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The Panopticon:
The 'hub'
of this OnLine multi-user Learning Environment is inspired by
and based on Bentham's architecture for the Panopticon. Within
this virtual environment the 'fluid architecture' of the Panopticon
becomes the perfect form to support a social learning interaction
where the surveyors co-operatively survey themselves.
As
a "technology of power" this Panopticon retains the
enlightened potential of the Bentham design, in that it is intended
to provide support for human betterment and transformation. It
also achieves Poster's (Poster, 1990)
'Superpanopticon', in that the technology of power in this instance
is manifest through digital virtual space or "circuits of
communication" and that it is a "system of surveillance
without walls, windows, towers or guards".
The convergence
of this digital and virtual space with the glass, brick and steel
of 'real' technologies of power is focused in this Panopticon
by the acquisition and incorporation of similar 'dream buildings'
drawn from human history and the projected future.
Information
of Bentham and the Panopticon can be found @ the Bentham Project:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/
the Panopticon
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