- social control and the way society affects our conscious
- institutions and the specific types of power they hold over us (the army, police, organised practices/behaviours such as the family/marriage)
- the way institutions frame our behaviour

Lecture Aims

- UNDERSTAND THE PRINCIPLES OF THE PANOPTICON

- UNDERSTAND MICHEL FOUCAULT’S CONCEPT OF ‘DISCIPLINARY SOCIETY’

- CONSIDER THE IDEA THAT DISCIPLINARY SOCIETY IS A WAY OF MAKING INDIVIDUALS ‘PRODUCTIVE’ AND ‘USEFUL’

- UNDERSTAND FOUCAULT’S IDEA OF TECHNIQUES OF THE BODY AND ‘DOCILE’ BODIES

The Panopticon

Michel Foucault
(1926-1984)
Madness & Civilisation
Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison

- madness was not historically a recognised condition

- modern forms of discipline

- deconstructing the strict binary oppositions relevant in society

THE GREAT CONFINEMENT
(late 1600s)

‘Houses of correction’ to curb unemployment and idleness

- middle ages - there was no strict convention of what "madness" was - people suffering from it were accepted in society

- late 1600s - new sensibilty emerged towards work and the social usefulness of work - not only to make things but also to make people better

- all of the people who were defined as being able to effective workers were stigmatised and forced to work

- Houses of correction - big work houses built for the mad, criminals, drunks, vagabonds, the diseased, single mothers where they were assigned work and forced into it.

- a very crude way of making the socially unproductive productive

- labour as an exercise of moral reform

The Birth of the Asylum

- eventually these houses of correction were seen as a massive mistake 

- the insane would corrupt the sane, etc

- specialist institutions emerged, like prisons, hospitals, asylums, etc

- they now not only housed them, but "corrected" them

- new legislations were passed to allow this

- these institutions worked on correcting the inmates in a very different way from the houses of correction

- instead of physical violence as a tool to make people behave the way you wanted, they were treated like children - reducing status

- if they behaved appropriately, they were rewarded - if they misbehaved they were chastised - by a paternal figure

- these were new specialised, predominately mental, forms of control and correcting the population

- modifying peoples attitudes and the way they behaved/thought

The emergence of forms of knowledge – biology, psychiatry, medicine, etc., legitimise the practices of hospitals, doctors, psychiatrists.

- new authority figures and ways of control

- experts in behaviour

Foucault aims to show how these forms of knowledge and rationalising institutions like the prison, the asylum, the hospital, the school, now affect human beings in such a way that they alter our consciousness and that they internalise our responsibility.

- in these institutions, they started to take responsibility for their own actions - which starts the process of appropriate behaviour

- taking responsibility for our own conformity

- particularly modern style of discipline

- served as a visible reminder of the power the state and institutions have over the inmates

- a sign of the power of the state - reminder not to test it

- punishment that works on fear

- Guy Fawkes and his punishment

 “That you be drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution where you shall be hanged by the neck and being alive cut down, your privy members shall be cut off and your bowels taken out and burned before you, your head severed from your body and your body divided into four quarters to be disposed of at the King’s pleasure.” 

 - the sovereign's power over the masses

DISCIPLINARY SOCIETY

AND 

DISCIPLINARY POWER

Discipline is a ‘technology’ [aimed at] ‘how to keep someone under surveillance, how to control his conduct, his behaviour, his aptitudes, how to improve his performance, multiply his capacities, how to put him where he is most useful: that is discipline in my sense’ (Foucault,1981 in O’Farrrell 2005:102)

- a new form of disciplinary power that fuses all aspects of our lives
- modern discipline is a technique that involves surveillance as opposed to physical punishment
- ultimate aim = to make us more useful in modern society

Jeremy Bentham’s Design The Panopticon

Proposed 1791

- designed to be multifunctional

- asylums, prisons, schools, etc
- cells for individuals around the outside 

- modern panopticon:

 - designed so the inmates are staring/facing into the central observation tower depending on the usage
- inmates in the cells cannot see each other, only the guards in the centre

- opposite of dungeon where everything is dark and hidden - panopticon = everything is lit and can be seen - observational

- always being watched so you would never behave in the way the supervisor wouldn't want you do
- no point in misbehaving because you would be spotted
- permanently isolated or with whom you can interact
- style of mental torture
- panopticons aren't popular now due to the adverse mental effects they have on people

  

The Panopticon internalises in the individual the conscious state that he is always being watched

PANOPTICISM
‘Hence the major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.’ (Foucault, 1975)

