Paper short abstract:

Planetary scale computing poses new challenges to states and the citizenry they administer. I assess the potential of Bratton's Stack to explain the response of states to these challenges through a 3D mapping project which re-engages citizen-users with the geometries of the state

Paper long abstract:

Planetary scale computing poses new challenges to nation states and the citizenry they administer. Google-Facebook-Twitter now authenticate citizens as users with a user's territorial belonging more a function of nearby sales opportunities than rights bestowed by place of birth. How nation states are responding to this shift from citizen to user, and what theoretical models adequately describe it, has yet to be fully explored. Benjamin Bratton (2016) calls this extra-territorial model, The Stack, an accidental megastructure of five layers: Earth, Cloud, City, Address, Interface and User. In this paper, I assess the potential of Bratton's Stack to explain the changing environment of states and the sorts of responses states are making to the rise of the user in an era of planetary scale computing. I describe a recent interactive mapping project by the Queensland Government called Globe 2.x which attempts to re-engage citizen-users with the geometries of the state, like property boundaries, land valuations, bores, and so on. In the analysis of this project I am interested in the authority the state seeks to maintain within its jurisdiction (geometries) alongside the authority it is prepared to cede to the Stack (authenticity of its citizenry).