The eye of the modern state: The birth and transformation of surveillance

Human beings have always been creatures that many have wondered about and will continue to do so. With the curiosity of his/her mind and body, the human is placed in the focus of the view. While the view sometimes symbolizes a divine power, sometimes it is the state or free-market actors. Surveillance, which is metaphorized with concepts such as view or eye, is one of the ways of obtaining information about human being from its birth to the present. Knowledge about human beings provides essential power for all political powers. Surveillance, as a dimension of modernity, provides the control of human sociability. First, modern power aims to discipline and imprison what it has marked as 􏰈other􏰉 in society; surveillance is maintained in places designated for this purpose. The most concrete example of this conception is Bentham􏰇s Panopticon design. The spatial appearance of institutionalized surveillance is the Panopticons. After the 19th century, when the panopticon failed to realize its purpose of 􏰈discipline by imprisoning,􏰉 the rigid spatiality was shattered, and the period in which a new surveillance approach was dominant began. Rousseau􏰇s 􏰈Human being is born free, but everywhere she/he is in chains.􏰉 sentence describes the post-panoptic period. Surveillance has spread to daily life, and human beings are surrounded in every aspect. In the study, the transformation of surveillance from the ancient period to the present has been analyzed, and today􏰇s surveillance practices have been viewed from an ethical perspective. Keywords: Surveillance, Panopticon, Modernity, Imprisonment.