Essay Proposal Task 4

Title:

Panopticism

Points of essay:

Jeremy Benthams' Panopticon
Foucaults theory of Panopticism
How this relates to current day life
Surveyed Society
How artists can mould viewers to see their art. Power and Control
Conclusion tying back to Foucaults theory

“No-one knows precisely how many cameras there are in the UK, but the estimates go as high as 4.5 million” BBC website
This case study is helpful for my essay as I would like to look at how surveillance is affecting our current life. It also ties in well with D.Lyon's work on 'surveillance and society'


“Now the means of surveillance flow freely through domestic spaces” D.Lyon ‘Surveillance and Society’ (2002)


‘Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.’ (Foucault, 1975)
This can be used to tie in the explantion of the building itself into Foucaults theories of how the effects of the building can be used as a metaphor for how our society is controlled by a greater power.

“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection". [Foucault 1995].


‘individual is produced by nature; the subject by culture’ John Fiske
Helps to explain the point that it is your surroundings that affect you and mould you, even if your mind doesn't notice it. 


'1984' George Orwell.
I plan on using this story to show how people can become mindless and controllable.