The Active Form of Security: Technology and the Material-aesthetic Script

Abstract

How are socially and politically controversial security practices materially-technologically scripted into our lives in ever-deeper ways? This essay proposes that acts of aesthetic design are at the heart of that process and are being deployed by technology corporations to “smooth” the diffusion of security practices, discourses, and politics across global space. To substantiate that claim, we make three moves. First, we propose an understanding of the “script” that returns to the roots of the concept in theater and the arts. That understanding stresses that our material-technological enmeshing is governed strongly by aesthetic and affective factors that operate through forms of resonance (rather that reason). In consequence—we argue—much of the power of technology conglomerates is linked to their capacity to harness these aesthetico-affective resonances. Second, we demonstrate this through a case study focused on the material-aesthetic design activities of Google, teasing out how it deploys aesthetic practices to extend its sociopolitical power. Third, we speculatively conclude by introducing the architect Keller Easterling’s concept of “active form” to show how conceptualizing scripts in aesthetic terms also provides insights into how security practices are diffused across global contexts, irrelevant contextual sociopolitical differences, and seemingly without any limit.