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 THE EVOLUTION OF SURVEILLANCE TECHNOLOGY BEYOND THEPANOPTICON
 byMichael Luke Bullock A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of theRequirements for the Degree of Master of Fine Artsin Digital Art and New MediaatThe University of California Santa CruzMarch 2009
Thesis Committee:
Catherine M. Soussloff, Ph.D. (Chair)Peter ElseaDard Neuman
 
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Abstract
The subject of the evolution of surveillance and its incorporated technologies is atopic that is important to examining the state of surveillance and its impacts oncontemporary society. Likewise this subject is also an important informant to my work asan artist in the field of new media as it seeks to examine the art and technology of surveillance and its existence in today’s society as a system that we are able to employfor our own benefits and security. This paper attempts to summarize the tumultuoushistory of the technologies associated with surveillance from Colonial America to the present and through this summary examine the shift from post facto disciplinary practiceto a real-time practice revolving around the security and conveniences it offers participants.
 
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Foucault and the Shameful Art of Surveillance
Foucault saw surveillance as a “shameful act” of supervising and imposingdiscipline on a subject through a hierarchized system of policing.
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He analyzed thesystems of social power through the lens of the 18th century philosopher JeremyBentham, the originator of the now iconic Panopticon. This Panopticon was, and is, adesign for a prison in which the inmate’s cells are arranged in a circular fashion around acentral guard tower. The architectural configuration allows for a single guard’s gaze toview all inmates, but prevents those inmates from knowing exactly when they are beingwatched. “The major effect of the Panopticon: to induce in the inmate a state of consciousand permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power.”
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Foucaultviewed this design as a “generalized model of functioning and a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday lives of men.”
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 He also saw surveillance as a decisive economic operator as an internal part of the production machinery and as a specific mechanism of disciplinary power. In this modelof power surveillance acts as a mechanism of control by those with authoritative status in political and economic spheres, a way of disciplining the subject into a productivemember of society. Foucault also manages to connect the invisible authority of thePanopticon to the very visible authority given to the syndic during the era of the plague.The syndic, specifically, was an agent of discipline, which assured that a town’sinhabitants were safely locked away from those bearing the illness of the plague andconsequently each other. The syndic was responsible for monitoring and emptying his prescribed streets of people on a nightly basis. Though a form of authority himself, thesyndic was not free of his authoritative figure as well, for if he should abandon his street
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