Panopticon Prison #1, James Casebere, 1992
During my research on James Casebere I came across his work on prisons, including a photograph of his Photograph of a Panopticon prison, an architecturally distinct form of prison conceived by Jeremy Bentham.
My initial interest in the Panopticon came about seperatly to my MA research. As with many of my interests it was born from a video game, and a somewhat interesting game considering some of my earlier research; Silent Hill 4: The Room. A section of the game has you exploring a brutalist concrete structure known as the "Water Prison". As the chapter progresses you come to realise through the exploration of cells, and the reading of journals left behind by inmates, that this place was a prison. This prison is a tool of oppression, used by a cult to imprison young people who do not follow their rules. The structure is concrete and metal, with no windows to the outside world. It is made up of a central column in which the guard would reside, from there he is able to spy on all the cells the surround him, he can see them, they cannot see him, and thus they will never know when or how they're being watched, and so theoretically would have no choice but to obey at all times. Though it is not mentioned in the game, the name for this type of prison is a Panopticon.
The Panopticon was conceived by Jeremy Bentham, a controversial, and somewhat problematic figure. On the surface his many ideologies, including advocating for women's suffrage and political reform (Duignan, 2020), could be considered far ahead of his time, however in addition to these ideologies he is also the founder of utilitarianism, a controversial ethical theory based on the consequences of an action, rather than the action itself. With the Panopticon, Benthams idea was to revolutionise the prison system with a modern building design that would allow for far greater efficiency, and lead to greater rehabilitation of prisoners, but it was seen by his critics and peers as a machine of oppression leading to the coining of the term "Panopticism" by Michel Foucault (Brunon-Ernst, 2012).
Screenshot from the "Water Prison" section of the 2004 video game "Silent Hill 4: The Room"
As a concept, I had not previously linked the Panopticon to my project until one appeared in the work of Casebere, at which point I realised that I had been inside a darkroom space that, whether consciously or not on the part of the designers of the space, had been built to resemble a Panopticon. The popular gay mens fetish club "Boltz", in Birmingham, has a number of different darkroom spaces, but one area in particular is set out as a series of rooms around one central chamber. Each room has its own theme, one for example resembles an industrial utility room, another almost appears as an almost Escher inspired space with differing levels and angles. Each space is its own cell, with its own cell door that can be locked from the inside giving the option of privacy, though this privacy is somewhat diminished in that every door has a peep hole, meaning that those in the centre can still see into to every room and watch whatever is going on. The space works almost like a voluntary Panopticon, allowing people to lock them self's into a contained fantasy, act out as they want with who ever they have brought in with them, and still allow those outside to watch. Voyerism is of course a major part of Darkroom culture, the idea of peepholes in a darkroom is nothing new, but for those in the centre of this space they can move between and watch a variety of different tableus, almost as if it was a physical real life search engine for porn.
A previous blog post documented and discussed two cases of potential gentrification of gay venues, particularly in regards to two Eagle Clubs, one in Manchester and one in London. I cant help but wonder if the gentrification of these spaces is a symptom of some kind of Panoptical oppression on the part of hetero-normative culture on the gay scene. To explain further; with LGBT culture becoming more and more accepted into the mainstream, thanks to changes in public attitudes and in law, I wander if the more taboo activities of the gay scene, and the venues they take place in, have become more visible to the wider community they exist within, where as for many years before they have been underground and hidden away. More visibility would seem to have lead to more scrutiny, leading the situations like those explored in that blog post, where some have decided to change to fit in with the wider community, and others have fought against it. I have heard it said before, in discussions about such spaces with the people who use them (and during my time working at one such venue), that some feel these venues were better and more free in the years before we had more rights.
It would be amazing if the exhibition was a physical panopticon. Two rooms, one inside the other, in the outer room was all the artwork, and the inner room were holes in the wall to watch people who were looking at the artwork. This could be achieved digitally by placing small surveillance cameras near the artwork looking back at the people looking at the work.
Brunon-Ernst, A., 2012.Beyond Foucault: New Perspectives On Benthams Panopticon. Farnham: Ashgate.
Duignan, B., 2020.Jeremy Bentham | Biography, Books, Utilitarianism, & Facts. [online] Encyclopedia Britannica. Available at: <https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jeremy-Bentham> [Accessed 4 April 2020].
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