- eventually no guards are needed as it starts to function by itself due to the fear of the guards due to the shape of the building

- panopticon as an allegory for how our society disciplines or controls

- starts to function like a laboratory
- allows scientists/psychiatrists to carry out experiments on the inmates
- a system for classifying and scrutinising

- discipline for Foucault is about making people productive

- works through the notion of an institutional gaze

- patriarchal gaze of society onto women forces them to act or adapt to a certain way to please the males with their social definition of women

- panopticon reflects the way women would behave under the gaze

- starting to behave the way they think the institution would want them to behave

- model of how our world trains us and keeps us under control
- for it to work there has to be the understanding that you are always under scrutiny

- open plan office
- modern panopticon
- form of panoptican power
- workers can be constantly seen by the boss, always working
- changes the behaviour of the workers due to the visibility and layout of the office

- The Office - television series depicting the principles of modern panopticism 
- starting to act up to the notion of how office workers should behave
- institutional roles

- design of open plan bars means that everything is visible to bouncers and bar staff 

- closed off areas of pubs allow the customer to relax more - less scrutiny 

- modern methods of surveillance - taking away privacy
- every single action in our lives is in some way under scrutiny, being recorded

- lecture at Pentonville prison
- barriers between every single person in the lecture - can only see the lecturer 
- structure is supposed to maximise the learning potential from the lecture
- lecturer can see everything and everyone - affects and controls the behaviour of people in the lecture
- surrounded by an institutional apparatus with codes of behaviour

- register - we sign in and attend classes because we know that it is being recorded and there will be discipline if we don't 
- making the process of learning more effective/productive

- training and forcing people to behave in a certain way 
- self regulation discipline

- office at College with locked drawers containing records and information on every single member of staff - they are under these institutions as well as students

- CCTV cameras and recordings around college and society
- always being watched and scrutinised

- mental effect and process - no physical coercion 
- has a real physical effect on the body

- produces docile bodies - opposite of sleepy/lazy
- docile body is more physically adept than the normal body
- e.g. a soldier - carrying out orders obediently
- hyper efficient - hyper productive 

- "cult of health" - everywhere surroundings there are warnings about what you should be doing to stay fit and healthy
- starting to conform and train 
- acting in our interests 

- same situation as was in Nazi Germany

- constant instructions and being told what to do/how to conform and act
- television and internet are being powers in this

 - cannot say that one person has power over another, such as men having power over women
- Foucault - it is a relationship where they are willingly within a relationship of control
- key to an emancipated society - understanding how power relationships work
- where there is power, there is always the possibility of resistance 

- constant panoptic system 
- thought systems to try to defeat the state

The Gaze & The Media

- commonly misunderstood quote
- does not mean that women are vain, they simple constantly see images of women looking back at them and are constantly surveying their idea of femininity

- female nude, mirror in her hand, with a strange distorted view of her face as the mirror is positioned wrong
- Berger = mirror placed in her hand as a way of distracting the viewer - allows us to look at her and without her looking back

- female body, drawn to sexuality of the woman
- the woman allows the viewer to explore her sexuality - she is looking in the mirror, makes it acceptable for us to look at her too

- woman reclining, covers her own eyes

- balance of image - 2/3rds taken up with the naked body 

- we see the body not who the woman is

- reclining figure - overtly sexual

- contemporary

- advert was deemed too sexual 

- to make it more acceptable, they turned the image around - more concentration on the head
- same position, eyes are just drawn to the face rather than the sexual pose of the body










- idea of us possibly "spying" on the woman
- passive mood
- covers herself with her hand, casually
-voyeristic element

- compared with previous image
- subtle differences
- impressionism
- snapshot style
- as if we walked into the room and surprised her

- poster was banned from public view due to sexual connotations









- woman who stands at the bar - ready to serve customer/viewer
- reflection - impossible reflection of the woman in the mirror - should be behind her
- allows us to see her from two viewing positions at once
- see her as ourselves and also how the character in the corner of the painting sees her
- we see her from the point of view of the man at the bar

- copies previous image
- photographers studio reflected in mirror
- reminded of the gaze of the camera
- camera in middle of shot is the camera which takes the picture
- repitition of dividing up mirrors in background/ the photograph frame
- depth from the lights reflected in the mirrors draws the viewer into the image - part of it




"The camera in contemporary media has been put to use as an extension of the male gaze at women on the streets"


- city carries on regardless of the almost naked woman standing in the street
- we don't consciously take notice of these images
- women do

