Power & Panopticism: Augmenting Surveillance or Fear In Society
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Each and every individual lives by a social code, despite their best attempts to find a unique lifestyle or pattern of daily conduct. Innovations used today, such as the combustion engine, augmented reality(AR) and drones have been created with the publicized notion that they are meant to enhance our lifestyles by making daily functions more efficient. But like many technologies today, it comes at a cost. The combustion engine was meant to replace the steam engine, creating more usable energy per litre than water, but is now a major contributor to pollution and, consequently, global warming. Augmented reality refers to digital applications that virtually impose extra information or meta-information on the physical environment, which can only be viewed through a lens such as a phone or tablet. The types of information that can be accessed and represented range from empirical data such as weather or distances to implementations like advertising and education. Drones have been marketed as automated surveillance technologies that track and record behaviour to help isolate individuals who are suspected of radical behaviour. However, there is a plausible reality where AR and drones are used for more pervasive, violent or relatively nefarious ends. A person can be under the watchful eye of an individual bearing the right hardware and control at any given moment, being scrutinized at any point without consent, prior knowledge or awareness. The power of surveillance becomes available to more individuals and is subjected to anyone. Augmented reality has been touted as many things from the ‘next generation of information representation’ to ‘the answer to creating more space within space’. Drones have been publicized as the ultimate form of protection by constantly keeping a watchful eye over society. They may actually be the next step in amplifying the panoptic nature of our society. One central theme Foucault created called biopower refers to technologies and conventions that are used by higher powers to regulate society.(Rabinow & Rose, 2006) This includes education systems, health care, and demography. AR is also a form of biopower because, much like our education today, the type of AR that is available to us only lets us know and see what institutions and the government, or ‘modern states’, allows us.(Genel, 2006) At the same time, these same higher powers can also use their own brand of AR to access information and quickly process society visually. Augmented reality is used conventionally to enhance our real world experience by projecting useful information onto the environment around us. LAYAR is one of a few companies in the business of AR and is taking the commercial or end-user perspective:
Figure 1: LAYAR Augmented Reality – Conventional Use This is how AR has been originally envisioned to be used for the most part, but this vision has not been equally received; some parties have realized it’s authoritative potential. Innovations being produced now aim to superimpose not just general data but also personal data through a digital lens, similar to LAYAR, or project data physically onto the environment much like Sixth Sense:
Figure 2: Sixth Sense Demo – Acquaintances meta-information is projected onto them On the most basic level, AR can be used deliberately to invade an individual’s privacy, and display their information publicly. It is in this way that AR becomes much like theft detectors, where an individual is certain they are not tied to any discreditable behaviour, yet they walk on with the fear of being ‘detected’ or probed. As a result, society will be given yet another reason to adjust their behaviour both inside and outside of the public light to ensure their reputation is protected at all times. AR combined with surveillance & recognition technology can become a streamlined method for marketing information collectors to record and database our activities beyond the digital realm; marketers today track an individual’s online activity in order to present products and services that are more relevant to them, thus creating more effective patronage activity and retention. This can be taken further with augmented reality, where the facial recognition can identify an individual, and AR can present marketing opportunities for a company, anywhere, automatically. The government and private use of AR would be to access and represent more private information regarding an individual for one of many motives, whether to inspect someone for an investigation, to probe someone to pre-empt opinions about the individual, or to steal their information and appropriate it for profit. In an unreleased game, Watch Dogs, this can already be seen as the main character is accessing information on a random individual on the street to see who would be the most appropriate individual to ‘liberate’ money from.
Figures 3-6: Watch Dogs – Main character using image recognition combined with AR to view this individual’s private and important information, in order to ascertain who to relieve financially. In the demo, the character selects a stranger with a relatively high income, compared to the first two individuals. Also, the first two individuals were both in a dilapidated state; one was recently evicted while the other was a homeless war veteran. The last individual was a “pro-life” supporter, which creates the potential for conflicting values between the player and that character, compelling the player to steal from them. In any case, theft is a still a crime and an action always abstained from, but in this scenario, it helped the character decide who to embezzle funds from. This exact scenario or a very similar one is probable with AR and image recognition in the real world. With data access like this, the best protection would be for individuals to just stay indoors, cut themselves off from the digital world, cover their faces or avoid all forms of bio-recognition technology. In the context of AR and image recognition being available to anyone who is savvy enough, anyone could have the potential to become a panopticon, and everyone within a short proximity and in their line of sight is a victim. AR, however, also has the potential to be used for positive, if not virtuous purposes. In the same game and environment, the same technology is used to predict a crime and prevent a murder from taking place.
Figures 7-8: Watch Dogs – Main character using image recognition combined with AR to view this individual’s private and important information, which is used ultimately to prevent a homicide. This instance involved the private use of AR and image recognition, but for socially practical purposes. The positive potential almost weighs in with the negative possibilities. The duality in the usefulness of AR will create a divide between the masses, and nothing but support from the private sector. We already judge and consider each other based on social norms and beliefs that have been built up over time on ignorance, and change drastically as a result of significant events. The panopticon we create for each other is bad enough, now AR may make such details that have inherited certain connotations much more apparent, whether it be a person’s name, lifestyle, religion, marital status or occupation. It’s as though Foucault (1982) predicted this: “this form of power applies itself to immediate everyday life which categorizes the individual, marks him by his own individuality, attaches him to his own identity, imposes a law of truth on him which he must recognize and which others have to recognize in him.” The human panopticon was critical of other people enough, and now we have technologies that do it for us.
