VCS

...and who is not. I so agree with Yael on this. There is that supposition that we are under the camera at every moment. Even when I take the time to write to this Bolg from my desk at work there is a part of me that knows that if the higher up's in my company want to see what I'm doing at any moment right through the computer that I'm working on (attached as it is to the company intranet) - they can do so. I feel a certain twinge as I write. It is not even a twinge of guilt since I'm doing my personal writing on my lunch break, yet if the boss were to walk by at this moment I would be tempted to hide this page! Does this feeling make me stop? Nope. I simply ignore that possibility that some unseen watcher is looking over my shoulder.

We touched on the situation with the abuse of prisoners in class and it was clear that the cameras that were being used were not surveillance cameras, but rather snapshots taken by people to show off their bizarre behavior as if it were something to be proud of. The question does come up: where were those cameras that would be used to watch after the watchers. Is the plan to purchase them with some of the 25 billion dollars that Bush needs to continue the war? Would it make a difference or will people continue to be as stupid as they seem to be now? Ok enough of that.

There you see? I was just away from this writing because one of the big-wigs just walked by. Unbeknownst to you I was gone for more than ten minutes.

Am I the only one who's ever taken the time to arrange with a friend of mine that he watch the Earthcam on Times Square (outside the TGI Fridays) so that I can wave to his mom in Colorado? Hey, many small laughs over a lifetime are good for the soul.-]

As far as God watching everyone all the time (First off how could that be done unless the watching was being done through all the eyes on the entire planet?): and yet, I'm one of those people who thinks that God does watch what we do. On the other hand I do not believe that there is any attempt at judgment in that omnipotent gaze. I see it rather as a gaze (through the senses of each life) of intense interest by one who has deliberately forgotten everything that can be known. If one forgets that one is God then there exists the possibility of something new. Enough of that as well!

It's been a great and fascinating class. I thank each and every one of you for making that so. As for Tim, well I'm telling others to take a chance at being confused in order to see a larger world in greater depth. Thanks.

Also James RE: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, will it make a sound?
I don?t know, but if I fall in the forest, I want someone to hear. Is that a vote for being surveyed?-] Kidding.

If we're getting into koans here let me leave you with this: What follows the end of this sentence is the sound of one hand clapping in an empty the forest:

I am still not finished trying to process the readings. Both Foucault and Deleuze have interesting perspectives on the visible and invisible prisons that we all live in. Both I think would agree that most of us are unaware of the shackles that we wear. Bentham’s Panoptical metaphor is chilling. The idea of visibility as a trap has interesting implications, especially in this class. If you see language as a trap (i.e. trying to look up words in the dictionary only to find more words) you start to see the great paradox of life. The two biggest traps of human existence (the visible world and language) are essential for human existence. Yes of course the idea of God has helped the multitudes of religious institutions instill fear in order to preserve and perpetuate their own power. Maybe we were brainwashed into a lot of things. I would argue not only do take power structures for granted, but look for these power structures and when we find one we look to it. Whether it’s the factory or the corporation, cell phones or EZpass, we slide from this system to that structure, to this channel, from that page. We watch and are being watched without end. It is hard to figure out where we stop and the information starts.
Even though all of this is our curse, it is our blessing.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, will it make a sound?
I don’t know, but if I fall in the forest, I want someone to hear.

Since this will be my last blog I feel that I should somehow explain myself and the way I read these readings given to us. When I read I think about what is being said and try and understand it, obviously. For me personally while I read I think of what it reminds me of, or what can be connected. I think about it in a personal way, try and figure if what is being said can be illustrated in different terms that I myself can understand.

This being said, I now am thinking about the differences between looking at pictures, reading words or listening to sounds. The question I am asking is if the brain is affected differently. While looking at art or anything visual, which we have done much of over the semester, I know that I look at it in my own individual way. Since I live my life, that life influences the way I look at things. This is so because I know when I look at a picture it is different for me and is different for another person, weather it be personal experiences, greater knowledge, really anything that would affect a person’s view. This is the same that happens when receiving anything, words, sounds.

The conclusion that I have come to is that that are two answers to every question, a yes and a no. I have come to realize is that there is no wrong or right. Obviously when it comes to morality and cruelty there is a sense of right and wrong, but when talking about art or reactions to art how can there be a right and wrong answer? I think this is what it is all about, for all kinds of individuals that are looking, creating, listening, talking, writing, or reading, they are making or receiving something individual and it can connect or not connect with the public. An entire separate subject is what makes that art or idea popular, but that in is somehow produced by a separate power, those up in the high chairs in charge of making money.

Believe it or not these thoughts arise because of the idea of the panoptic. I mean I feel that the idea must strike gold with some people and then to me it just sounds strange. It just sounds too perfect, and nothing is perfect for if it were then the world would be boring. We would have found that perfection from the beginning and the world and its individuals would be completely different. Even the word panoptic sounds awkward to me, and the name “house of certainty” just sounds eerie. Then I think of the power that comes from this and I believe that too much power leads to something corrupt, maybe not always, but I feel it is so most of the time. Whoever were to be in control of these so called “houses” would hold the key to power. Which leads us back to Double Indemnity and the connection between the idea of power and the word key.

