Surveillance art: beyond bentham

Abstract

Surveillance undeniably plays a fundamental role in discipline-centered societies. Since the eighteenth century when the panoptic appeared as an architectural model proposed by Bentham, this penitentiary system has progressively overflowed itself into society. Today, with the development of new technological surveillance tools and under the promise of order and security, this system has evolved to what is now known as the digital panoptic. In this new model, the limits between what is private and what is public are blurred because the body is now conceived as an object of exhibition and contemplation, a sign that activates a series of references which revalue it in a society of commodities. Interestingly, the same body is also a medium that promotes transgression. This essay exposes the work of Hasan Elahi, and how he turns self-surveillance into an artistic expression that serves him as a platform for demanding the return of his captured body, illustrating and questioning the social implications of the digital panoptic under its own rules.

Keywords: art-surveillance; panoptic; body