Figure 9: The Human Panopticon With surveillance being available on an individual basis, quick examination and delegation of action would be augmented, but with data like this being exposed and attached to individuals, AR could also potentially promote stereotypes, racism indirectly or otherwise aid in criminal activity as well. The panopticon is no longer limited to the infrastructure around us. The sky, which has always existed as a symbol of freedom, has become a haven for surveillance. Out of reach, minimalistic, but very real drones are becoming more and more commonplace today. Not only are they capable of real-time transmission of video, but when prompted by military authority, they can also deliver payloads to eliminate targets deemed as threats to the operating party. This form of panopticism not only has civilizations under a watchful eye but is also capable of dealing ‘punishment’ at a moment’s notice. The societies under occupation by these drones, such as Pakistan by the United States, are constantly in fear and are further incentivised to act and represent themselves with the most immaculate conduct, even if how they were acting before wasn’t indicative of anything against the interests of the surveyor. The universality of surveillance is no different from the nature of surveillance of the seventeenth century mentioned by Foucault (1995) where at every town gate had an observation post and sentinels on the streets. Even during that time, there were means of surveillance everywhere public space existed. Should a guard be prompted to do so, they will even ‘investigate’ inside residents’ houses. Drones have an equivalent for this: they are equipped with heat-vision technology that is capable of seeing through the walls of houses, enabling authorities or anyone with access to break all physical limits and survey individuals in their own homes.
Figure 10: American’s Neighborhood Watch – New And Improved Drones are essentially automated watchtowers that have little basis of scrutiny, so they’re range covers as much area as possible for which the video can be reviewed later at an authority’s convenience. The population would be more oblivious to this type of panopticon, provided that they are not weaponized. This may not affect society’s behaviour as much, bearing the out of sight, out of mind principle, but the recording and speculation that would be enabled through drones would still occur, and it is because of the unawareness that drones are even more dangerous than AR or any other technology today. Without public resistance, the consensus would be that civilization has given their assent on the matter, enabling the government and modern states to proceed with even more invasive and unseen measures of surveillance. Even though society has its own beliefs as to how power like this should be attained and imposed on its constituents, the “universally widespread panopticism enables it to operate, on the underside of the law, a machinery that is both immense and minute, which supports, reinforces, multiplies the asymmetry of power and undermines the limits that are traced around the law.”(Foucault, 1995) Once used exclusively for military reconnaissance, drones are slowly making their debut on American soil in order to survey civilians just as the United States does with cameras, except with a wider range, flexibility, and versatility. If society isn’t vigilant and doesn’t inform itself, it may just adopt drones as a progression of protection. Surveillance conventions and technologies have existed solely for the purpose of maintaining order by establishing docile bodies, where by creating methods of observation that the constituents are aware of to some extent, they will understand that they are accountable for their actions and as such should adhere to the social code that authorities, and subsequently society itself, has enforced. In western society, where these technologies exist and are being used, aim to create a people that do not question their government powers, do not go against the basic codes of conduct as well as newly introduced ones, and continue to pursue a capitalist & non-activist lifestyle, which is what could be claimed as in the interests of wealthy parties; if an individual continues to buy commodities they don’t need, not question where they were made, and what they were made from, these companies will have little to fear from the people, who address these issues with the government. The government, who is in the middle, is the prosecuting party, and must keep its people happy as well as the companies that fund their budget. Because of this, the government may be actualizing these technologies in order to keep society in line so that it can continue to function for society, but not necessarily in the capacity society wants. When these new surveillance implementations become normalized, however, it will be extremely difficult to reverse the effects of over-surveillance when it comes to light.
Works Cited Written Works Foucault, M. (1982). The subject and power. Critical Inquiry, 8(4), 777-795. Retrieved from https://portal.utoronto.ca/bbcswebdav/pid-3322766-dt-content-rid-17732065_2/xid-17732065_2 Genel, K. (2006). The question of biopower: Foucault and Agamben. RETHINKING MARXISM, 18(1), 43-62. doi: 10.1080/08935690500410635 Rabinow, P., & Rose, N. (2006). Biopower today. BioSocieties, 1, 195-217. doi: 10.1017/S1745855206040014 Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline & punish: The birth of the prison. (2nd ed., pp. 195-228). Retrieved from http://foucault.info/documents/disciplineAndPunish/foucault.disciplineAndPunish.panOpticism.html
Media Layar – impactful augmented reality in your everyday life [Web]. (2011). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HW9gU_4AUCA Moran, J. (Director) (2013). Watch dogs – playstation meeting presentation and gameplay [Web]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp76BUmVbnk Maes, P. (Producer), & Mistry, P. (Designer) (2009). Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense[Web]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html Stich, J. (Artist) (2013). Great work from painter/illustrator/human jon stich [Web]. Retrieved from http://streetsofbeige.blogspot.ca/2013/01/work-of-painterillustratorhuman-jon.html |
