KANTUTA QUIROS & ALIOCHA IMHOff - Overlapping Biennial

of his own subjection.” 4 The gaze therefore exists not only as an external entity, but also something that can be transposed
onto the subject.
The Panopticon operates on the premise that being seen means being vulnerable. On surveying modernity, we observe a
distinct shift in the workings of the Panopticon society is taking place. The constantly expanding neo-liberal economy and its
accompanying apparatuses have not only expanded the field of vision of markets, but these unrestrained expansions have
also paradoxically made visible the centers of power themselves. An informal network of local and international groups and
individuals was able to appropriate the instruments of communication that have been multiplied by the expansion of capital
and globalization in order to revitalize street protests as a means of focusing the world’s gaze on opaque transnational bodies
such as the WTO, IMF and World Bank. These organizations must be constantly brought into a sustained field of vision,
one that ‘disciplined’ the systems themselves and eventually brought about concrete changes such as debt relief to struggling
countries.
Since these burgeoning movements clamored onto the streets as a lively spectacle, as a reaction against the neo-liberal economic
processes behind globalization, the struggle for agency beyond the body has continued to develop other spaces. The
fast expansion of technology has not left the politics of the body behind, but rather offered the body the opportunity of being
projected into a multiplicity of spaces. The recent uprisings in Iran involved a number of transnational actors collaborating
through a dense web of images. Activists, artists, writers and filmmakers in exile, for example, were helping those in the
streets in Tehran navigate the gauntlet of police and basijs, by real time monitoring social media sites such as Twitter or RSS
feeds, as well as news reports, and by SMS communication. Images and videos taken in the streets were uploaded on You-
Tube and social media sites, circumnavigating traditional flows of information to allow a multiplicity of perspectives. If in the
traditional paradigm of the Panopticon, media can be seen as the gaze, the means of agency for authority, it is the expanded
circulation of images and their fundamental equality that disrupted the power relations. The gaze is no longer a unidirectional
function of hegemony. By partaking in the system, one has the possibility to harness the gaze. The guard tower can be
stripped bare, revealing the raw nature of power which becomes subject to the collective gaze of dispersed individuals. It is
in this contemporary iteration of the Panopticon that architecture turns from a structure of imprisonment into an open source
tool that can be hacked, altered and appropriated. Visibility is no longer a punishment, but also a means of empowerment.
Another example of this open source capability is taking place in conflict zones, where unmanned military drones collect
images and attack the networks of transnational insurgents. In 2009, these images that were taken from the point of view of
the drone itself, suddenly appearing outside of the restricted space of the clandestine control rooms, straight on the laptops
of the targets themselves. With the aid of a computer, a simple TV dish, and software to be found on the internet for $25.95,
it is possible to see the live images coming from the cameras inside the billion dollar drones. The privilege of sight is now a
shared commodity, part of the commons. Those who had just been objects of the military gaze had the chance to take part in
the surveillance. These ubiquitous drones which had become part of the new infrastructure of dominance and the projection
of force were now a symbol for reordering power relations and for a new distribution of the sensible.
This hijacking of the gaze effectively transformed everybody within the field of view into conscious performers- individuals in
cities, as well as the soldiers behind the “wire” where the drones were launched. Everyone could now equally participate in
watching the theater of war. This also led to a constant state of performance wherein those who were being watched could
consciously perform a complex game of subterfuge. Their roles are similar to Augusto Boel’s theory of spect-actors, according
to which the theatrical stage is open both to audience and actors, all taking turns in performing within a participatory
theater. Once an escape, the play becomes a weapon - and visibility becomes a thin line between life and death.
This biennial is meant as a participatory space where these mechanics of image circulation are exposed, and the Panopticon
of gazes reveals itself. As we look and look back, could it be that the significance lies rather in the transformative potential of
seeing itself than in the object of our gaze?
4. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (London: Allan Lane, 1977), 202-203.
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