The Big Other MetaBrother
01.03.2025
The project examines how constant surveillance has become a normal part of everyday life, comparing it to a modern digital panopticon. This idea comes from Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon, later developed by Michel Foucault, which described a prison where people could always be watched, leading them to control themselves even if no one was watching. Today, there is no need for guards or authorities standing over us. We have built the system ourselves and now take part in our own surveillance, often without even realizing it.
This shift is closely linked to surveillance capitalism, a term created by Shoshana Zuboff in 2018. It describes how today’s biggest companies make money by collecting and using massive amounts of personal data. This isn’t just about watching what we do online. It’s about predicting what we will do next and pushing us to act in certain ways. Surveillance has spread everywhere, built into the apps, platforms, and devices we depend on. It has become so ordinary that avoiding it feels impossible. Every click, every movement, and every word becomes data to be tracked, stored, and sold.
We now live in a world where government surveillance and corporate data collection have merged into one powerful system. The old lines between state control and private business have blurred. Together, they form a global network that watches, predicts, and shapes our behavior. But here’s the paradox: the more these systems promise to control, the more chaotic the world seems to become. In the past, control was obvious—rules, punishments, discipline. Today, control is hidden inside algorithms that quietly suggest what we should want, think, and do. These systems are so deeply woven into our lives that we often mistake their influence for our own free will.
We now live in a world where the state panopticon and surveillance capitalism have merged into a single, inseparable system. It is a world where global war is no longer just a memory from history books but an ongoing, shifting reality—visible in economic battles, information warfare, and technological arms races. Across every level of society, people believe they are managing the chaos, steering events through strategy, policy, or innovation.
We now live in a world where government surveillance and corporate data collection have merged into one powerful system. The old lines between state control and private business have blurred. Together, they form a global network that watches, predicts, and shapes our behavior. But here’s the paradox: the more these systems promise to control, the more chaotic the world seems to become. In the past, control was obvious—rules, punishments, discipline. Today, control is hidden inside algorithms that quietly suggest what we should want, think, and do. These systems are so deeply woven into our lives that we often mistake their influence for our own free will.
We now live in a world where the state panopticon and surveillance capitalism have merged into a single, inseparable system. It is a world where global war is no longer just a memory from history books but an ongoing, shifting reality—visible in economic battles, information warfare, and technological arms races. Across every level of society, people believe they are managing the chaos, steering events through strategy, policy, or innovation.
But the deeper we move into this system, the more obvious it becomes that no one is truly in control. The tools designed to organize the world instead accelerate its unpredictability. Where the 20th century ruled through strict discipline and visible authority, today’s control works through invisible algorithmic systems that quietly anticipate our desires, steer our choices, and shape our inner worlds before we are even aware of it.
The phrase "Big Brother" has become so familiar that it now feels empty, worn out from decades of overuse. We’ve grown used to invoking him, but have we ever really understood what he has become? What if the old symbols of power—authoritarian governments, oligarchs, security agencies—are no longer the main forces directing this system? What if they, too, are lost within it, staggering blindly like drunken sailors, chasing fantasies of control in a world that has already slipped beyond their grasp? Perhaps Big Brother is no longer just an oppressive figure watching from above, but something much larger, something beyond the limits of any single institution. The digital panopticon may no longer be simply a tool of control, but the foundation of a new kind of reality—a form of transcendence, a new shared existence we cannot fully describe, where surveillance is not just a system but a fate
we cannot escape. This is not only about power or profit. It is about the birth of a new order of being, one that is already here, surrounding us, quietly remaking what it means to live.
The phrase "Big Brother" has become so familiar that it now feels empty, worn out from decades of overuse. We’ve grown used to invoking him, but have we ever really understood what he has become? What if the old symbols of power—authoritarian governments, oligarchs, security agencies—are no longer the main forces directing this system? What if they, too, are lost within it, staggering blindly like drunken sailors, chasing fantasies of control in a world that has already slipped beyond their grasp? Perhaps Big Brother is no longer just an oppressive figure watching from above, but something much larger, something beyond the limits of any single institution. The digital panopticon may no longer be simply a tool of control, but the foundation of a new kind of reality—a form of transcendence, a new shared existence we cannot fully describe, where surveillance is not just a system but a fate
we cannot escape. This is not only about power or profit. It is about the birth of a new order of being, one that is already here, surrounding us, quietly remaking what it means to live.
