Abstract

This article explores the political dimension of algorithmic face recognition through the prism of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s notion of faciality. It argues that algorithmic face recognition is a technology that expresses a key aspect of contemporary capitalism: the problematic position of the individual in light of new forms of algorithmic and statistical regimes of power. While there is a clear relation between modern disciplinary mechanisms of individualization and the face as a sign of individuality, in control societies this relation appears more as a contradiction. The article contends that Deleuze and Guattari’s concepts of machinic enslavement and social subjection offer a fruitful perspective from where to identify the power mechanisms behind the problematic position of the individual in the specific case of algorithmic face recognition.