“NOW OBJECTS PERCEIVE ME”: AUTOMATION, PERCEPTION AND CONTROL

Abstract

This article investigates three critical frameworks that reveal how technology reshapes human perception: Adorno and Horkheimer’s usurpation of schematism, Virilio’s vision machine and Hansen’s operational present. Though these theories emerge from distinct historical contexts—analog mass media, optoelectronic systems, and digital infrastructure—they collectively expose late capitalism’s expansion of control: from ideological domination to the colonization of perceptual structures. By comparing these frameworks, we trace the systematic erosion of autonomy— not only reached through ideological indoctrination, but via the computational anticipation of perception itself.

Keywords: Perception. Automation. Artificial Intelligence