Week 7

Michael Foucault. Discipline and Punish. Panopticism

The panoptican model can easily be applied to the role of the photographer.  The central tower is the photographer while the surrounding cells are the photographs or the people who are being photographed.  From the tower or center- the photographer has the power of visibility.   From behind the camera- the photographer is able to capture almost anything and everything surrounding him/her.

In the world of celebrity photography- famous people are under constant surveillance.  They are locked in the cells- "this enclosed segmented space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded" (p.2).  This idea of course extends even further into our modern day surveillance- put in place for our own security.  From the supermarket to running red lights, video and photography is in place to make law enforcement easier.  In the same way that the panoptican allowed for easier control over prisoners, surveillance in most parts of our daily lives allows for easier control over rule breakers at large.  The operation of power is increased because the number of people who are able to be observed increases while the number of operators decreases.

This society of surveillance was predicted in another writing as well- George Orwell's 1984.  This book presented a vision of an all-knowing government and a society that was under constant surveillance and was bombarded with propoganda.

The model of the panoptican also serves to illustrate the way the population views media.  The news that we are presented is in the central position of power.  The public remains secluded in its separate cells with little choice other than to believe what it is presented with.

The Practice of Everyday Life by Michel de Certeau  BLOG UPDATE

  This book points out ways in which we take mass culture and alter it to fit our individual needs.  In the chapter Walking in the City, de Certeau begins by presenting a view from high above the city- reflecting on the spatial planning and then sinks down to the actual streets to comment on particular symbols and names.  When we went on our walk around Chicago, we examined the ways in which those around us take urban elements and alter them for our own uses.  The most common example is that of the planters being used as places to sit or smoke or gather.  While the concrete structures were created to hold shrubs, the population has appropriated the space for their own individual uses.  The city in turn, has responded as such by placing spikes and attempting to create spaces that prevent these kind of spatial alterations.

De Certeau is also fascinated with the way that naming a place changes the space of the city.  Proper names "make sense" and provide a way for us to move about the space.  "These names create a nowhere in places; they change them into passages."