I feel the point of the panoptic is that everyone within knows that they are being watched, and with them being watched they will act accordingly. But this sounds almost like a religion to me, what I mean is that there are those that believe in a god that act the “right” way because they do not want to do anything wrong in the eye of their god, and they do so anyway . Along the same lines are these reality TV shows, though they know millions of people are watching, though some may act in a positive way, many others act how they want to even thought it may make them look stupid or bad.

This was a difficult reading to get through.

Foucault eerily predicts the realities of a culture/society which increasingly relies on the accumulation of power as a way to legitimate itself, define its worthiness, and establish itself as a leader. His analysis of the disciplinary program, the strategies and structures of the plague-stricken town and the panoptic establishment could very much describe the strategies and structures of the American government, American foreign policy, our history with the United Nations. Is government surveillance and increased regulation necessary to sustain America? Will we always need, or perhaps more accurately, depend on a Cold War or a War on Terrorism as a way to define America? If in 1977 Foucault was talking about passing from one closed imprisonement to another what would he say about the state of the World now? In 1992 Deleuze, acknowledging the crisis/consequences of free-floating control, says that there is no need to fear or hope, to look for new weapons. He didn't mean WMDs, but did we find the weapons he was talking about? Do we still have time to find these weapons, these seemingly hidden keys that will, we can only hope, let us back in to a place where we feel we have the final say in how we run our lives. If it sounds like I think America is becoming Fascist, sorry - reading Foucault kinda put me in that mood... He referred to Panopticism as an "IT" that evolved into ITS own creature "IT is a way of making power relations function in a function," "IT will be constantly accessible to the great tribunal committee of the world." Are the consequences of IT all inevitable then? If we want a market economy will we just have to live with and accept inequality and injustice?
As I am bombarded suddenly with all these seeemingly political/philosophical/psychological wonderings, I'm also trying to make sense of how these readings fit into our class... It seems like Foucault understood what it means to live in a visual culture world...He was definitely an observer, a gazer, a thinker... he definitely thought critically "the way we communicate and influence one another"... "how visual culture works and how it affects the way we think and interact with one another." Perhaps he would argue that these skills are the most important weapons...

In response to this week's reading, I found the questions yael poses interesting. Positioning God in the one end and Bush in the other (perhaps not the first to do that) and the media in the middle, there's the issue of finding one's own place within that arrangement. This is a struggle with which most people are familiar.
Foucault writes that "a real subjection is born mechanically from a fictitious relation," and suggests that the traits taught through power & control are internalized by the individual when he/she is under observation. When this is achieved, "the external power may throw off its physical weight" and the individual will take on the desired behavior (but at all times under observation). Doesn't this imply a two-sidedness where the individual, when NOT observed, wishes to engange in other activities? Or has the problem of cognitive dissonance already been solved through the birth of becoming "the principle of [your] own subjection?" If lives are divided in two parts (before and after this process), the panopticon is the place of the other half.
There's much talk of wishes of being noticed, being seen, recognized in our days. This, we want, when we voluntarily subject ourselves to it. But being seen also means being evaluated. When you speak in class, everybody loks at you. TQ's in front of us and labels us with As Bs or Cs. An 11 year-old boy I spoke with was part of an acting company, and also spoke about the reviews he had gotten. He loved being on stage but bad reviews made him sad. But they also made him want to improve and meet the expectations! Is it the fact that it's voluntary that makes the big difference? Certainly, speaking in class is not! :) It may be true that we live in a panopticon - but is there a way out?

Panopticism started much earlier than Bentham’s Panopticon - with the omnipotent God that sees everything. This kind of Panopticism requires our cooperation–our belief, however this idea was so strongly reinforce that it became a given. We were brain-washed by all the religious institution uniformly in order to perpetuate their powers. It was heavily advertised in the bible and practiced in every confession booth. But let’s skip belief and hop to today. We know we are watched, though technology made panopticism so omnipresent that we tend to disavowal its existence. Every cellular phone has a camera built in. The satelites buzz overhead. Withdrawing money from the ATM today, I looked back at the surveillance camera for the sake of returning the “gaze”. We are being watched while browsing the internet; we are counted by “Nielsen” when we watch TV. We have panoptic artists, from Sophie Calle to Bruce Naumann and Philip-Lorca diCorcia. We watch TV programs that watch others: the “Big Brother" and endless movies dwell upon the topic, from Vertigo to The Truman Show. Does it mean that nowadays panopticism being so ubiquitous is less or more efficient in behavior control? Did all the surveillance and documentations available improve our morals, if anything the opposite happened. Are we just waiting to be caught in order to be remorseful? Are we more secure or less? Is power abused less by the individual, more by the government? Is anybody really more in control or every surveyor is in control until they are being surveyed? Is it all cyclical? Is our society more transparent?
Our government exploits terrorism’s fears and abuses even further the power of the discipline. In the name of “Homeland Security" it trespasses our civil liberties, fingerprints the tourists and incarcerates foreigners without having to be accountable for its action. With all this watching is anybody more accountable for her/his their actions?Somethings to ponder...