The Panopticon’s central vantage mirrors the panorama’s sovereign gaze

Evidence

Imagining this continuous flow of visitors entering the central tower by an underground passage and then observing the circular landscape of the Panopticon, was Bentham aware of the Panoramas that Barker was constructing at exactly the same period (the first seems to have dated from 1787) and in which the visitors, occupying the central place, saw unfolding around them a landscape, a city or a battle. The visitors occupied exactly the place of the sovereign gaze. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 527

Categorization

• QUESTION: Whether Bentham knew of Barker’s Panoramas remains unresolved — worth chasing whether the surveillance-gaze architecture was consciously borrowable or a convergent invention.
• SHARE: Perfect nugget for anyone interested in the visual culture of surveillance — the architectural sovereign gaze literally coincided with the mass-entertainment panorama.
• XREF: connects to: The panopticon’s gaze functions as God independent of the human inspector — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 59; The Panopticon consolidates work, prayer, and punishment into a single space — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 220; Panoptic control operates through gaze and voice detached from any bearer — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 42 (+1 more)

Related

• The panopticon’s gaze functions as God independent of the human inspector (similarity 0.85)
• Panoptic control operates through gaze and voice detached from any bearer (similarity 0.84)
• Panoptic power rests on central inspection plus unseen watching (similarity 0.81)
• The panopticon’s power rests on a fiction at its core (similarity 0.80)
• Constant visibility captures subjects better than darkness and enclosure ever did (similarity 0.79)
• Panoptic power derives from invisible omnipresence rather than real presence (similarity 0.79)
• The panopticon could experimentally prove universal educability (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Panoptic control operates through gaze and voice detached from any bearer #expands (0.85) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 42
• Panoptic power derives from invisible omnipresence rather than real presence #expands (0.82) — Jeremy Bentham, The Panopticon Writings, 38