Social Control and Surveillance of the Modern Society in Relation to Panoptic Theories

Finding Personal Information

There are many reasons to want online anonymity be it for the content you're looking at, private emails, purchasing goods or illegally downloading amongst many others.

I decided to look into how easy it is to gain information on other people online.

As an example, I have used a site called whois.domaintools.com, I looked how easily I could acquire information on somebody else. Once on the site, minus the www, you can search for the information linked to a certain domain, Greg's was my example to hand.

I felt the need to not post Greg's full home address although I found it within seconds. From this information posted, I could track down Greg through a variety of online resources such as Facebook, Twitter and Google Maps. Anyone could watch over Greg through these ways and use the information how they saw fit.

"When buying a domain, if it's unallocated – meaning that it's free to be sold by any domain registration company – it's a good idea to pick a registrar that will register it on your behalf. Their address will then appear in the domain's Whois record."

 This seems as though it would be beneficial to anyone looking to have their own website, but with privacy considered, if that was required by the owner.

"You may be tempted to get round this problem by using a false address. However, the one that appears in the Whois record is usually the one you gave when you entered your credit card details to buy the domain. Because of this, it pays to ask if you can use a PO Box number to cover your tracks.
This service currently costs £63 per year (or £51 for six months) from Royal Mail. If you only need the address to register the domain, you can let the PO Box lapse afterwards."

 Another solution would be to register a PO Box as suggested, to bypass any privacy issues.

Your Online Life, Permanent as a Tattoo

Recently I've been watching a lot of Ted Talks, on pretty much anything that seems interesting such as someone who is insanely good with a yo-yo, but this talk really got my attention.

It runs with my theme of internet anonymity, although more focused on how you build up an internet identity, teaching you that everything you do online is logged forming, as Enriquez says an 'electronic tattoo'. He goes on to suggest that we should be very wary of what is posted online as it can't be retracted, it gets added to the pool of data already present, which will be present for years.

He also references immortality in his talk and relates that to the Ancient Greeks, which I found very interesting and hadn't thought about the information in the sense it will be available forever.

Globalisation, Sustainability & the Media

Definitions of globalisation:
Socialist - Transforming local or regional phenomena into global

Capitalist - The elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across borders

Americanisation of the world – arab spring revolution
 
McDonaldization

Marshall Mcluhan - Technology / human abilites.

Centripetal forces - bringing the world together in uniform global society.
Centrifugal forces - tearing the world apart in tribal wars

3 problems of globalisation:
         - Sovereignty

-       Accountability

-       Identity

-      

Manfreif Steger - 'pessimistic hyperglobalisers'
Cultural imperialism – to force your culture onto others
Time Warner - Own everyone

Companies divide the world into important markets:
1) North America
2) Western Europe, Japan & Australia
3) Developing countries
4) Rest of the world

US media - new form of imperialism.

 
Propaganda Model - 5 basic filters:
Ownership, Funding, Sourcing, Flak, Anti communist ideology

- today this related to anti islamic
the news is fact – or so people assume – thought you can only report what you're allowed, so it is monitored what we see/know
funding for advertisement is greater so they can be more substantial take over than the news
Global Climate Coalition (GCC) - Funded by Exxon, Texaco and Ford
 
Al Gore - "An inconvenient truth"
Brundtland commission (1987)  - Greenwashing - making a harmful product seem green and harmless.

The Silk Road & Bitcoin

The Silk Road has received an abundance of negativity due to it being an online marketplace where nearly anything can be bought. I found an article on the Guardian which talks to the creators of the online currency known as Bitcoin.

"Bitcoins are a currency controlled by no government, no company, and no group, but rather by maths: a series of complex cryptographic calculations rule how many Bitcoins are in existence and how many are traded."

The fact that there is no intervention from the government or another group is an obvious instant appeal to anyone performing illegal activities or someone who is very worried about their privacy.

"At the currency's birth, Bitcoins were almost worthless – five cents each. Today, a single Bitcoin trades at $70 (£46) – and the total value of all the world's Bitcoins has topped $800m (£500m). On the face of it, this makes Bitcoin the fastest-growing currency in the world."

Bitcoin is the faster-growing currency in the world due to it's structure and the way it is operated. Even the developers aren't making much money from it due to the fact, they claim, that there will be a cap on Bitcoins when there are around 2 million in circulation.

Although there is a lot of scrutiny about buying drugs online, let alone drugs in general, the Silk Road serves as a middle ground and has been described as place for 'connoisseurs'.

