Transcript Document

Subject of Detection, Subject to Inspection
Part II
Subject to Inspection
Serhat Uyurkulak
Making the Criminal Visible
How to
identify/read
the criminal?
How to visualize
or represent
them?
Are there any
innate signs
revealing the
criminal or
criminal impulses?
How to keep them
under surveillance?
Mechanism of Observation and Inspection: Panopticon
Or, the Inspection-House:
Morals reformed –
health preserved –
industry invigorated –
instruction diffused –
public burthens lightened –
Economy seated, as it were,
upon a rock – the gordian knot
of the Poor-Laws not cut,
but untied – all by a simple idea
in architecture!
Jeremy Bentham, Panopticon
(1787)
Gr. Pan: all + opticon: see = Seeing all, everything
Panopticon and the “Utilitarian” Principle of Surveillance
“[This idea] will be found applicable (…)
to all establishments whatsoever, in which
(…) a number of persons are meant to be
kept under inspection. No matter how
different, or even opposite the purpose:
whether it be that of punishing the
incorrigible, guarding the insane,
reforming the vicious, confining the
suspected, employing the idle, maintaining
the helpless, curing the sick, instructing the
willing in any branch of industry, or
training the rising race in the path of
education (…).”
J. Bentham, Panopticon
The condition of the inmate, subject to continual inspection
Essential Points of The Panoptic Plan: Perfection of Discipline
“the centrality of the inspector’s
situation, combined with the well-known
and most effectual contrivances for
seeing without being seen.”
“the persons to be inspected should
always feel themselves as if under
inspection (…) the greater chance
there is, of a given person’s being
at a given time actually under inspection,
the more strong will be the persuasion
– the more intense (…) the feeling,
he has of his being so.” (Bentham)
Real or imagined omnipresence and
omniscience of the inspector
Internalization of discipline,
self-disciplining
One of the “realized” panoptic structures
Panopticism: Ideal of Disciplining Modern Subjects
“The Panopticon (…) must be understood as a generalizable model of
functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday
life of men.
The fact that it should have given rise, even in our own time, to so
many variations, projected or realized, is evidence of the imaginary
intensity that it has possessed for almost two hundred years. But the
Panopticon must not be understood as a dream building: it is the
diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form; its
functioning, abstracted from any obstacle, resistance or friction, must
be represented as a pure architectural and optical system: it is in fact
a figure of political technology that may and must be detached from
any specific use.”
From Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault (1975)
Making individuals (physical bodies) visible, observable, confinable,
accesible, retrievable, available…at all times
Hobbes and Bentham: Panoptic Similarity
Imagining to be under continual surveillance, inspection (or “knowing” that).
Sovereign is seen in Hobbes, observation-tower is seen in Bentham.
Holmes’ “panoptic” techniques: Seeing-all
Deceit, according to him,
was an impossibility in the
case of one trained to
observation and analysis.
His conclusions were as
infallible as so many
propositions of Euclid.
From The Sign of Four
[T]he Science of Deduction
and Analysis is one which
can only be acquired by long
and patient study (…) on
meeting a fellow-mortal,
learn at a glance to
distinguish the history of the
man, and the trade or
profession to which he
belongs. Puerile as such an
exercise may seem, it
sharpens the faculties of
observation, and teaches
one where to look and what
to look for.
 Making the objects BUT
more importantly, bodies,
body parts readable texts,
files, cases
Holmes’ “panoptic” techniques: Seeing-all without being seen
“It was close upon four before
the door opened, and a
drunken-looking groom,
ill-kempt and side-whiskered,
with an inflamed face and
disreputable clothes, walked
into the room. Accustomed
as I was to my friend's
amazing powers in the
use of disguises, I had to
look three times before I was
certain that it was indeed he.
With a nod he vanished into
the bedroom, whence he
emerged in five minutes
tweed-suited and respectable,
as of old.”
From “A Scandal in Bohemia”
Amiable Nonconformist
clergyman
Not “seen” in his true
identity, undercover
Holmes’ “Panoptic” Technologies
Turning qualities of things and individuals
to observable, recordable, measurable data
(common aspect, mere alphabetical order)
Holmes is a great indexer and filer (if not
a profiler), can retrieve information (makes
present) on almost anything anytime he wants
 Network of TRAINS, TELEGRAMS, LETTERS...
“Some five years ago, during a
lengthy visit to Warsaw, I made
the acquaintance of the well-known
adventuress, Irene Adler. The name
is no doubt familiar to you.”
"Kindly look her up in my index,
Doctor," murmured Holmes without
opening his eyes. For many years he
had adopted a system of docketing
all paragraphs concerning men and
things, so that it was difficult to
name a subject or a person on which
he could not at once furnish
information. In this case I found her
biography sandwiched in between
that of a Hebrew rabbi and that of
a staff-commander who had written
a monograph upon the deep-sea
fishes.
From “A Scandal in Bohemia”
19th C. Technology of Recording: Photography
"Then I fail to follow your Majesty.
If this young person should produce
her letters for blackmailing or other
purposes, how is she to prove their
authenticity?”
(…)
“We were both in the photograph.”
"Oh, dear! That is very bad!
Your Majesty has indeed committed
an indiscretion.”
From “A Scandal in Bohemia”
 Photography is unequalled in
recording things, and people as they are
The information it gives or knowledge
it produces (re-presents) is more
authoritative
It is indexical – helps attach identities
or meanings to objects or persons
Making the Criminal Visible or Criminalizing the Visible?
“Scientific” ideal of modernity (or positivism): Pull, discipline, and file bodies
in the field of total visibility, observation, inspection, examination, calculation,
and measurement
Anthropometry and Criminal Anthropology:
Cesare Lombroso, L’uomo delinquente (1876)
Francis Galton, Inquiries into Human Faculty and Its Development (1883)
Alphonse Bertillon (invented a system of filing people, perfected 1850-1880)
One of Sherlock Holmes’ clients calls him the second best expert of crime in
Europe (Bertillon being the best)
Visually “Fixing” the Immoral and the Criminal
Re-presenting the Criminal and Dangerous Classes
Corruptor
Thief and
forger
Rapist
Robber
and
murderer
Anthropometric face-masks made by Cesare Lombroso
Images / indices of
Inferiority
and Lesser Humanness:
Stereotyping or
Typecasting
Fig. 20:
Inferior race – habitual thief
Fig. 23:
Common type thief –
habitual
Fig. 24:
Common type thief –
degenerate
Modern Obsession with Calculation and Measurement
Anthropometry
“Skulls of Criminals”
“Tattoos of Delinquents”
Bodies become surfaces bearing texts and signs of immorality and criminality
Composite Pictures:
Reaching the Ultimate, Definitive Image of the Criminal
Francis Galton’s invention
Reaching the Ultimate, Definitive Image of the Sick
Pulmonary tuberculosis (and syphilis?)
Tuberculosis with swellings
Filing-Recording
the Criminal
Personal Identification “Fiche” and Profiling
Bertillon’s method