Promises and Threats: iN2015 Masterplan to Pervasive Computing in Singapore

Abstract

This paper unpacks the discourse of Singapore’s latest ten-year Masterplan called ‘Intelligent Nation 2015’ (iN2015), where pervasive computing plays a prominent role. This paper situates Singapore and the iN2015 Masterplan as an instance of ‘mutated capitalism’. It demonstrates how the operations of the market are not simply prioritized but rather become instruments of social control, leading to particular technological embodiments—ones that entail active consumption of information technologies and telecommunication, which in turn feedback and fuel the neo-liberal technological economy. It argues that the Masterplan’s promise of freedom, control, empowerment and inclusion are presupposed on pervasive computing’s inherent capacity for digitalization, surveillance, control and interaction. Hence, this paper critiques the iN2015 architecture in terms of ‘reversibility’—how and to what extent the positive effects of the iN2015 Masterplan and pervasive computing are exactly due to the negative effects of the technology and the grounding gestures that make this paradox invisible.