Panopticism

Jeremy Bentham designed the ‘panopticon’ as a multi-purpose building that could be put to any use, in 1791.  Michel Foucault used this design/idea to come up with a theory of panopticism, which is applied to modern society (1975).  Foucault wrote Madness and Civilisation, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 

Panopticism is the theory that by placing people in a situation where they feel like they are being  constanly scrutinized and monitored, such like a panoptical prison, they will start to self regulate their behavior. 

At the time of the conception of the idea of the panopticon, there was a new attitude towards work.  Work was seen as a way to make people better.  All of the socially useless people were put in work houses (panoptic institutions), drunks, criminals, vagabonds etc.  Gave a new method of making useless people useful. 

Examples of contemporary panoptic devices are open plan offices; the boss sits at the back of the office, watching everyone so people feel like they have to work and behave as they should.  CCTV, having the cameras on show, knowing that they are recording you makes you think before you act. 

Photographer Phillip Lorca Dicorcia uses a similar idea to panopticism, he sets up a flash and a trigger, and photographs people as they trip the flash, illuminating just them in the frame.  All of this is done without them knowing.  The series Heads was made in 2000.