"Johnson said his view was that Silk Road was a site for connoisseurs: an easy way to track down better quality – not cheap – drugs. The site "isn't easy to use", but doesn't require particular expertise: "If you can set up a direct debit and follow a recipe for risotto then you'll work it out."
Once you're in, it works much like eBay: sellers' reputations are verified through feedback, building trust. Money is typically held in an escrow (a trusted middleman) until delivery, with missing packages qualifying for partial refunds.
In all, he concludes, the quality is more consistent, the sale is safer, and the experience better than trying to find a street dealer. Johnson even claims the site helps combat addiction."

 Public perception of the site is a lot different to that of the authorities. The Silk Road is built on a base of trust where the buyer can purchase what they what they want directly from the original seller, as opposed to a sketchy individual on the street. It keeps a distinct boundary of 'on a need to know basis' where the buyer and seller both remain unknown to one another, which highlights the fact that it's strictly business.

Online Anonymity

From my research so far about online activism, notably anonymous, I decided to look further into privacy issues as a direct response to my essay. The privacy issues I plan to look at are internet privacy, due to the internet being the largest weapon of free speech, many feel this is coming to an end.

"Why stay anonymous online? In today’s society there are people and automated devices that are recording your deepest, most private thoughts and activities. Each day we voluntarily divulge the most intimate details of our lives through social networking accounts, email, banking apps, online games and more. In addition, governments and corporations can censor and block our traffic based on whatever standards are in place that day."

 From a post on Activist Post which had a lot of information about how you're hacked and how to evade certain people/corporations from infringing on your privacy.

"Whether you’re browsing the Web, signing up for a new online game, or simply checking your email, you are constantly leaving tracks and giving away information to anyone with access and the knowledge to analyze the traffic. Once the data is compiled the attacker can build an incredibly accurate profile of not only your online life but your real-world life as well." 

 Any action served on the internet leaves a traceable route which the user took. This route and the data along the way are called 'traffic', anyone with hacking knowledge can access this information with the user knowing little to nothing about it. Is this a problem?

"“Why would hackers want to hack into my life? I am not that important.” You have to understand that these “intruders into our lives” are scanning huge blocks of Internet addresses at a time. They don’t care who you are. Your computer is simply another target IP address as they scan through thousands of computers and devices in their search for more information. Once collected they take all the information and funnel it into databases where they can search through it later for high-valued loot."

 The fact that huge amounts of data are collected and scanned is known nowadays by most of the generation who grew up around the rise of the internet, if they don't then that's a naive outlook.

Similarly to the way that the Government, or any other corporation, tracks people through the use of private investigators, corporations are doing the same online. Hiring hackers to analyse information required is a further breach of our human rights, but what can we do?

Celebrity Culture

Julia Margaret Cameron – celebrity photographer late 19^th centaury early 20^th

Soft focus, enhancement of beauty – acting mythical scenes

Photographed – beautiful, educated, cultured women

Men where photographed differently

Louis aime augustin – inventor of the moving picture

1988 – first moving image

The artist – 2011 film created in the first moving picture style, a silent movie with over played sounds

Josephine baker – dancer – muse for art deco / contemporary painters

Influences – celebrities, glamour, music, fashion

Beyonce costume in reference to Josephine baker

Golden age for Hollywood – 1927-1960

The jazz singer- feature length moving picture with synchronised dialogue

Clarke Gable – ‘king of Hollywood’

Bette David – played unlikable characters

Marilyn Monroe - actress, singer – sex symbol – known for relationship with the Kennedy’s – image preserved by a young death

-       Andy Warhol endless repeat print

Andy Warhol factory – developing pop art using icons of the time

JFK president – pop

Advent of television – 1926 demonstration of televised moving images

‘Golden age’ begins late 40s

jacksons – brand

Own cartoon in which they would play themselves

Michael Jackson – appearance alteration – reaction to childhood abuse from his father – didn’t want to resemble him

Lady gaga - post post modern – reinvention of herself – looks/personalities?

Meat dress- fashion/feminist

You tube – allow regular people to become ‘famous’

Barac obama – pop president – hired Shepard fairey to create election posters – appeal to pop culture

Celebrity deaths – televised ceremonies – mass mourning

Parody photographs – shame celebrities – enhance their status – god like?