- normalisation of nudity in the street
- comedy of tag line lightens the connotations
- voyeuristic









Film

The profusion of images which characterises contemporary society could be seen as an obsessive distancing of women… a form of voyeurism
Peeping Tom, 1960

- ends up killing women through voyeurism





Men in advertising

- switching it round isnt a way of challenging it
- similar position as women but

- man who collects images of gender in advertising
- found 60 male ones

- male bodies used in advertising are usually associated with exercise
- challenges the gaze in a way it doesnt with women

- pleasure of looking at other peoples bodies by looking when nobody can see you looking
- cinema = perfect place for voyeurism
- objectifies women
- active male vs passive female


- men often lead story
- lara croft - leads the action
- visual spectacle - overly sexualised
- powerful driving character but also overtly sexualised
- pleasure is in fantasy of her destruction



- graphic image - forceful manner of the beheading
- almost like a film still
- alternative characterisation of an active female role

Pollock, G.
- Women ‘marginalised within the masculine discourses of art history’
- This marginalisation supports the ‘hegemony of men in cultural practice, in art’
- Women not only marginalised but supposed to be marginalised



- reclining female - turned body around
- challenging the norm
- mirror in characters hand but turned away from the viewer
- no implication of us catching her in the act of admiring herself
- interrupts the gaze as we are not quite sure where to looks
- staged photography - to look as if it was "caught in the act"



- awareness of art history
- postmodern


- working with image and text
- implication of violence
- reminiscent of a physical attack
- more than just something that could be seen as harmless





- picturing self consciousness of something that is rather innocent yet reminiscent of a sexual act
- critiquing idea of self consciousness


- reference of expression associated with


- criticising the idea that it is vulgar to make money from art, and her art is about herself so it is a criticism of her - the woman

Gaze in the Media



- criticising the portrayal of women in modern day media

The idea that women are natural liars has a long pedigree. The key document in this centuries-long tradition is the notorious witch-hunter's manual, the Malleus Maleficarum or The Hammer of Witches, which was commissioned by Pope Innocent VIII. The book was written by two Dominican monks and published in 1486. It unleashed a flood of irrational beliefs about women's "dual" nature. "A woman is beautiful to look upon, contaminating to the touch, and deadly to keep," the authors warned. They also claimed that "all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable".

It's not difficult to see these myths lurking behind Pacelli's description of Knox: "She was a diabolical, satantic, demonic she-devil. She was muddy on the outside and dirty on the inside. She has two souls, the clean one you see before you and the other." The lawyer's claim that she was motivated by "lust" could have come straight from the Malleus, which insists that women are more "carnal" than men.

- idea that only women have this "dangerous lust"



- misportrayal of stories in the media
- reveals media trick of preparing two stories

The Daily Mail has emerged as the major fall guy by mistakenly publishing the wrong online version of the Amanda Knox verdict.

Knox won her appeal, but the paper's website initially carried a story headlined "Guilty: Amanda Knox looks stunned as appeal against murder conviction is rejected.”

The Mail was not the only British news outlet to make the error. The Sun and Sky News did it too and yes - hands up here - so did The Guardian in its live blog.

It would appear that a false translation of the judge's summing up caused the problem, leading to papers jumping the gun.

So why has the Mail suffered the greatest flak? In time-honoured fashion, echoing the hot metal days of Fleet Street, it prepared a story lest the verdict go the other way.

But it over-egged the pudding by inventing "colour" that purported to reveal Knox's reaction along with the responses of people in the court room.

It even included quotes from prosecutors that were, self-evidently, totally fake.

In other words, by publishing its standby story, the Mail exposed itself as guilty of fabrication. 

- the Gaze of the media - distortion of power in the media
- they decide on the portrayal of people in the public eye

Social Networking

- The body is broken into fragments-could be any female

- Plays on teenagers body consciousness, potentially carrying those  perceptions into adult life

- idea that circulated of the "imperfect" female body
- playing on self consciousness

Photography

- papparatzis feeding the publics desire to see celebrities as imperfect



- pursued to death because of image? - demand for it

Reality Television
- Appears to offer us the position as the all-seeing eye- the power of the gaze
- Allows us a voyeuristic passive consumption of a type of reality
- Editing means that there is no reality
- Contestants are aware of their representation (either as TV professionals or as people who have watched the show)

- contestants regard themselves as the way Berger describes women to regard themselves






- voyeurism loses impact - saturated with the experience
- people are aware of being looked at - offering themselves up for a type of passive experience