LECTURE 1 - Panopticism

"Literature, art and heir respective producers do not exist independently of a complex institutional framework which authorises, enables, empowers and legitimises them, This framework must be incorporated into any analysis that pretends to provide a thorough understanding of culture goods and practices." 

Randal Johnson in Walker & Chaplin (1999)

Thinking about the way we/artists/designers/makers - our ideas and what we produce (not just independently) in a vacuum - simplistic and romantic way in which creativity operates. This is about before we get to the creative act and the place that we are and the place we were born/where we work...determines what we produce - where produced by the society and institutions around us will influence. 

PHYSICAL INSTITUTIONS

• PHYSICAL - prison, school, university
• SOCIAL - 

LECTURE AIMS

• UNDERSTAND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE PANOPTICON
• UNDERSTAND MICHEL FOUCAULT'S CONCEPT OF 'DISCIPLINARY SOCIETY'
• CONSIDER THE IDEA THAT DISCIPLINARY SOCIETY IS AWAY OF MAKING INDIVIDUALS 'PRODUCTIVE AND 'USEFUL'
• UNDERSTAND FOCAULT'S IDEA OF TECHNIQUES OF THE BODY AND DOCIDE BODIES. 

THE PANOPTICON

This is a building has the same principles of control that our society has the same principles of control.

MICHAEL FOUCAULT - French Philosopher and Activist - Gay rights

2 Famous works that we should know about, both books survey in different ways, but they look at the rise of institutions and power in the west

• Madness & Civilisation - rise of asylum and phciatry and doctors
• Discipline & Punish; The Birth of the prison - surveys the rise of prison and particularly the modern prison. 

MADNESS & CIVILISATION

• The Great Confident
• Madness was very different socially, the insane lead a relatively easy life and wondered from village to village but they were tolerated and thought of in a positive way - they were part of society e.g. village idiot
• Towards the 1600's - a different attitude comes about (along with the rise in religion) and a moral attitude came about
• Those who fell outside the society - who couldn't and wouldn't work
• the great confinement - houses of correction was built - everyone who wasn't socially accepted was thrown in, it wasnt just the insane, it was also the people who didn't operate how people wanted them to e.g. poor, unemployed, simgle mothers, criminals, the idle 
• Inside these the people were put to work with the threat of being beaten - the idea that society is going to take the unproductive and force them to be productive with teh threat of voicence. This was ok for a while
• Gradually the houses of correction began to be seen as a gross error - rather than making these people socially accepted - instead it make people worse - the insane people made other people more devient
• After the houses of correction - specialist institutions emerged to correct certain people - the insane were seperated from the sane = ASYLUM
• this is when you get a distinction between SAIN AND INSANE but here there were knoweldge specialising - qualified to judge who is right and wrong etc
• Differnt things happen in the HOUSES OF CORRECTION/ASYLUM - they are controlled in different ways - they are treated like minors/children - if they do well then they are going to be given rewards. FOUCAULT see's this as a very important shift. 
• This is the moment for FOUCAULT where society starts to realise thta there are better ways to control people than violence - shift from physical to mentol control at the birth of the Asylum

The emerges of forms of knowlege - boilogy, psychiatry,, medicine etc, legitimise the practies of hospitals, doctors, phychiatrists

FOUCAULT aims to show these forms of knowledge and rationaliseing

MOODLE............

PRE MODERN SOCIETY

• People who didn't act in the socially acceptable way - those who were deviant were punished in the most spastically way as possible e.g. put on a pillory in the village green and have fruit thrown at them - the point of punishment is not to correct or train you, it is because they want to embarrass you in the worst way to serve as a warning to other people. 

GUY FAWKS QUOTE 

"That you be draw on a hurdle to the place of excecution where you shall be hanged by the neak and being alive cut down, your privy members shall be cut off and your bowls taken out and burned before you, your head served from your pbody and your body divided in to 4 quards and disposed of at the kings discresion." 

HOWEVER - society as it modernised realised there were more effective ways to keep people under control - shift from PHYSICAL TO MENTAL punishment. 

DISCIPLINE is a techniques and it is not just aimed at showeing your power to the workd, in moderny sociecty it is more about training your behaviour, performance, multiply his capacities, how to put him where hie is most ueful, this is discipline in a sense. 

PANOPTICON - esigned by JEREMY BENTHAMS

'The ideal mechanism for the automatic functioning for diciplinary power' 

Uses an allegory for the modern disciplinary of control

He thought it could be a multitude of functions - school, asylum, prison - if it was a prison, you have each of the little spaces for cells, each on divided by a wall - each one would have a window so the light would shine through and permanently backlit - guards in the central tower

Each prisoner in the cell can constantly see the central tower - permantly on display and permentatnly isolated but they can tell if they are being watched because the old tower wasnt lit - sometimes they would have venitian blinds so you couldn't tell if anyone was in there

This has a srange effect - internalises the idea of always being watched - you then always behave in the way in which the person you think is watchin you think should be having - you are always scared that you will be caught out - the building itself allows power to function perfectly and automatically and independently.

You then don't really need bars on the cell because people are being watched - they started to mentally control themselves. It then got to the point that you didn't need guards to control it because you need guards to control it. 

PANOPTICISM

Hence he major effect of the Panopticon; to induce the inmate stat of contagiousness

MOODLE.....................

