Before Body Scanning There was Looker

This paper uses the film Looker (Michael Crichton, 1981) to highlight how a group of filmmakers and technologists imagined the sinister side of computer-automated biometrics would unfold in late twentieth century United States. The film depicts a scene in which a young female model gets her naked body scanned for a multinational corporation that will capitalize on the 3D computer model created from her likeness. An analysis of the body scanning scene and behind-the-scenes production processes raise new questions about the legacy of biometric imaginaries in the United States and helps us see in new ways how a set of concerns crystallized around the computerization of personal identifiable information, including physical bodies. While fears of computer automation existed in previous decades, by the early 1980s, the stakes heightened as biometric and photosensing technologies could sense and gather data computationally.