I’ve been trying to imagine the invisible world created by internet apps: something like a video that glitches, showing what lies behind; or visualizing what a dog’s nose “sees” (something I think I saw on the BBC decades ago).
Imagine one could see the cyber-invisible – though it might not be all visible to the likes of us, but only to powerful states or companies:
Video and audio sluicing down from the sky, drenching (almost) each of us; the streets and skies glowing as kaleidoscopic data torrents flood in and out of every building.
Looking into houses to see though the walls what people are doing in front of their phones, TVs and PCs.
Every person being followed everywhere by a swarm of white-coated clipboard carriers and surveillance drones, their every action recorded, even the most private room crowded with watchers.
Attention being drawn from our eyes like golden streams, divided and spun into ever-morphing cables that tie us to bazaars and carnival barkers, vaudeville shows and houses of horror; the streams are spinning gears that pump money from the merchants and entertainers back to the web weavers in the middle.
People standing on their porches, screaming at passers-by. Between houses, 20-foot soundproof walls dividing neighbors from each other.
Outside every door, a poster showing the house’s value, the occupants’ income, voting history, criminal record. And next to it a coin-operated newspaper dispenser that will tell you their every purchase, intimate political views, cultural biases, and obsessions.
Marionette strings descending from above the clouds tugging everyone to and fro, the populace performing an emotional dance macabre.
Parades of prancing pundits in every street, yelling and dancing, loudspeakers blaring – competing carnivals passing through each other like ghosts.
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