Social media – enable the following of celebrity – people can relate to and feel close to

Creative Rhetorics

Talking about creativity

'different artists often have quite divergent conceptions of what they are doing'
Harrison-Barbet

The blank sheet project

Renzo Rosso creative rhetoric –practise to begin, best idea is always your next one, make mistake and be stupid, collaboration
 
Mimesis – platos problem - critique of democracy
Art mimics - sensory world – denyed that creativity was knowledge producing

Westwern civilisation has roots in east and eygypt, which the geeks took influence…It did not begin with the greeks
classicism – roman greek
 
Academics - banaji (2006) 9 'rhetorics of creativity'
18^th C – romanticism – artist role became creators – no immitation
 
First art academy C14th  italy

Online collaboration/research
FutureEverything 2012
'people can collaborate...across networks to create...or participate in social revolutions'

Estudio is to create a space that mimis a professional studio

Study
75% agree media has given rise to collaboration
81% agree discussion/chat rooms support idea generation

87%/93% agree working online through teams is valuable experience

Communities of practice

'Little c' creativiy
VCOP eg. Websites, Blogs, Social Networks.
VCOP lifecycle - interest is built and then lost

SHOWstudio - Nick Knight – media visuals over all formats of creative

CSR-Corporate Social Responsibility

Flow - Psychological condition of being creative

Identity

Essentialism – who we are/biology

Relates to racism –

Post-modern theorists disagree

Historical phases of identity

•Pre modern identity – personal identity is stable – defined by long standing roles

•Modern identity – modern societies begin to offer a wider range of social roles. Possibility to start ‘choosing’ your identity, rather than simply being born into it. People start to ‘worry’ about who they are

•Post-modern identity – accepts a ‘fragmented ‘self’. Identity is constructed

Phrenology
Quack science - shape of the head can indicate what you may be like personality wise
Based on European people
Hitler used this as justification -(blonde hair, blue eyes)

Physiognomy - Intelligence - facial features.

Hieronymous Bosch

Chris Ofili – black Virgin Mary depiction

Pre modern identity - defined
Modern identity - choice
postmodern identity – you construct

Douglas Kellner:

Pre-Modern – marriage, church – depicts your identity

Modern -  'flaneur' (gentleman-stroller)

Leisure class - Rich enough to not work – displays of wealth openly to others – to flaunt

Fashion - Upper class use clothing – in turn the lower class follow using like for like items but cheaper

Simmel - being alone in a crowd - Alienation

Post-modern identity discourse

Foucault – identity is formed through age class gender – discourses – ‘otherness’

Humphrey Spender, Worktown project 1937
Martin Parr - The Last Resort 1983-86

Nationality
Alexander McQueen - highland rape – suggestive and about the taking of Scotland or ‘rape’  - Vivienne Westwood - Anglomania

Las Vegas – imitation of the world, in one city. Dream like.
 
Race/ethnicity
Chris Ofili - artists are white Europeans – assumption – uses his ethnicity in artworks - Captain shit - His response to a lack of black superheroes.

 
 Femininity  - Tracy Emin - Everyone I have ever slept with – names of people she had ever slept next to, people judge as sexual

wonderbra – hello boys, objectification of women, sex sells?

Post-modern condition – your Identity formed through social experiences throughout early life and throughout the rest
Geoffman - Life is a 'theatre' we act and put on performances as it where, we can choose who we want to be each day.

Subculture and Style

Subculture – separate from style it is reaction to environment

 Dogtown and z-boys (2001) zephyr skateboard scene, Vans sponsor the film. Creating cult images e.g. abandoned swimming pool as skate bowl

Ian Boarden - 'performing the city' – way to break barriers on city
Parcour/Freerunning – urban ‘escapist’ activities

Graffiti is a defining of space – owner ship claims – no discrimination McDonald - Female

Girl subcultures come second to male – male association is greater

Girls are seen as add on, not as great in the changes that a subculture is trying to create – always girlfriends or mother - accessory
 
Mod culture – women and men have similar styles – cult Quadrophenia (1979)
Hippy girl developed through 60s and 70s

Riot Grrrl – the following began from female rockers in 70s/80s – policical – making of home made zines-artwork

Brand styling to represent stereotypes of women at the time – spice girls

Self-publication of music and literature
punk begins to become commercial

Action against women in the 50s having to conform and behave in society

 
Skinheads follow on from mod culture - This is England (2006)

Popular Culture

Critically define pop culture

Contrast ideas of culture – pop culture – mass culture

What is culture?

