Graduation Show
The Panopticum Show, Gerrit Rietveld academy, Amsterdam July 2023
In my graduation project, I transformed the viewer into a voyeur.
In the centre of the room is a hybrid structure inspired by the architectural concept of the panopticon prison and the circular peep show. The guests are lured in by fingers. Though a peephole is usually tiny and secretive, I modified it into a square frame. Spectators are invited into private booths, driven by excitement and expectations. They anticipate a clandestine spectacle, but it never occurs, leaving them disillusioned.
Thesis
The Panopticum Show
From a peeping hole to something too big to see...
In The Panopticum Show, I explore the parallels between the architecture and ideology of the panopticon prison and the circular peepshow. Both create systems of controlled visibility and hidden observation. My thesis delves into the intersection of architecture, voyeurism and power: tracing how the act of seeing and being seen becomes a mechanism for control and self-awareness.
My research examines how these architectures influence behavior, intimacy and authority. Grounded in Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon Writings, Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, and Tony Bennett’s The Exhibitionary Complex, I also shaped this thesis by personal encounters: including my visits to dome prisons and red-light peepshows, both as a viewer and behind the curtain. My exploration is further informed by cultural critiques such as Adam Curtis’s documentaries HyperNormalisation and The Century of the Self, the realities of modern surveillance infrastructures like social credit systems and my own reflections during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The panopticon functions as a tool of discipline through the threat of constant observation, while the peepshow commodifies desire, turning the gaze into a transaction. Yet both trap their participants, prisoners, voyeurs, performers, in a relentless cycle of watching and being watched.
What begins as a private gaze through a tiny viewing hole slowly unravels into a much larger system, one where control is internalized, where the performance never ends. In a time of lockdowns and isolation, the dynamics of observation intensified: homes transformed into offices, classrooms and stages under the constant gaze of webcams and screens. Our growing dependence on smartphones amplified this condition, turning them into handheld panopticons we willingly carry. These layered sources help frame the panopticon not just as theory, but as an ever-present structure embedded in the fabric of daily life (a voyeuristic wet dream for institutions obsessed with control, exposure and compliance).
This research weaves together theory, memory and artistic exploration, culminating in my graduation installation: designed to immerse the viewer in a disorienting loop of surveillance and spectacle.
In the centre of the room is a hybrid structure inspired by the architectural concept of the panopticon prison and the circular peep show. The guests are lured in by fingers. Though a peephole is usually tiny and secretive, I modified it into a square frame. Spectators are invited into private booths, driven by excitement and expectations. They anticipate a clandestine spectacle, but it never occurs, leaving them disillusioned.
Thesis
The Panopticum Show
From a peeping hole to something too big to see...
In The Panopticum Show, I explore the parallels between the architecture and ideology of the panopticon prison and the circular peepshow. Both create systems of controlled visibility and hidden observation. My thesis delves into the intersection of architecture, voyeurism and power: tracing how the act of seeing and being seen becomes a mechanism for control and self-awareness.
My research examines how these architectures influence behavior, intimacy and authority. Grounded in Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon Writings, Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, and Tony Bennett’s The Exhibitionary Complex, I also shaped this thesis by personal encounters: including my visits to dome prisons and red-light peepshows, both as a viewer and behind the curtain. My exploration is further informed by cultural critiques such as Adam Curtis’s documentaries HyperNormalisation and The Century of the Self, the realities of modern surveillance infrastructures like social credit systems and my own reflections during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The panopticon functions as a tool of discipline through the threat of constant observation, while the peepshow commodifies desire, turning the gaze into a transaction. Yet both trap their participants, prisoners, voyeurs, performers, in a relentless cycle of watching and being watched.
What begins as a private gaze through a tiny viewing hole slowly unravels into a much larger system, one where control is internalized, where the performance never ends. In a time of lockdowns and isolation, the dynamics of observation intensified: homes transformed into offices, classrooms and stages under the constant gaze of webcams and screens. Our growing dependence on smartphones amplified this condition, turning them into handheld panopticons we willingly carry. These layered sources help frame the panopticon not just as theory, but as an ever-present structure embedded in the fabric of daily life (a voyeuristic wet dream for institutions obsessed with control, exposure and compliance).
This research weaves together theory, memory and artistic exploration, culminating in my graduation installation: designed to immerse the viewer in a disorienting loop of surveillance and spectacle.