Panopticon

The notion of surveillance and observation led me on to refer to the critical work of Michel Foucault who comments on how our surveillance society can be seen as representing the ‘panopticization’ of urban space. With reference to Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon design, Foucault goes on to suggest that society under observation and surveillance are, as in the panopticon, to be seen but to never know when or by whom and this subsequently causes them to “begin to interiorize the gaze and thus exercise surveillance over and against themselves”.

I found this an interesting concept that I can personally strongly relate to. Via the use of social networks, as a society we all exercise surveillance over ourselves in how we portray and depict a selective identity of ourselves and this is also the case with how we carry ourselves in public. The type and brand of clothes we wear, the areas we travel in, the modes of travel we use, choice of hairstyles etc are all selective identity choices that we make with the notion of surveillance and judgement in mind. We make choices on our appearance based on what that will say about our identity to the passer by in society and within my project what I wish to capture and highlight is the unique telling moments when society release their guard on their appearance and reveal glimpses of their true inner self or to capture unusual and unique forms of appearance management.