Nezar AISayyad’s essay establishes the relationship between technological modernity (say, image reproduction, camera and surveillance system) and the “power inequalities” lying in citizens’ unequal access to the capability of viewing others (AISayyad 2006, 186). “Voyeur” originates from “flâneur,” a typical 19th-century French literature figure who strolls in the urban (public) space for exploration and individual pleasure. Similarly observing the urban space for acquiring knowledge and pleasure, voyeur, however, is a rebirth and further development of the early modern idea in that the group physically stays distant from the scene they observed, taking advantage of the camera to hide behind the lens and screens. The distance between viewers and the being-gazed subject not only contributes to the inequalities in the power of gazing but also embodies the way modern machines and techniques invade and intervene in contemporary human space.
Simultaneously, from observing in the streets (the time of flâneur) to watching through a telescope (Jeff in Rear Window [1954]), and to people hiding behind the camera (Silver [1993] and The End of Violence [1997]), there is a space transition along with technological advance: the open courtyard (Rear Window) gives its way to closed, limited apartment building’s elevator and more private cells. Ridiculously, what accompanies the diminution of public space is the surveillance in every corner, bringing personal privacy and security under threat. Different from Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon where visibility operates “automatic functioning of power (AISayyad 2006, 185),” modern surveillance is invisible, one-way, and usually caters to the observer’s personal, erotic desire. Once the observed group, like Carly in Silver, grasps the opportunity of becoming the observing, they might also fall for the “power” of gaze, control and consumption.
Yihan Wei
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Works Cited:
AISayyad, N. “Voyeuristic Modernity: the Lens, the Screen and the City.” In Cinematic urbanism: A history of the modern from reel to real, 147-168. New York: London: Routledge, 2006.
Clear and well-written summary. I wonder if you have other contemporary examples of modern voyeurism to apply the concept? I believe CCTV surveillance is just one voyeuristic example nowadays.