Today we can kill people simultaneously in large numbers. Technology created killing without having to meet the enemy any longer: killing at a distance, killing at another moment, killing without feeling that you kill. Technology facilitates killing without having to face the consequences of the fact of the killing. Also, in the art of representation, military research has contributed a lot to the world, as we know it today. From maps made by hand to satellite images that can zoom in to incredible detail, from binoculars to 24 hour monitoring around the world, instrument interfaces - even when they facilitate killing and destruction - look like user-friendly, handy gadgets. Sound, images and action can be transported around the world. Representation is used for control and the execution of power and for information and communication purposes.note 36 A system like the above-mentioned ECHELON is the result of military and scientific research.
War has been part of human history for as long as we know. Where we previously only used to fight physically, today war is also an advanced digital technological practice. Over the centuries humankind has invented more and more elaborate ways to kill each other, mislead each other, misinform each other, build defence systems from castles to star wars, from smoke signals to encrypted satellite communication. How much money is spent on which kind of presence research by which state in collaboration with which industrial partners, is beyond the scope of this study.note 37 I merely wish to establish the fact here that military research has contributed hugely to the development of presence technologies and that the development of presence technologies by civilians is also used by the military.
