#jacques rancier

[blackskintrillmask]

History can indeed be two contradictory things: the discontinuous line of revealing clashes or the continuum of co-presence.

Jacques Ranciere, The Future of the Image

[slinetsk-blog]

Panopticism is the Power Structure that Holds Flatness in Place

As powerful hierarchies, populations and modernity grew along side of the idea of Panopticism the powerful institutions gained a control measure over the spectator who developed “flatness” due to constant spectacle and uncontrollable events in public and private sectors of life.  Michel Foucault’s idea of Panopticism reveals the power structure as being “the” point of view, “...the general principle of a new political anatomy whose objects and ends are not the relations of sovereignty but the relation of discipline...a society penetrated through and through with disciplinary mechanisms ( Foucault, 10).”   This political anatomy is created by the few who hold power at the top of a hierarchy, only what is revealed by them is clear and visible to the average citizens.  Foucault’s idea of this power structure, which were originally meant for prisons, is later adapted not only into architecture but also everyday control of citizens through the use of surveillance. Now it is utilized with the use of facial recognition software to monitor activity of social networking sites. 

The power of control brought about by the idea of Panopticism can apply to Jaron Lanier’s concept of “flatness” as it relates to the dissemination of knowledge and debate between who is the teacher and the learner.  Jaques Rancier’s assertion of the spectator assumes that all spectatorship is passive and ignorant.  The average spectator is not aware of the premade choices that are made for them and they will never know what they do not question.  According to Rancier, “…the ignorant person is not the only one who does not know what he does not know; he is as well the one who ignores that he does not know and ignores how to know it.  The master is the only he who knows how to make it knowledgeable, at what time and what place, according to what protocol ( Rancier, 175).”  Within the arts, the master is the institution and the curator who controls what artists will be shown, which of that artist work will be shown publicly and privately , how it will be shown and when.  The flatness of the spectator is also perpetuated by the continuously remade conceptual works that do not always present the original content to the viewer.  If, “first-order expression is when someone presents a whole, a work that integrates its own worldview and aesthetic. Second-order expression is made of fragmentary reaction to the first-order expression (Lanier, 2).”  Then the viewer’s flatness is eternally continued as they cannot understand the meaning and context of the second-order work without knowing the meaning and context of the first-order work.   

Ranier goes on to say that the position of the passive viewer and the master can be switched; meaning that interactive engagement with art or anything else the viewer becomes the power holder.   New Media provides the platform for this switch by offering the viewer interaction with the work they view.  Whether interactive art or interactive use of social networking sites the viewer engages with active contemplation, questioning of facts and critical and informed manipulation of presented material.  In this way the viewer holds the power over the institution and the curator on some level, but never fully due to the fact the that, “ the student learns something as an affect of the masters mastery.  But he does not learn his masters knowledge (Rancier, 277).”