The images of a
previous screen are helpful: they observe and track human and machine traffic, purpotedly
saving us lots of time by recommending alternate routes. But, at the same
time, Mike Davis argues that it's an easy next step to take the same machinic extensions and use them to put the equivalent of electronic
handcuffs on the activities of entire urban social strata. Drug offenders and gang members (convicted or merely suspected) can be "bar coded" and paroled to the omniscient
scrutiny of a satellite that will track their 24-hour whereabouts and automatically
sound an alarm if they stray outside the borders of their
surveillance district
(128).
Although there's a marked pessimistic shift, at issue is authorship
as control. Authorship, in these instances, is about control of material resources, and controlling
trajectories.