The Pressure of the Panopticon

on

Page 1 of the gray journal

In a panapticon-like world, anxiety builds up in the body like oxygen. Constant surveillance leaves tightness. The skulls represent the fear of death. Frozen in gray and white. Frozen in one's learned helplessness. The many metaphorical deaths a person must live while being trapped beneath the unrelenting pressure of the panapticon.

This work is a translation of constant panic. It is an -arguably- abstract state in the body and mind but here it is translated. Something to look at and move beyond. 

🏛 What is The Panopticon?

Basically, there's this concept from this old dude Bentham "the Panopticon." It's a prison design where there's a tower in the middle and all the cells are around it, so the guards can always see you but you never know if they're actually watching. Creepy, right? Then this French guy Foucault was like, "OMG, that's literally modern society." We're all just walking around acting "correct" because we might be watched. Total mind games.

The Story and Symbolism of the Painting

So I made this painting in my gray journal thing. Trying something new. Blue birds with sharp, mean looking beaks and talons all around a skull and a fire. The fire is supposed to be, like, distrust and fear, and the birds are the constant surveillance suffocating you. The whole point is that living in a society where you are watched and always anxious builds up in your body. It makes your throat tight, your breath shallow, your heart race. You feel frozen, helpless, like you're dying a million little deaths just from existing under all that pressure. But painting this helps. Like, by making this abstract panic into something I can actually look at (a bit metal i guess?), I can kinda move past it. Externalize the fear, y'know? Try drawing your own birds & channel that nervous energy into something. So yeah. It's art about having felt trapped and watched and anxious all the time. Very "society is a prison," very existential dread. I guess, if you're into that whole "quiet despair" thing. Personally, I movrd on to playing chess and kinda spend all my time drawing chessboards now, but whatever. Anyway, it was a good exercise 💅✨