Article:

Total Affect Control. Or: Who’s Afraid of a Pleasing Little Sister?

Through the emergence of affect- and psychotechnologies, especially with the advent of affective computing, the recognition, regulation and production of affects have been automatised to an unforeseeable degree. The roots of this algorithmic automation can be seen in the propagation of cybernetic models in the field of psychology from the 1950s onwards. A direct genealogical line leads from Silvan Tomkins’ affect system via Paul Ekman’s facial emotion recognition to Rosalind Picard’s conception and co-development of affectsensitive computer systems. Nevertheless, the implicated aspects of surveillance and collection of affective information have yet to be assessed critically. Such an assessment is outlined here.