-       Intellectual/inspirational/aesthetic development/ of a society at the time

-       A way of life

-       Intellectual and artistic works

Reality of society? – BASE

Capitalism produces culture

Base -> determines the content and form of superstructure

Base<- reflects form and legitimises superstructure

Ideologists – system of ideals/beliefs

Raymond Williams – 1983

Definitions of popular

-       Well liked by many, inferior work, culture made

E.g. graffiti when placed in an art gallery it becomes acceptable to society

Matthew Arnold – 1867 – culture and anarchy

Culture

-       Stud of perfection

-       Attained through reading/writing/thinking

-       Pursuit of culture

Cultural policies – culture is a disease

Pop culture is unreal – strive to CREATE something

Culture – substantial happening/timeless

Frankfurt school

Theodore adorno/max Herkimer

‘‘All mass culture is identical’’

‘‘The products indoctrinate and manipulate they promote false consciousness’’

Authentic culture vs. mass culture

Real, European, multi dimensional, imagination, individual creation

Culture industry – reality TV – exploits people

Pop culture – able to be a critic of all

Keep Your Email Secret

My personal email account has over 5000 emails in my inbox, and I would have an guess as to maybe 80-90% of them would be spam and a mere 47 in my 'Junk' folder. Email addresses are frequently sold on to 3rd party companies, even when sometimes the website you're signing up for states they won't pass on personal information, who sell it on again and so forth.

When I was at school, we used to sign people's emails up for, what we considered hilarious, variety of websites.

Nowadays, I receive a lot of spam of this nature...

Now, I have no idea why these companies started pursuing me or how they got my email, but an educated guess would be that somewhere among my internet activities, I have signed up for a website/newsletter and my information has been sold on.

"Your email address is a big part of your online identity. It's also a valuable source of revenue for people whose business involves supplying spammers with live addresses.
If the sites you register with aren't secure, hackers can access the database containing all the user credentials, and the email addresses are sure to be sold on.

It's also an unpleasant fact of online life that some website owners lie when they say they'll never give your email address to anyone else. This is predominantly a problem for users of adult sites. Your email address may be sold on to sites with similar themes, which then spam you as well as selling your address on to others.

When an online business folds, the owner might also decide the list of registered users is an asset worth selling."

So how can we stop this from happening?

You could simply have a separate email for when times like this are needed, as I have, but sometimes you forget and whatnot and now I have 3 email accounts with a ridiculous amount of emails in each.

The best solution I found depends on whether or not lengthy correspondence is required with whoever it was that was requesting your email. This involves signing up for a temporary email address, such as GuerillaMail which offers a 60 minute time frame, to do such business without your email account suffering.

City and Film

City modernism

Urban sociology – city a public / private

-       Postmodernism city = individual relation to the crowed

Greg Simmel – 1895-1918 - Metropolis and mental life.

The effect a built environment has on an individual

Herbert Beyer 1932

Lewis Hine photography

- Individual resistance to the city

Architect Louis Sullivan (1856-1924) – creator of modern skyscraper

"Form ever follows function"

Guaranty Building layout 

Skyscrapers – to represent power/the American dream and opportunity – big building big company ‘aspiration buildings’

Manhattan (1921)- Paul Strand and Charles Scheler – photograph of Ford Company at river rouge.

Fordism: - effect of factory on workers? Paid enough to buy goods?

Modern times - Charlie Chaplin (1936)

Society – his body is consumed by machine – the working age

Stock Market crash (1929) – lead to the great depression

French masculine noun flâneur—which has the basic meanings of "stroller", "lounger", "saunterer", "loafer’’

A person who walks through the city to experience it - Art captivation

Walter Benjamin - adopts urban observer concept

‘Arcades project’ -1927-40

The photographer as a flaneur

-       Susan sontag – photographer – especially in street photography photographer is ‘urban observer’

flaneuse

Invisible flaneuse – women and modernity

Susan buck-Morris = the dialect of seeing – arcade project

Text is suggestive that a woman on a street is either prostitute or bag lady

albus/hopper – photographs of women sitting alone – lost/trauma

Failure – despair – feelings of failure – a lonely woman – prostitute?

Don't look now 1973 - Nicholas Roeg. 

Hiring of detective but subject reverses role to lead to poiniont places of reference

Lorca di Carcia Heads (2001) NY – illumination of individuals – setting out from the crowd – creates drama on that person

Alone in the crowd till singled out some way

A lawsuit was brought against him for exhibiting a photo of someone without his or her permission.  The judge dismissed it as protected by the First Amendment.

