Surveillance, Architecture and Control

Discourses on Spatial Culture

Susan Flynn,Antonia Mackay

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9783030003715
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Sociology
• Index: Social Sciences

This edited collection examines the culture of surveillance as it is expressed in the built environment. Expanding on discussions from previous collections; Spaces of Surveillance: States and Selves (2017) and Surveillance, Race, Culture (2018), this book seeks to explore instances of surveillance within and around specific architectural entities, both historical and fictitious, buildings with specific social purposes and those existing in fiction, film, photography, performance and art. Providing new readings of, and expanding on Foucault's work on the panopticon, these essays examine the role of surveillance via disparate fields of enquiry, such as the humanities, social sciences, technological studies, design and environmental disciplines. Surveillance, Architecture and Control seeks to engender new debates about the nature of the surveilled environment through detailed analyses of architectural structures and spaces; examining how cultural, geographical and built space buttress and produce power relations. The various essays address the ongoing fascination with contemporary notions of surveillance and control.

© The Author(s) 2019

Susan Flynn and Antonia Mackay (eds.)Surveillance, Architecture and Controlhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00371-5_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Susan Flynn¹ and Antonia Mackay²

(1)

School of Media, London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, London, UK

(2)

Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

Susan Flynn (Corresponding author)

Email: [email protected]

Antonia Mackay

Email: [email protected]

End Abstract

Contemporary culture is fascinated by surveillance systems. From the culture industries’ appropriation of surveillant narratives to the internal world of personal experience, surveillance captures our imagination and impinges on our collective psyche in a myriad of ways. Our lived environment, too, is implicated in the iterations of surveillance and control which have come to be associated with modern life. The buildings in which we exist not only serve material functions but also embody society, culture, and the social dynamics with which we organise our lives. The built environment speaks to us in ways which are often subliminal, buttressing notions of power, control, and organisation which underscore our communal existence. Buildings may be part of a shared heritage, vital repositories of history, monuments to past societies, or to the current zeitgeist. Architecture is thus a player in the social landscape, in rituals, collective beliefs, and practices. Through a range of diverse academic approaches, this collection seeks to unpack some of the ambiguities of and connections between architecture and discourses of power and control.

Extending the dialogues contained in our previous collections—Spaces of Surveillance: States and Selves (2017) and Surveillance, Race, Culture (2018)—this collection of chapters engages with a wide range of disciplines including architecture, geography, urban planning, performance, film, art, photography, and literature in order to examine the surveilling multiplicities present not only in our cultural psyche but also in the literal space housing our bodies. The analysis contained in Surveillance, Architecture and Control therefore seeks to articulate the manner in which both culture and cultural spaces have been implicit in watching, viewing, and knowing our identity, ultimately examining the ways in which space is increasingly complicit in the definition of “watched” and “watcher”. As this collection makes clear, surveillance is not only found in the lens of the camera and within a technological artefact but can also emerge from within the very spaces housing bodies—from urban, to suburban, domestic to institutional—spaces actively enforce the watchful gaze of surveillance.

* * *

In 2016, HBO launched Westworld—a show written and created by Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy which explored the inherent desires of the human race through the vehicle of a theme park “hosted” by androids. Nolan, in collaboration with his brother Christopher Nolan, had previously written the screenplays for Memento (2000), The Dark Knight (2008), and Interstellar (2014), marking his most recent venture as one with anticipated twists, turns, and fragmented chronology. Whilst scholars and fan theorists have been quick to assert their philosophical and sociological readings of the show in academia (Philosophy and Westworld (2018)) and online, few have considered the role of surveillance in shaping both android and human narratives. As Troy Patterson’s article in The New Yorker (2018) makes clear, Westworld is not simply a space where visitors are entertained, but also a space which entertains multiple levels of surveillance. Consider the duty of Robert Ford (played by Anthony Hopkins) who controls his androids and their respective “roles” via the vast network system at Westworld’s headquarters. It is this network which divides the “real” bodies from the “unreal” (humans and android) and further enables a division between the hyperreal space of Westworld’s theme park and the real world of human technological invention. The headquarters of Westworld, housed in Delos’ ever expansive structure is further a space where Ford, described by Patterson as “the architect of the theme park”, can control his game. Lest we forget, this is a built structure—albeit one which is entirely man-made—a structure whose sole purpose is to observe and collect information on those it watches in the hope of “developing [android] consciousness [which] would evolve into a race representing an improvement on humanity”. When read according to surveillance studies, Westworld is less concerned with the creation of androids and the entertainment of its human guests, and far more interested in watching and collecting data on both “races”.

