Seminar 1

Lecture 2-Technology Will Liberate Us

 

http://www.egs.edu/library/walter-benjamin/biography/

'The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction is arguably the most influential of Benjamin's essays, in which he locates a shift in the status of traditional art as technical means of reproduction such as photography and film begin to dominate the imagination of a mass public. Benjamin defines the characteristic of manual production of the traditional artwork as a historical process unique to the original object, manifest in the object as its "aura." The subsequent proliferations of technical reproductions of a traditional artwork bear only an imagistic similitude to the original, lacking the "aura" and therefore any relation to the actual historical dimension thereof. The gradual preference of technical media by the mass public signifies for Benjamin both a radical shift in the arts to the political in the Marxist sense, although this shift in the status of art to the political also allows aesthetic contemplation to become dissociated from the properly lived experience of the autonomous individual.'


I have found a summary on Benjamins essay on The work of Art in the Age Mechanical Reproduction on The Frankfurt School website,
http://frankfurtschool.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/summary-the-work-of-art-in-the-age-of-mechanical-reproduction/

Task 1- Panopticism

Choose an example of one aspect of contemporary culture that is, in your opinion, panoptic. Write an explanation of this, in approximately 200-300 words, employing key Foucauldian language, such as 'Docile Bodies' or 'self-regulation, and using not less than 5 quotes from the text 'Panopticism' in Thomas, J. (2000) 'Reading Images', NY, Palgrave McMillan.


In our society, the examination hall or room that children are to sit their school exams can be seen as a panoptic. It is environment where everyone is separate, all looking the same way, with no communication, be no physical restrictions to stop them from moving or talking. However an examiner is always watching them, 'this surveillance is based on a system of permanent registration' (Foucault, 1977), this permanent registration is what makes panopticon work.
The sense of power that the examiner seems to hold over the students makes the students become 'docile bodies', the panoptic system with the idea that they are constantly being watched and monitored makes the students 'self monitoring' and 'self correcting'. A panopticon 'automatizes and disindividualizes power',(Foucault,1977) meaning that it works without anyone exercising power, in an exam room the examiner does not have to exercise their authority, just there presences in the room makes the students behave and obey, the 'panopticon is a machine.' (Foucault, 1977)
The layout of the exam room is modeled on the Panopticon, ensuring that each person can be seen by the examiner but the students are unsure if they are individually being watched at any one time, making the examiners power in the exam room over the students 'visible and unverifiable.' (Foucault, 1977)
Foucault uses the panopticon as an analogy for control, this control can be translated into modern culture such as an examination room as well as a lot of other aspects of our contemporary culture, possibly more then people realise.

Lecture 1-Panopticism

The Panopticon, designed by Bentham, 'the concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched.'