interface 007: THE PANOPTICON

THE MYSTERY MAN:
Believe in the unconscious, not as a dark basement, but as a cathedral of whispers.

 
Out of nowhere, a chill brushes your skin, as if an unseen hand traced your spine. The physical world itself seems to whisper a warning only you see to hear. Your vision prickles with strange images; half dream, half omen, half manifestation. They pass through you like a distant song on the wind.

““Everything you can imagine is real.”

Pablo Picasso

Fuck, you hate this guy.

Shame is the way in which systems and rules speak or act through your expression. It is learned early: behave correctly, perform legibility, do not take up too much space. Over time, external surveillance becomes internalised. You monitor yourself. You edit before expression. Contemporary social media platforms and other huge, capitalist or neoliberal systems of control utilise the surveillance theory of the Panopticon as discussed by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish. Loops of gratification, every action watched and analysed for marketing direction.

The awareness of this supported by digital and technological literacy can reveal how power operates without force. Visibility becomes control. Metrics become morality. You may not be punished in any traditional sense – you pre-emptively disappear.

THE CARTOGRAPHER:
You might even get sucked into the screen, like that film “Poltergeist”. Spooky.

You know that doesn’t actually happen, but it isn’t a bad analogy for screen-time metrics on the modern person’s smartphone. Yours is in your pocket. You present yourself knowing you will be judged. Too much shame, and we lose ourselves entirely. Not enough shame, and we lose respect for ourselves and those around us.

THE PANOPTICON:
Before you speak, consider how this will sound and what you are going to do with your hands when you speak. Because you haven’t really figured that out yet, and you cannot smoke in here, and you will not be seen clutching a vape like an adult pacifier. What should we do with our hands?

THE BIT:
Gang signs.

THE MYSTERY MAN:
Cut them off, coward.

It’s a shame you must move on, really.

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