Banca de QUALIFICAÇÃO: RAQUEL ASSUNÇÃO OLIVEIRA

Atlas Panoptes: the aesthetic dimension of algorithmic surveillance on digital platforms

Image; algorithmic surveillance; visibility; body; digital social networks.

In the ongoing investigation, I inquire about the ways in which visibility regimes interfere in the construction of body surveillance regimes in contemporary times, observing in which ways digital social networks mobilize pleasures for the collection of behavioral surplus, a valuable product in the current “surveillance capitalist culture” — a term adopted here as a way of articulating the conceptualizations of theorists David Lyon and Shoshana Zuboff. Therefore, it is through the thematic axes "surveillance", "visibility" and "body" that I dialogue with the theories of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Fernanda Bruno, Giselle Beiguelman, Jonathan Crary, Paula Sibilia and Grada Kilomba, among others authors. Starting from the theoretical contributions of Georges Didi-Huberman's philosophy of image, as well as from the Warburgian Atlas-principle, I gather a set of visual pieces of different temporalities and supports that, together, form constellations-composts of fertile images to think the pairs "to see and be seen" and "watch and be watched" in conjunction. With this, I experiment with the methodological approach of an “archeology of visual knowledge” in the construction of what I call "Atlas Panoptes". I also present the first fruits of the proposal to carry out semi-structured interviews with leaders of collectives that propose lines of escape and spaces of resistance to the current scenario of distributed surveillance. The data obtained brought up three thematic nodes: 1) Historical struggles; 2) Countercolonial cosmovisions and 3) Thinking about images by opposition. The entire path is permeated by a critical look at what I call the "aestheticization of surveillance" and the consequent invisibilities, hypervisibilities and stereotypes that this process contributes to creating or promoting, in resonance with the propositions of theorists such as Antonio Bispo do Rosário, Tarcízio Silva, Kate Crawford, Clare Birchall and Safiya Noble.