Prompt: Discuss ONE way in which architecture supports surveillance.
One way that architecture supports surveillance is by existing.
By this I mean that although it is possible to surveil another person out in the open, this is not necessarily as useful as surveilling someone from an unseen vantage point. If you know that you are being watched, do you think that you might change how you behave? If someone changes how they behave, then the visual information that could be collected about their motives, intentions, and capabilities might become substantially less accurate. I know this is all pretty sinister, but I think these are all important things to consider.
Because buildings create visual and physical obstacles that are unpredictable, they make it harder for outsiders to effectively search for possible surveyors, while giving the surveyors multiple different vantage points to best observe others.
So yeah, this is my brief, and probably obvious assessment about the most basic way that architecture supports surveillance.
I think this is a very interesting approach to this prompt, and I believe your statement is 100% true and considerable. I think we humans have a very interesting incline to the feeling of being watched. Oftentimes, we can feel or have the sense that we are being watched, and most of the times we are correct. This goes hand in hand with human intuition, or that gut feeling, that many of us get in different situations.
I find it incredibly interesting that the things we create, can actually take a turn and control us. For instance, thinking back to Wednesday’s lecture about surveillance, the idea of constructing a space to watch others was very dependent and purposeful with the control of others. This also ties into museums, and how they as well have the power to control our behaviors, simply based on the setting.
The idea of controlling behavior within museums and constructing around surveillance is related to the change in demeanor we humans face when we sense we are being watched. I find it incredibly fascinating how our environment can change our behaviors and feelings. Even more so, we are building with this intention and taking what we once had control over to then control us.
Your perspective on surveillance in architecture is very insightful, as it provides a sort of counter to the idea of behaving because one knows that they are being watched that we discussed in class. With your ideas in mind, all architecture contributes to aspects of surveillance, whether it was the intention or not.
In class, we talked about the idea of ocularcentrism and how it is applied to surveillance in architecture. Specifically, we studied the panopticon, a model prison of the late 18th century that involves cells in a circular formation surrounding a center where guards surveil from halls where prisoners do not know if or when they are being watched, forcing them to behave a certain way. This idea persists in many other applications of that time as well as today, such as in museums or hospitals where the goal is to regulate people to adjust their behavior based on the architecture of surveillance that makes them feel like they are always being watched or otherwise observed.
Contrasting the panopticon’s idea with the idea that surveillance can also involve observing people without them knowing that they are being observed, we can analyze that any erected structure contributes to this since it provides vantage points and hidden places. As you mentioned, if people think that they are alone, they will act much differently, revealing their true behavior and intentions. This represents how architecture can passively create situations of surveillance.
I think this is actually an interesting take one the prompt. Often when we are given a question about architecture the instinct is to hyperanalyze and figure out all the little ways that architecture is doing or supporting one thing. But really the most important answer is the simplest one. Architecture absolutely supports and hinders surveillance. In a situation where one person has access to all of the vantage points that they need to see it can be a very helpful thing. However, architecture also blocks and hinders surveillance by being so solidly in the way. A small alley for example is very difficult to watch because there is really only one or two possible ways to look into it and a dark shadow could make things difficult to see from even those angles. I think it is important to consider the benefits as well as the obstruction of architecture for surveillance.
Recent developments have led to the implementation of cameras, which assist in these hard-to-see areas. Though cameras can be broken and tampered with and therefore still cause some issues when the architecture obstructs surveillance. The design of a building like the panopticon tried to take into account all of the vantage points and make surveillance a constant thing. Though the sheer scale of the building would provide a few areas, specifically around the exterior or base of the tower that are harder to or cannot be surveyed.