“In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles. Everything that was directly lived has moved away into a representation. The images detached from every aspect of life fuse in a common stream in which the unity of this life can no longer be reestablished. Reality considered partially unfolds, in its own general unity, as a pseudo-world apart, an object of mere contemplation. The specialization of images of the world is completed in the world of the autonomous image, where the liar has lied to himself. The spectacle in general, as the concrete inversion of life, is the autonomous movement of the non-living…The spectacle does not realize philosophy, it philosophizes reality.” – Guy Debord, “The Society of the Spectacle”
“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection.” Michel Foucault, “Discipline and Punish”
The Panopticon was originally conceived as a colossal surveillance structure, a vast circular coliseum with a small collection of observers in the middle that sought to surveil the much greater population surrounding them. It was contrived by the 18th century philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, the thought that the perception of constant surveillance would trigger an innate human need to adhere to order. It was famously drafted as a prison, where prisoners would surround a select few guards, never knowing if the guards’ eyes were on them at any particular moment. In his quest for absolute efficiency, Bentham did not consider that sight carries with it a psychic weight, and the act of being incessantly observed is torture given time and slow, slow attrition. Nor could he have ever expected we would opt into this surveillance, voluntarily.
This is the Pandemic Panopticon, a cylindrical oasis of eyes that turn inward, outward, that frenzy and pulse. We see the Other through luminescent LEDs, or at distance behind cloth, detached eyes bobbing in ether through a maze of uncertain regulation. We are both intrinsically connected, appraised in real-time through flickering screens, and physically scattered, partitioned, disembodied. The tendrils of trusts that once wound our communities are frayed, and the communities that remain erect soundproofed, choral studios of replication, intensification, isolation. We sing electric, but with no body to anchor, our voice grows shrill.
The Panopticon self-regulates; we are steward and prisoner, watcher and watched. As we appraise each other at lightning speed, dismiss with a swipe or berate with comment, we do away with the shrouded guards whose gaze kept us in check. We are the gaze. We move as one form, a ravenous appetite slouching toward validation, erecting our Ozymandian Truth to fanfare and derision, eyes within and eyes without. The monumental ‘T’s crowd the horizon, each glutted with parishioners, watching and assured, watched and defiant. We mold avatars to send into cybernated battle, uncanny reflections broken from our greater selves. We forget Touch.
In Buddhist philosophy, the deva, Indra, is said to have cast an infinite net. A multi-faced jewel is embedded in each vertex of this woven matrix, jewels so magnificent and polished that they possess perfect reflection. As one gazes upon any particular gem, they would see every other reflected within it, an endless multitude of glittering images, each a representation of the unfathomable Other. Within its original conception, this metaphor seeks to establish a metaphysical interconnection; we both project outward at the Other and cannot help but absorb the projections cast at us. We are a composite, a conceptual Frankenstein that unconsciously repurposes and redirects into each other. We are a singular multitude. Indra’s net exposes the mechanism of the Panopticon, self-regulation derived from unconscious value exchange, but it also can fish us out of the abyssal gaze. The Panopticon is a perversion of unity; it feeds upon interconnection and transforms our communities into cellblocks. One needs only to look within, to recognize the patchwork tapestry that comprises Self. The prison relies on its oppressive legion, eyes that penetrate and prod. In glittering plurality, the walls crumble.
The digital panoptic is not new, but our collective retreat has realized it to a much greater extent. Our connection to the world beyond our walls is solely derived from fleeting images, cybernetic echo chambers, mercurial ego stamped in dripping binary. It is here too, in pixels transmogrified into ink, an image of an image carrying the ephemeral. This collection will serve as a dark mirror, a reflection of these ‘unprecedented times.’ We have sought to include the mundane anxieties that populate this viral landscape, the rhythmic repetition of beamed, technicolor solitude. Yet in doing so, we have also interwoven the jewels of our salvation. Each piece reflects the other, and combined, these reflections can dissolve the mortar that binds our penitentiary. This issue is a net cast into this tumultuous world. Grab ahold, don the Other’s sight and, for a moment, escape the oppressive gaze of the Panopticon.