use to signal that they are worthy to join the coalition of which they ideally want to be a part.[5] »
On the other hand, the networked being does not require sacrifice, explains Olivier Auber, “except perhaps that of our optical illusions”. Would this correspond to a kenosis of the “imaginary being”, that is, a recess of its substance?
We have seen that the anoptikon is the place where “anoptical perspectives” are deployed.
They can be of several types. First of all, there are “time perspectives”, but these, as we learned at our expense with the Internet giants, are still far too centralized. For Olivier Auber, the future belongs to “digital” and perhaps “quantum” perspectives, corresponding to fundamentally “distributed” networks, whose protocols and conditions of legitimacy Anoptikon analyses.
Of course, there is still a lot of work to be done, and Olivier Auber hopes that artists and scientists will join forces to tackle this task:
“Anoptical perspectives can contribute to the creation of an organology, by promoting anoptical art and science with the objective of better understanding and caring for the networked being. This art and science are to be built.[6] »
“Anoptical art could be defined as the art of artificially creating the conditions of symmetry of art. Potentially, anyone can practice it. All you have to do is put on anoptical glasses.[7] »
[…]
[1] Michel Foucault (1975): “Discipline and punish. Birth of the prison”, New York: Random House.
[2] Umberto Eco. Il secondo diario minimo. 1992. In English: How to travel with a salmon and other essays, 1992.
[3] Isaac Asimov. Marooned Off Vesta, 1934, and Anniversary, 1959.
[4] The noosphere, according to the thinking of Edward Le Roy, Vladimir Vernadsky and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, refers to the “sphere of human thought”.
[5] The birds’ message: page 217
[6] Measure of being: page 170
[7] Dream: page 211
