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Panopticon

The panopticon is a type of institutional building and a system of control designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late 18th century. The scheme of the design is to allow all (pan-) inmates of an institution to be observed (-opticon) by a single watchman without the inmates being able to tell whether or not they are being watched. Although it is physically impossible for the single watchman to observe all the inmates' cells at once, the fact that the inmates cannot know when they are being watched means that they are motivated to act as though they are being watched at all times. Thus, they are effectively compelled to regulate their own behaviour.

The design consists of a circular structure with an "inspection house" at its centre, from which the manager or staff of the institution is able to watch the inmates. The inmates, who are stationed around the perimeter of the structure, are unable to see into the inspection house. Bentham conceived the basic plan as being equally applicable to hospitals, schools, sanatoriums, and asylums, but he devoted most of his efforts to developing a design for a panopticon prison. It is his prison that is now most widely meant by the term "panopticon".

Bentham described the panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example". Elsewhere, in a letter, he described the panopticon prison as "a mill for grinding rogues honest".

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Genres rock black metal folk experimental doom metal

Albums

  1. Panopticon
    2008
  2. It's Later Than You Think
    2009
  3. Collapse
    2009
  4. Panopticon / When Bitter Spring Sleeps
    2010
  5. Wheels Within Wheels / Panopticon II
    2011
  6. Social Disservices
    2011
  7. Kentucky
    2012
  8. Vestiges / Panopticon
    2013
  9. Falls of Rauros / Panopticon
    2014
  10. Roads to the North
    2014
  11. Autumn Eternal
    2015
  12. Panopticon / Waldgeflüster
    2016
  13. The Scars of Man on the Once Nameless Wilderness I and II
    2018

Other releases

  1. La passione de Sacco & Vanzetti
    2008
  2. Panopticon / Lake of Blood
    2009
  3. …on the Subject of Mortality
    2010
  4. Skagos / Panopticon
    2010
  5. Revisions of the Past
    2016
  6. Sheep in Wolves' Clothing
    2017
  7. The Crescendo of Dusk
    2019