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Natural Surveillance: Google Trekker and the End of Wildernessv
For individuals seeking refuge from the increasingly monitored spaces of urbanized “control societies,” the idea of untamed wilderness has long held a special appeal. Figuring prominently in various strains of ecological writing and literary romanticism, wilderness has also been central to various indigenous belief systems in the Americas, Australia, and New Zealand. In these contexts, wilderness has often been valorized as an aesthetic, moral, and national resource of the highest order, a sacred place for the regenerative experience of living “off the grid” of contemporary techno-culture.
However, new surveillance technologies are rapidly taming the wild, bringing it under the watchful eye of the governments, corporations, and private individuals who want to minimize risk and uncertainty in any environment---even where an element of risk has long been considered a virtue. Indeed, the rapid proliferation of capturing technologies such as UAVs, night-vision, CCTV, GPS and other forms of remote sensing is challenging long-held conceptions of nature as refuge. As the surveillance assemblage expands into the wild, finding an unobserved, or unobservable, spot will become increasingly difficult.
While Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg dreams of an “Open Planet” of total transparency, Google is bringing its “Streetview” concept to nature with “Google Trekker,” a backpack mounted data collection apparatus that is designed to illuminate the hidden recesses of the natural landscape. With satellite cameras, drones, and now Google Trekker looking over our shoulder even on the highest mountain peak, will we continue to imagine the regenerative power of wilderness in opposition to the enervating qualities of post-industrial life? Is desert solitude a bygone fantasy? By putting Google’s Trekker into dialogue with concepts of rugged individualism, wilderness, and frontier autonomy, this paper will explore the implications of “rural surveillance” phenomenon for national imaginaries and eco-consciousness generally.