The Panopticon reaches within : how digital technology turns us inside out

The convergence of biomedical and information technology holds the potential to alter the discourses of identity, or as is argued here, to turn us inside out. The advent of digital networks makes it possible to ‘see inside’ people in ways not anticipated and thus create new performance arenas for the expression of identity. Drawing on the ideas of Butler and Foucault and theories of performativity, this paper examines a new context for human-computer interaction and articulates potentially disturbing issues with monitoring health rather than wellbeing. It argues that by adopting explicitly social framings we can see beyond the idea of medical interventions for health to recognize the political implications of the new categorizations and their implementation in code. In the process, it critiques traditional ways of understanding machine-body relations within the field of technology design.