Another example can be found in Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale (2016), which similarly features a surveilling frame within which bodies are watched. For Offred (Elisabeth Moss), Gilead plays a fundamental role in the controlling of her body (quite literally) and that of the many other handmaids forced into subservience. Through Gilead’s network of spies and informers, the allocation of female identity (as handmaid, Martha, Econowife, Aunt, Wife) is determined not only by attire but also by their position in the domestic environment. The role of Martha, for instance, is attached to an apron, domestic duties and living quarters within (but not part of) the grand houses of the commanders and their wives. Aunts are identified not only by their brown uniform and cattle prod but also by their residence at the Rachel and Leah Centre (or the Red Centre). Offred’s own position, as a handmaid, determines her domestic position in the attic belonging to Commander Fred and Serena Joy, thereby marking her body not only as one which is watched but also fundamentally oppressed by spatial location. Reading The Handmaid’s Tale as a narrative on the malignant effects of surveillance, renders not only “the eyes” as Gilead’s overseers but also the built space of Gilead itself. As a surveillant system, Gilead enforces control by threatening to see all in spite of our bodily markings, offering a physical space (not lens, nor single embodied overseer) as all-powerful; or in Megan Garber’s words, “here is the panopticon, distributed across a constructed nation” (The Atlantic 2017).

Both of the examples provided above feature architectural frames and the division of spatial boundaries which play a fundamental role in the controlling and domination of individuals within Westworld and Gilead. It is this spatial framing which demonstrates the power of architectural space in maintaining prescribed roles for those inhabiting them, and the manner in which these frames (Westworld’s landscape and the territory of Gilead) can create surveilled boundaries for bodies which cannot be transgressed. In these narratives of topographical futures, architecture’s capacity as a vehicle for surveillance appears to be both inherent and silent in its power exertion, and for architectural frames it can be both large and yet hidden, both unremarkable and active. These are spaces which observe and are not observed. With the advancement of technology, Bentham’s panopticon no longer requires the centralisation of localised sight, but rather can be omnipresent throughout a system of spaces for all “visibility is a trap” (Foucault 1975). Flows of people and of culture between interior and exterior spaces are central to many contemporary narratives. To use McLuhan’s (1964) term, “the medium is the message”—structures and spaces play an integral part in fictions of control.

Laura Poitras’ 2016 Project X similarly attests to the power of architectural surveillance. Charlie Lyne’s article in The Guardian describes the subject of Poitras’ project as a seemingly unremarkable “single building in lower Manhattan” (2016) which is revealed by the film to be an NSA spy. As Lyne writes:

Despite the building’s immense size and prominent location, its windowless façade and proximity to other New York skyscrapers render it inconspicuous in daylight. Under nocturnal observation in Poitras’ film however, the faceless brutalist tower transforms into a real-life Death Star, a vast nothingness blotting out the twinkling start and city lights. Visible only by interference, it’s a fitting metaphor for our uneasy relationship with the web. (The Guardian 2016)

Poitras’ film unearths society’s blinkered view of the role of architectural surveillance—both “faceless” and a “nothingness” to otherwise be ignored. The supposed innocuous and inoffensive nature of the building is much like our belief in the ever-relentless advancement of technology, prompting a recent tongue-in-cheek article from The Guardian entitled “Beware the Smart Toaster” (March, 2018). In such articles, we are encouraged to “say hi to the NSA guy spying on you via your webcam”, and to “not let your smart toaster take down the internet” (2018). Whilst the tone of Hern’s and Mahdawi’s article is whimsical, James Bridle’s recent article posits a more cautionary piece of advice, observing:

Something strange has happened to our way of thinking – and as a result, even stranger things are happening to the world. We have come to believe that everything is computable and can be resolved b...