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Surveillance

Overthink

CHAPTER

The Penopticon, the Institution of Surveillance and Punishment

The penopticon was a proposed prison design by the eighteenth century philosopher jeremy bentham. It is a circular building that has prison cells all around the walls and a tower of observation at the very centre. People in the cell don't know when they are being watched, or even if they're being watched any longer. But because the possibility is there, people start watching themselves as part of their normal way of going about their day. The penopticon is just this institution of surveillance and punishment that operates in this way.

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