Die Buribunken as science fiction: the self and informational existence

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper takes Die Buribunken seriously as good science fiction. It is argued that it is good science fiction as it provides tropes, images and narratives through which the technological present and possible futures can be comprehended. Specifically, the Buribunks who confidently archive the self, present as a cypher for informational existence. Through learning about the Buribunks’ institutional organisation and deep motivations the various ways that the self becomes recorded in the digital can be mapped. However, the present is not Buribunkian, the self and its data-doubles are fragmented and conflicted, generated by surveillance, the data serfdom of worker-nodes, curatorial social media practices and ‘dark’ activities that try to hide personal responsibility. Nevertheless, the Buribunks drive to master the archive, encapsulates a tendency in the digital towards correspondence and unity within data repositories of the self.