Panopticism - Writing Task

Designed by Jeremy Bentham, 'The Panopticon' is a prison with specific architecture designed to create a sense of domination and surveillance. The cells he designed were 'arranged circularly or polygonally around a central watchtower with galleries and viewing boxes'  (Kaschadt, 2002)  to ensure prisoners were, or at least felt to be, constantly watched and observed an effect enforced by the use of light, the guards in darkness whilst the prisoners always in light, on show. Kaschadt goes on to explain that this created 'a comprehensive surveillance through "the gaze" took the place of any physical punishment', instead controlling the prisoner through surveillance, a sentiment Foucault agrees with stating 'Visibility is a trap' (Foucault, 1997).

Kaschadt argues that one of the most important innovations was to stop the use of single cells, instead putting prisoners in groups or three or four. This 'would create social relationships...as well as social control' (Kaschadt, 2002) and illustrates the positive qualities a Panopticon could have being a 'modern step towards the reintegration of a delinquent' (Kaschadt, 2002). 'People who constantly think they are being watched - because they know they are under surveillance but cannot control exactly when they are really being observered - would have to lose the possibility, and finally the desire, or doing wrong. ' (Kaschadt,2002). By doing this in a prison constantly, the prisoners in theory internalise this feeling of being supervised and observed and therefore leave hopefully having changed their ways. However, despite the positive successes of a Panopticon there is room for it to become abused, and used to intimidate and torment prisoners. Foucault suggests that 'the increase of power created by the Panoptic machine may degenerate into tyranny' and, though has positive words to say on the matter, also relates the practice to the precautions took in villages with the plague, which can be seen as being quite drastic therefore highlighting Panopticisms isolating control over people and their choices.

The idea of Panopticism and the negative tyrannical connotations it has is used a lot in film and video-games, especially in Dystopian futures where the people are oppressed and usually 'controlled' by a solitary figure in power. The Hunger Games, for example, illustrates this concept through 1984 like surveillance and control over villages and then further, in the actual 'Hunger Games' themselves, where every move is watched by cameras and a higher power creates the rules. This is an example of the power panopticism can grant when being used by the corrupt and for ultimate control. Foucault's statement ''Perfect the exercise of power' and 'reduce the number of those who exercise it, while increasing the number of those on whom it is exercised.' (1997) is very echoic of the ideas in the novel 1984, which, with screens constantly watching Winston and everyone else, creates a bleak oppressive outlook on society and those 'in charge'. Despite everyone being under the same system, the concept of being watched deters them from banding together and illuminating the semi-self-imposed isolation they live in. The fight for individuality and freedom is the spec of hope brought in a narrative based on Panopticism and can be very relatable to an audience, thus creating an often thought-provoking or at least entertaining piece of media, film or otherwise.

Kaschadt, K. 'Jeremy Bentham - The Penitentiary Panopticon or Inspection House' in Weibel, Levin and Frohne (eds.) (2002) Ctrl [space]: rhetorics of surveillance from Bentham to Big Brother, Cambridge Massachusetts, The MIT Press, pages 114 - 119

Foucault, M. 'Panopticism (extract)' in Leach, N. (ed.) (1997) Rethinking Architecture: Areader in cultural theory, London and New York, Routledge, pages 356 - 367