Panopticism

Richard Miles

Institutions & Institutional power

Principles of the Panopticon - Jeremy Bentham
Michael Foucault's concept of 'discipline society' - 1926-1984

Panopticon - round
- Foucault - allegory of the way the world is
- Madness and civilisation
- Discipline and Punish - Birth of Prison

Great Confinement, late 1600's
- 'Homes of Correction' to curb unemployment and sickness
made to work with the threat of physical punishment

Birthplace fo the Asylum - treated like children, rewarded/punished accordingly
physical control turns into subtle mental control

emerge of Knowledge - biology, psychiatry, medicine - legitimise the role of the doctor
- careers created - who decides who's healthy?

The Pillory and historical stocks
- public humiliation and degradation
- shows the kings ultimate power over your body

Disciplinary power and disciplinary society
-"discipline is a technology to keep someone under surveillance and how to control his conduct' - Foucault
- The Panopticon Building - perfect institute, multipurpose building, school, hospital, prison

Jeremy Bentham - design 1791
Foucault - metaphor 1970

Panopticon - internalises the individual, the conscious state that he is always being watched
- not actually watched in theory, they become self regulating

'The major affect of the panopticon, to induce the inmate to a state of consciousness and permanent visibility that confirms the automatic function of power' 1975 Foucault

allows scrutiny and permanent visibility and a chance to experiment on subjects
aims to make them more productive

Panopticon - a model of how modern society organises the knowledge, its power, in the surveillance of bodies and its training of bodies

Modern examples of panopticons
open plan offices - closed offices
open plan bars - traditional pubs
the register as a record of attendance

Uni cards, surveillance cameras, cctv
cameras in classrooms - panopticon gone too far?
- has a damaging affect on learning?
- uni can see your computer files/visited websites
- keystrokes per minute etc

"But the body is also directly involved in a political field; power relations have an immediate hold upon it; they invest it, mark it, train it, torture it, force it to carry out tasks, to perform ceremonies, to emit signs. This political investment of the body is bound up, in accordance with complex reciprocal relations, with its economic use; it is largely as a force of production that the body is invested with relations of power and domination; but on the other hand, its constitution as labour power is possible only if it is caught up in a system of subjection…the body becomes a useful force only if it is both a productive body and a subjected body” Foucault 1975

Disciplining society creates 'docile bodies'
self monitoring, correcting, regulating, obedient

Foucault and Power
- his definition is not a top-down model as with marxism
- power is not a thing - it is a relation between individuals and groups
- the exercise of power relies on there being the capacity for power to be resisted - where there is power, there is resistance

1984 - George Orwell
Winston Smith

Vito Acconci - Following Piece 1969 - stalking
- Seedbed 1972 - masturbating under the floor

Chris Burden - Samson 1985
- pushes the building apart via turnstile and vice

Key Points
- Foucault
- Panopticism as a form of discipline
- Techniques of the Body
- Docile Bodies