Big Data Drive: The Rhetoric of Biometric Big Data

Abstract

: In this essay, we seek to develop the concept of big data drive. Influenced in part by Lacan’s theory of drive, we study the drive toward biometric big data (BBD), which refers to the data collected by facial recognition, eye recognition, thumb prints, and other types of technology whose task is to identify a specific person through unique bio-characteristics. Big data drive refers to the energies that pulsate around big data as both a signifier and fetishized object to promise something more that may never be fulfilled.