This book outlines a new conception of the cyborg in terms of consciousness as the parallax gap between physical and digital worlds. The contemporary subject constructs its own internal reality in the interplay of the Virtual and the Real. Reinterpreting the work of Slavoj Zizek and Gilles Deleuze in terms of the psychological and ontological construction of the digital, alongside the philosophy of quantum physics, this book offers a challenge to materialist perspectives in the fluid cyberspace that is ever permeating our lives. The inclusion of the subject in its own epistemological framework establishes a model for an engaged spectatorship of reality. Through the analysis of online media, digital art, avatars, computer games and science fiction, a new model of cyborg culture reveals the opportunities for critical and creative interventions in the contemporary subjective experience, promoting an awareness of the parallax position we all occupy between physical and digital worlds.

We are often expected to trust technologies, and how they are used, even if we have good reason not to. There is no room to mistrust. Exploring relations between trust and mistrust in the context of data, AI and technology at large, this book defines a process of ‘trustification’ used by governments, corporations, researchers and the media to legitimise exploitation and increase inequalities. Aimed at social scientists, computer scientists and public policy, the book aptly reveals how trust is operationalised and converted into a metric in order to extract legitimacy from populations and support the furthering of technology to manage society.