ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to develop the non anthropocentric and objective aspects of the topology of sensibility. It describes the concrete operationality of relational databases in order to reconsider how the topology of sensibility transforms the situation of subjectivity. For Matthew Fuller and Andrew Goffey, the topological operation of databases contrasts with their mundane function to enable “better logistical control of the entities” that they model. For Fuller and Goffey, the database extracts value from back end data by “drawing participants into, and/or implicating them within a system that draws on their activity in the production of socio-technically conditioned topological continua”. For Fuller and Goffey, this topological deviation results less from the topological operation of databases themselves than from the glitches and disconnections that are the result of the seamful, partial, and inconsistent aggregation characteristic of the state of database consolidation in our world.