The ways in which our society controls and disciplines people.
Complex institutional framework.
- think about the way the way we, artists, designers, makers, our ideas are not only produced by us independently.
- before we get to the creative act determines what we produce.
Panopticon is an allergry of social control.
<image of panopticon>
This, as a building, has the same principles of controls as our society has the same principles of control.
Michael Foucault (1926 - 1984)
- philosopher
- activist
Two of his works
- madness & civilisation
- discipline & punish: the birth of the prison
These both survey the rise of madness and civilisation, and social control.
Discipline. Punishment. Madness.
Madness & Civilisation
- madness is different socially
- mad people were incorporated into society
- part of society
Towards the 1600's - a different attitude starts to emerge
- moral attitude
- those who 'weren't useful' were stigmatised
- 'the great confinement' - houses of correction
- everyone who weren't socially productive were thrown in.
- the insane
- criminals
- poor and unemployed
- single mothers
- idle - people considered lazy
Take those who aren't productive and force them to be productive with violence.
- the error was that it corrupted people more
- the insane made the sane more deviant
- specialist institutions start to emerge
- a different between sane and insane start to emerge
Inside the asylum, the inmates are controlled in different ways.
- treated like children/minors
- if they do well they get a reward
- important shift
- society realise there's a better way to control people
- mentally rather than physically
All sorts of knowledge emerge
- they legitimise these institutions
- this mental source of social control represents from someone else being in control of your own behaviour to you being in control of your own behaviour.
Those who were deviants, were seen to by social embarrassment.
- to show if anyone chooses not to obey they will also be socially humiliated
Guy Falks
image
Quote under image.
Not to correct his behaviour, but to make an example of it. That anyone who dares to confront the king will be treated the same and have the same punishment
- made to scare people off the thought of even considering it
Disciplinary Society and Disciplinary Power
- modern discipline - making us useful for society
The Panopticon
- designed by Jeremy Bentham - proposed 1791
- could be a school, hospital, asylum, prison
Modern one is build in Cuba.
image of it
Another modern one in the states
image of this
The panopticon - the ideal mechanism of gaining power and control
- each prisoner in their cell constantly see the central tower so they know they are being watched, but can't see each other.
- the central tower wasn't lit so the prisoners couldn't tell if they were actually being watched
- knowing you are/might be watched has a peculiar effect
- it internalises the individual
- always behave in the way you feel you should whilst being watched
- gives immediate power
- once you accept you're always being watched the people start to control themselves
- keep themselves disciplined
- resulted in not even needing guards to control it because the people just control themselves.
image of in cell
People controlling themselves rather than being controlled
- don't need any physical way of controlling people, just mental
Faucault Quote, 1975
The institutions were used for a variety of purposes.
- the had the function of laboratories
- they used to measure things like performance and contrast
- allows scrutiny
- allows supervisor to experiment on subjects
- aim to make them productive
This lecture theatre is designed to make us learn more productively
- we can only really talk to people to left and right of us where as Richard can see us all
- the way we are arranged are most productive
- allows him to survey us
- make us more useful and do what he wants us to do
- reforms prisoners
- helps treats patients
- helps instruct school children
- helps confine, but also study the insane
New mode of disciplinary power - Panopticism
- don't just want to punish those who don't do what we say - correct and punish them
- surveillance of bodied/people
- about training people
- getting people to train themselves the way you want them to be trained
Constantly visible
- easier to be caught out
Open plan office
- not just a trendy design
- efficient system for the bosses
- allows the boss to constantly see what the workers are doing
- the fact you know you can be constantly seen makes you not because you know you can be caught out
- the boss can just be sat there as a visible reminder
The Office
- film crew following main character around
- he knows he is constantly being filmed
- he modifies his behaviour
- put on a face of being the perfect boss
- just the idea of being watched caused him to change his behaviour
You are acting in a way you think a correct citizen is supposed to act.
- behaviour conditioned by all sorts of factors
Right now
- monitored
- registered
- grade
- can be seen
Library
- automatically know you have to control yourself in a library
- same with art galleries
- just know you have to be quiet
- perfectly behaved, despite what like out of it
Modern Bars
- open plan
- change from being intimate to spaces where you now you're being watched
- walk into a modern bar feeling less atmosphere
- everyone is watching you
- spaces are much easier to control
CCTV
- most obvious example
- another example is Google Maps
- photos of streets
- personal levels of own homes are available to everyone
- another way to get caught out?
Lives are recorded
- everything that we do is recorded
- fear of being caught out
- resulting in more productive, well behaved people
Not just physical places, or the design of places
- fundamentally, for it to have an effect it relies on you being visible and knowing that you're being monitored
A register is not just a record, but it's also a panoptic sign to be monitored
- our knowledge of ourselves goes into Richards hands
Don't question it, just cooperate to not raise any awareness to wether would be doing something wrong
Security cameras are usually revealed to visibly instruct people that they have to behave, not to catch them out
Some just put as a reminder that you could be caught out, but not actually set to catch you out - speed cameras, etc
The fact in college how staff have red cards and we have blue cards controls us, and gives us a status of power. If you see someone you don't know with a red card, you would immediately act more appropriately.
It's not just a form of mental control, there's a direct relationship between mental control and physical control. These power relationships control our bodies and forces us to act in a certain way and has physical responses. We become docile bodies - self monitoring, self-correcting, obedient bodied. Docile bodies in the terms that we won't repel. Makes ur work harder and come in when were supposed to, etc.
The whole keeping healthy thing
- not just keeping healthy, but also to endure people work harder and better
- people are living longer so expected to work longer and harder because they are healthier
- constant physical reminder that our bodies are constantly on display
- no one makes you go to they gym and fret about how you look, you do it to yourself. You make yourself anxious.
Everyone watches telly, but it's like a metaphor for the panopticon, fixed forward watching something centrally.
Foucault and Power
- definition is not a top-down model as wth Marxism
- power is not a thing or a capacity people have - it's a relation between different individuals and groups and only exists when it's exercised.
- the exercise of power relies on there being the capacity for power to be resisted
- there there is power there is resistance.
Facebook - everything you post is recorded by everyone who can see it. You control what you post, put on an act of yourself for others. A form of control - must announce to people things like relationship changed, and can actually loose jobs over it as there is always someone somewhere watching.
There is always something controlling our actions.
Things to go away with today
- Michael Foucault
- panopticism as a form of discipline
- techniques of the body
- docile bodies
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