ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to identify the repercussions, for our understanding of human agency and subjectivity, of an increasingly statistical mapping of the ‘real’ resulting from a strategic convergence of technological and socio-political developments. Mapping as governance, epitomized by the rise of autonomic computing in the sectors of security and marketing, facilitates an epistemic change in our relation to the ‘real’, instituting a specific regime of visibility and intelligibility of the physical world and its inhabitants. This new perceptual regime affects a specific and arguably essential attribute of the human subject, which may be conceived as ‘virtuality’ (as opposed to ‘actuality’). This ‘virtuality’, which acts as a preserve for individuation over time, presupposes the recognition of ‘différance’ (being over time) and potentiality (spontaneity) as essential qualities of the human subject. This virtual quality of the self, being a precondition for the experience of ‘utopias’ (spaces without location, according to Foucault), also conditions cultural, social and political vitality. Seeing the impacts of autonomic computing on human subjectivity allows for a normative evaluation of the impact of autonomic computing on both individual self-determination and collective self-government.
