10 Membranes

Above is a screenshot from the Paul Verhoeven film Total Recall. Featured extensively in the film are none other than full body scanners - the kind that we now see at Heathrow airport. In the world of Total Recall they are ubiquitous, found at the entrance to underground stations and airports alike. Surely this is where we heading now, the logic of infinite terror and infinite security meeting at the gaze of the full body scanner in all public places. Strangely I find the idea less intrusive than the camera overload we presently have: scanners actually do something, and if you didn’t want to be scanned, you could take private transport and so on. That’s not to say scanners are good.