Reading Notes: Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punish — The Power of Viewing in Space

 

In Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault argues that the mechanisms of power in modern society have shifted from the violent punishment of the body to the invisible discipline of it. Power no longer manifests through public torture but operates through the meticulous organization of space, time, and behavior to produce what he calls docile bodies. His central model, the Panopticon, reveals the underlying logic of modern power: “Visibility is a trap” — the condition of being constantly seen but unable to see the observer is what allows disciplinary power to function (Foucault, 1975). Within this system, space becomes the medium through which power operates. Individuals, aware of their visibility, internalize surveillance and self-regulate, embodying the norms expected by society.

 

Foucault’s concept of panopticism is not merely a prison design but a metaphor for the distribution of spatial and visual power. The layout of spaces—whether prisons, schools, factories, or hospitals—implies hierarchical structures of seeing: who can look, who is looked at, and whose gaze is restricted all contribute to the formation of social order.

 

In the context of art and spatial studies, this structure remains relevant:

• Exhibition spaces guide the viewer’s gaze through spatial arrangement and lighting;

• The relationship between artist and audience can be understood as a reenactment or redistribution of viewing power;

• In the interweaving of memory and vision, space becomes both the site of being seen and the apparatus through which seeing occurs.

 

Thus, drawing from Foucault’s theory, one may conclude that viewing is not a free or neutral act, but a structured experience—spatial design operates simultaneously on a physical and ideological level.