Discipline and Punish

Foucault’s book discipline and punish examines the forces of social control since the rise of modernity. His opening chapter contrasts the public torture of Robert-François Damiens in the 1800’s against the schedule of inmates in 19th century prisons.

His book gives particular attention to Jeremy Bentham’s Panoptican, a modernist prison design which sort to maximize prison efficiency by reducing the number of guards required in relation the number of prisoners.



The way Bentham achieved this was to build a multi story, semi circular structure. Prison cells lined the walls with a window to the outside and bars in place of an inside wall. At the centre of the prison a guard tower over looks every cell, which is backlit by its window rendering the prisoner permanently visible. The guard, on the other hand, is shielded from view by venetian blinds so that inmates can not tell when they are being watched and more importantly when they are not being watched. This perceived state of constant surveillance forces the inmates to regulate their behavior at all times and thus eliminates the need for enough guards to carry out such surveillance.

“The most striking thesis of discipline and punish is that the disciplinary techniques introduced for criminals become the model for other modern sites of control (schools, hospitals, factories, etc). So that the prison discipline pervades all of modern society. We live, Foucault says, in a ‘carceral archipeligo’ (DP, 298)” (Gutter)

Foucault describes these techniques as taking the form of three distinct actions;

Hierarchical observation.
Modern architecture are built to both serve the functional need of the people who use them but also to increase their visibility to assure that the powers that govern the space can be effective. The panoptican is the archetype of this structure but the principles are applied elsewhere such as schools, lecture theaters, factory floors and office buildings.

Normalizing judgment.
Society increasingly values rankings and statics, individuals are therefore judged not by the rightness or wrongness of there actions but by how they compare to their peers.

Examination.
This final action combines the two principles above and implements them. Individuals can then be observed, judged and attention can be focused on those who exhibit unacceptable or unusual behavior.

This is of course fascinating in much the same way 1984 or the matrix is but is it applicable to post-modern society? I personally believe it is more relevant in a contemporary Brittish context than it was in France at its time of writing. With the advent of CCTV, expensive and complex architectural concerns or active authority figures are no longer necessary. An understanding of how the normalizing gaze is employed to examine us is ingrained through the education system from an early age. Though we may not be aware of it our lives more closely match that of the prisoner than ever before.

surveillance in the house of lords

somewhat late on putting this up but interesting in relation to my project none the less. Here is a brief audio comment on the house of lords statements.

Firstly i am pleased to see genuine criticism CCTV surveillance being given by government and the issues of intrusions of privacy and effectiveness being considered. unfortunately as mentioned in the report no comments where made on a proposed database cataloging mobile phone use as well as internet browsing habits and email use. Here we see one of the most damaging factors of Britons acceptance of CCTV. previously unacceptable intrusions on personal privacy become acceptable by proxy as CCTV fails to achieve its intended purpose.

Guilty pleasures

In the essay Guilty Pleasures, from which the quote at the top of my blog comes from, Batchen discusses artists and authorities’ preoccupation with observation and surveillance through the medium of photography. In his writing there are two more quotes I will discuss with relation to my project.

“According to the Philadelphia photographer of 16th October 1886 ‘it(hidden cameras) can do more mischief than its weight in dynamite, or more good than its weight in gold, according to the disposition of the person who pulls the string’”

This statement in particular I find very interesting in relation to a discussion on surveillance as it neither tries to condemn nor justify the use of photography for surveillance but acknowledges both its potentials. One of the main concerns of my project is not the legitimacy of CCTV surveillance as a practice but the way in which it is applied. It seems that there is no transparency when it comes to those who implement it and more worryingly no need to prove its necessity nor effectiveness to those whose privacy it sacrifices.

“The average person believes implicitly that the photograph cannot falsify. Of course you and I know that this unbounded faith in the integrity of the photograph is often rudely shaken, for, while photographs may not lie, liars may photograph. It becomes necessary, then, in our relation to the truth, to see to it that the camera we depend upon contracts no bad habits”

Although I feel the first statement in this quote is somewhat untrue, in the context of discussing specifically CCTV footage from which I took it I believe this is a common problem. With the public being familiarized with the aesthetic of CCTV footage through Hollywood films such as enemy of the state and through television programming such as crime watch; subjects portrayed by cameras designed for the surveillance of criminals become guilty by association. Any action which is out of the ordinary becomes suspicious regardless of its legality.

mask up

Here is a sample of a series a previously made on CCTV. this project focused on the personal effect CCTV had on my life and my desire to preserve my privacy. this was done by censoring my face before it was recorded. i did this by first photographing my face and then pixelating it, printing it onto card and making it into a mask. This mask was intended as a physical barrier between the camera and myself but also a visual metaphor for the masks we wear in public in our everyday lives.

Faceless

Featured in these articles BBC, Guardian.

Manu Luksch's film Faceless goes one step further than the surveillance camera players. employing cameras used for surveillance to produce a 50min narrative film. the video was per cured using the Data Protection Act over the course of 5 years. to comply with this law all individuals featured in the footage, other than the one requesting a copy, must have there faces censored. this forms the basis of the narrative which portrays a distopian future where a women wakes in a world where no one but her self has a face.



unfortunatly as of 2001 it has become increasingly difficult to gain acces to our own footage. the footage must now be of a "biographical" nature though surely this should include everything that happens in a life. it must also not cause extra work for the CCTV operator, this is of course impossible as every face other than your own must be censored. despite this clamp down i have, in the past, tried to acquire my own footage but have simply been ignored.

surveillance camera players

the surveilance camera players are a group of artists/activists which provide CCTV cameras with something to film. through a combination of street performance and signage they create tv programs for those watching the cameras and more importantly those passing who find themselves alerted to the presence of specific cameras employed for the production

"Surveillance society, which is an imminent reality, must be critiqued and attacked concurrently. Guerrilla programming is direct: it is a simultaneous exposure of the oppressive system and subversion of that system to inform the oppressors (and anyone else who may be watching us) of their own ridiculousness and complicity. As theory and practice must occur simultaneously, so must critique and subversion. Guerilla programming is go!"

-- M. Carter, 1995.

CCTV in Nottingham

Treasure Hunt

the Nottingham based CCTV treasure hunt is seeking to highlight the level of CCTV surveillance carried out in the local area through mapping the location of cameras around the city center. The project uses digital photography to record the cameras and using a function of Google maps publishes there location on their website which is accessible to anyone. it is a user generated project meaning that although it has a specific creator any one in the local community can contribute. this way of working means that it can be easily updated as the CCTV system is updated.

A similar project created by a Jez Noond in 2005 mapped the CCTV cameras of nottingham city centre and went further to categorize the cameras by function. This information was shared in the form of a tour led by Noond

brief

My project is a reaction to Britain’s culture of surveillance; Focusing on CCTV as one of the most overt forms of surveillance carried out on society and as it resonates with my work as a photographer. This project seeks to highlight the level of surveillance performed on us and also encourage the viewer to question its presence, the need for transparency and the legitimacy of this practice.

Through composite imaging I will create figures with CCTV cameras for heads and insert them into every day situations to see how the dynamic is changed when the mask of the camera is made apparent and the gaze is humanized.