Panopticism
A weekly signal points to articles, ideas, and/or research related to seminar readings and discussions in AI and Culture: Buildings, Cities and Beyond.
This signal is a harmonious mashup of one of my precedent studies from Reactive Spaces and Media Architecture called Extravagant Light in Public Places and a short paper I wrote back in April on the Panopticon for Andrew E. Masich’s course, Public History.
French Philosopher, Michael Foucault writes about a social theory called Panopticism in his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1977) / Surveiller et punir (1975) where he “traces the cultural shifts that led to the predominance of prison via the body and power”.
Foucault’s social theory is named after the Panopticon, a type of institutional building with specific design intent. English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (may have) designed the Panopticon (with inspiration from his brother Samuel’s activity in Krichev estate, Russia in the late 1780s) as a system of control such that all of the inmates of the prison could be observed by a single watchman and none of the inmates would be able to tell whether or not they were being observed.
This is accomplished through a circular structure with a watch tower in the center where the guard is perched. The cells are divided into equal sizes, with walls in between, and each contains two windows through which light can penetrate, thus illuminating the cell, and providing visibility to the person in the watchtower. The watchtower, of central importance, is shuttered so that those in the cells can not see the occupant(s) of the watchtower and none of the prisoners can see each other. The intended audience was for prisoners, rogues, delinquents, mentally ill, managers, staff — Bentham also intended this building design to be applicable to schools, hospitals, sanatoriums, and asylums but a Panopticon most commonly refers to the function of a prison. In short, the inmate “is seen, but he does not see”.
Whether or not there actually was a guard on duty, the inmates would not be able to tell but they would always feel watched; Foucault argues there’s a similarity in how industrial management has created a disciplinary society. The ‘objective system capturing your every move’ has a potentially serious psychological effect which can impact workers to conform or satisfy ‘the system’ rather than perform their best or bring up difficult conversations with other people in the managed system.
Foucault suggests that the inmate is always “the object of information, never a subject in communication”.
This ties into my signal, a 46 story building to be called TSX Broadway. In early 2019, an old DoubleTree hotel in Time Square at W 47th St. and 7th Ave. = demolished and construction will begin on a $2.6 billion dollar development projected to be a ‘premier’ cultural, entertainment, retail and hospitality experience. As a futuristic, maximalist, retail aspiration in Times Square there’s a lot to be said about Panopticism and capitalism and the Information Panopticon.
Given we’re focusing on the smart city and the rise of intelligent building systems, this is an example of a consumer-centric space that will use advanced sensors and IOT devices, computer vision, VR experiences, enticing new tech for consumers to test and sophisticated analytics and algorithms to track any desired activities. With 300–400k people passing through Times Square on a given day, this is the opportunity to collect an immesnse amount of data about the way people interact with products and spaces. The unassuming consummer, perhaps a tourist, becomes the object of information and more often than not the data that’s being collected about them is not brought to their attention in a meaningful way where they are able to become a subject in communication.
“This sort of technology is how a company like Samsung can justify building out a 55,000-square-foot retail space that doesn’t sell any actual merchandise. In Samsung’s case, it’s a playground for gadget nerds, a chance for someone to sling a VR headset around their face and immerse themselves into a virtual experience. While visitors get to test out new tech, the company gets to collect a lot of information about the way people interact with its products. The space, which hosts concerts and conferences, also encourages selfies and social media posts — another way for Samsung to track its visitors.”
Some ‘leaders’ in the retail industry are turning to stores as showrooms (think of Apple that did this first) and brand experiences. Take Supreme, for example, of exclusive or limited quantities of merchandise where the drop is all about timing meant to generate sales through “anticipation and pent-up demand”. Or take the lines that consistently form out side of Everlane in SoHo or San Francisco, where only a certain number of people are allowed in the store at one time, maybe to control and secure but also to give the appearance of being highly sought after. The retail experience doubles as advertising.
“This is the future of brand advertising: death to traditional retail spaces and ad media as we know them, replaced by gargantuan spaces intended to sell consumers products through experiences."
With the Information Panopticon, our main devices might be our smart phones, everyone has the potential to be both a “prisoner” and a “guard” because there’s different levels of access and control which can be granted. In some ways we can only look deeper in one direction. It’s becoming much harder, even as a vigilant consumer, to zoom out and get a bigger picture of who owns what and where important or sensitive information is going.