PURPOSE - to make them more active and responsible

AIM AS A SCHOOL - to make them more productive - to make them learn more

LECTURE THEATRE - designed to make students more productive - you can talk to the people either side of you but the lecturer can see everyone - just that arrangement of space makes you more productive. The fact that you are physically sat there - isolated and fixed - makes you more productive.

• allow scrutiny
• allows supervisor to experiment on subjects
• aims to make them productive
• reforms prisoners
• helps treat patients
• helps instruct school children
• helps confine but also study insane
• helps supervise workers 

What FOUCAULT is describing is the transformation in Wester societies from a former of power imposed by a RULER or a SOVEREIGN to a new most of power called PANOPTICISM

The PANOPTICON is a model of now modern society organises it knowledge and its power its surveillance and training bodies. 

OPEN OFFICE - not just a trendy design but it is also and efficient system for the bosses of the office - everyone can communicate and work as a team - but he can see if people are skiving - the fact that you are constantly in view means you don't want to be caught skiving - so it stops you from doing it. The boss being sat there is an institutional reminder just to work hard. 

E.G. THE OFFICE - program 

• knows he is constantly be filmed, causes him to modify his behaviour - he wants to put on the face of being a perfect boss which makes him do silly things, but just this act of him being followed is enough to change - acting in the way you think that a correct and normal citizen should behave. 

PANOPTIC - way to describe layout of buildings where constantly being watched. 

BARS - traditionally now open plan rather than having little booths - change from being intimate and social spaces where you were free, where now you are constantly being watched and slightly uneasy - you can make the space your own. 

Modern clubs/pubs and less comfortable than old pubs - easier to be spotted

DEVELOPMENT OF PANOPTICISM 

• google maps
• streets
• CCTV

We are constitanly being reminded in many different ways that our lives are being recorded - this starts to build in on us, the fear of being caught out which then leads to the idea that we would be more socially productive and well behaved citizens

PENTONVILLE PRISON - school!

It is not just physical spaces, not just the design of spaces that work in a PANOPTIC way - for it to have an effect it has to be visible, know that it is visible and know our lives are being watched

e.g. Register - panoptic sign that every day of uni lives are being recorded and that is available to people e.g. if you don't like someone you can pull up someones records of attendance, notices - you can be measured against other people. 

Fundamentally your knowledge of yourself is transferred to the tutor. 

Keeping records of you - keeps you in line

LEEDS COLLEG OF ART 

• Over 20 CCTV cameras - you are recorded just about everywhere, everything is permenantly logged. 
• Cameras are now not hidden because it is more effective that they are to be seen so that people know they are being watched and will behave
• Speed Cameras - some dont work and are just there as visible reminders to behave
• IT rooms - they can access your computer and every single website you have ever been on while being at college on the college network. 
• Identity badges - proof of who we are - visible indication of status through the colour - this can control the different social relationships. 

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POWER, KNOWLEDGE AND THE BODY

'The power relations have immediate hold upon it (the body) they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs

FOCAULT 1975

This CAUSES us to become DOCILE BODIES - which are produced by modern society which means; self motoring, self-correcting, obedient bodies (not to be confused with lazy) - it makes sure you don't rebel, it makes you work harder

DISCIPLINARY TECHNIQUES

"That the techniques of discipline and gentle punishment have crossed the threshold from work to play shows how pervasive that have become within modern wester societies"

This is as much about as making people stay healthy so that they can work harder and do more work for the bosses

The union wants to lower pensions and raise the pension age - people are living longer now so that people have to work for 7 years longer - rather than saying well done for being healthy, so you have to work longer and harder. 

Constantly in our society we have visible reminders that your body in on display e.g. billboards, telly, magazines - health and beauty - look good naked - constant reminders...no one makes you go to the gym and fret about how you look, you do it to yourself, you control and self-regualte and perform in certain ways. 

TV - your are fixed, isolated, receiving instructions etc - metaphor of the P....

FOUCAULT AND POWER

• His definition is not  top-down model as with MARXISM
• Power is not a thing or a capacity people have it is a RELATION  between different individuals and group, and only exists when it is being exercises
• the exercise of power relies on there being the capacity for power to be resisted
• 'Where there is power there is resistance'

power is not a thing they can have and can wheel - it is a RELATIONSHIP

e.g. tutor only has power over you because you let them have the power - you are willingly let them have the power. 

There is also the power of RESISTANCE - tutor thinks that you have power over you but you can resist. 

FACEBOOK - so panoptic - if you use Facebook, everything that you post is going to be watched by close circle of friends, you don't act like yourself, you act like a performance of yourself. Losing jobs because of things poster on facebook. 

VITO ACCONDI - FOLLOWING PIECE - 1969 - conceptual artist

examples of creative project respond to the ideas of panopticism. 

Pervy artist with pervy hair! 

he stands outside the gallery and follows the first person who walks out around the city for the whole day until they get to some place he cannot get in. 

VITO ACCONDI - SEEDBED - 1972

seedy type of art - pervy...

social experiment - perve wanking and fantasising about the person walking above. 

CHRIS BURDEN - SAMSON 1985

when it is exhibited - you have a big beam of oak which is clamped against the gallery, each click of the turn-style will push against the beam and eventually ruin the gallery - the more people visit = destruction

KEY POINTs

• MICHEL FOUCAULT
• PANOPTICISM as a form of disciplin
• Techniques of the body 
• Docile Bodies. 

There is always something controlling your actions