Surveillance city – heightened security after 9/11

Panopticism

Institutions and Institutional Power

Discipline is not just punitive, but also productive
Michel Foucault (1926-1984)

The great confinement (Late 1960s) – ‘houses of correction’ curb unemployment and illness

Middle ages – village idiots - No division in society between the sane and insane.

people judeged a "socially useless" sent to "houses of correction" (Mad, criminals, drunks, vagabonds, diseased, single mothers)
- Forced into labor if not

the birth of the asylum – specialist institutions

Discipline was used as if inmates where children – good = rewarded / bad= punished – no physical violence

Pre modern – physical punishment control
Institutional experts used - legitimate the institution – knowledge – rationalizing institutions – effect human consciousness / alteration/correction

Institution aimed for person to begin to take responsibility for their own behaviors and conformity in society

Pre-modern punishment – acted as a warning to others of the power

"Disciplinary society"

Discipline is apparent in every aspect of our lives
 
Jeremy Bentham's design The Panopticon proposed 1791

Institution design – more so used for the concept of prisons or asylums.

Panopticon - A cell is open from the front and lit from the back.
Decided for perfect functionality

inmates cannot see one an other, only central watch tower and supervisors – he is always being watched = fear = control
- reformation – confine – study insane – supervise workers – make work

Surveillance of bodies and training of bodies

Office structure, one way mirror people can see out but not in – fear of being watched so they work – blinds to hide if someone is inside or not

 Makes people more productive – fear increases work

- - -

Institutional Gaze

Modern discipline use of mental control - panopticism  - Understand/ thinks you are being watched.

Aspects in everyday life – cctv e.t.c

recording of behavior, we alter out actions to behave and conform – fear of punishment if not
 
e.g. attendance records – expectation to conform and be there – guilt if not/fear of punishment – monitoring – productivity increases due to fear/guilt knowing that you are monitored

records of employment – monitoring of emails and internet usage, clock in clock out cards

Disciplinary society creates 'docile bodies'
- Self monitoring
- Self-correcting
- Obedient bodies

- Docile bodies work more

soldier – docile body

Mass docility:
'The cult of health' – images and ‘guidelines’ humans use of what bodies should look like – begin to feel uncomforted and guilt for not being able to conform to ‘ideals’

Tory government in power – rising of retirement age – no reward for good health

TV – panopticon – told what to do and how we should act in society through programmes aim to unconsciously influence
 
Power is not something someone has
Power is a relationship between different individuals and groups, and only exists when it is being exercised.

Power will only exist while people allow it
'Where there is power, there is resistance.'

Key points

•Michel Foucault

•Panopticism as a form of discipline

•Techniques of the body

Docile Bodies

How Can I be Anonymous on the Internet

Amongst the guides to internet anonymity, there are guides for people who aren't so technologically experienced, promoting the use of proxy servers and the such.

This screenshot was from one such article, with the basic principles of internet anonymity.

The Gaze

‘according to usage and conventions which are at last being questioned but have by no means been overcome - men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at’
                                                (Berger 1972)

Hans Memling

 ‘Vanity’

(1485)

The female body – presented so that the female body cannot gaze back

The eye focuses on the womans body, not her as a character

MANET - Bar at the Folies Bergeres

Self portrait – looking out

Skewed perspective.

A sadness/unhappiness/not part of the group goings on

Role of women - disaffected, no longer the passively available, sexualised

Jeff Wall ‘Picture For Women’(1979)

-the gaze is reflected by the camera

the way nudity on banners and in magazines is the norm

-       sunglasses act as a way to stop women gazing back

Peeping Tom 1960 Films her death for voyeristic purposes

Nudes are not the same for the representaion of men – more nude females

Male – active

Women – passive/ looking back

Lara Croft - A visual spectacle
An overly sexualised object
Pleasure in the fantasy of her distraction

Social Networking is used to perpetuate the male gaze/ the gaze of the media – the judgement of body ‘ideals’ for women, and the objectification of specific parts and how they should look

Reality tv shows

-       offering ‘all seeing’ power to the public like the gaze

-       editing of the shows means that reality is lost

-       contestants featured are aware of their representation

Looking is not indifferent. There can never be any question of 'just looking'.

Victor Burgin (1982)

------------

Reading List

John Berger (1972) Ways of Seeing, Chapter3

Victor Burgin (1982) Thinking Photography

Rosalind Coward (1984) The Look

Laura Mulvey (1973) Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema

Griselda Pollock (1982) Old Mistresses