Epilepsy, digital technology and the black-boxed self

Abstract

This article traces the history of epilepsy’s affinities with new media. It draws on interviews with people with epilepsy (PWE) and wider instances of the condition’s representation in the socio-cultural imaginary to demonstrate the degree to which epilepsy has been heavily technologized in the second half of the 20th century. Thanks to common analogies made between the seizing brain and the faulty electrical circuit, the PWE has been increasingly conceived within cybernetic terms: in particular, these subjects have long been ‘black boxed’ by the medical establishment. Tracking this connection across the rise of so-called ‘Surveillance Medicine’ and new digital health technologies reveals, I argue, suggestive parallels between the stigmatized PWE and the data-driven subject of today’s digital environment.