Initiative #3
Mr. & Mrs. John Q. Public 1234 Fiddler's Dell River City, Iowa 54321
You Can Never Be Too Safe!
Vote for Initiative #3:
Shall River City bond for $20 million dollars to build the Panopticon?
River City Panopticon
Piranesi not only found beauty in the obvious monuments, he saw it in "the sewers, the walls, the aqueducts, the paved roads" of the city as well. But it is the Carceri, (Invisible Prisons) for which he has become best known. These engravings of Piranesi's imagined prison interiors are stark views into the artist's own tormented inner world. These hellish views, sold as souvenirs to tourists, became touchstones for a later generation of surrealist artists known as the Dadaists, such as this fellow in the window, believed to be May Ray. Or maybe Chagall....
Concerned Citizens for Public Safety & Initiative #2 1234 Security Lane River City, Iowa 54321
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) opened up new vistas of confinement, breaking loose from practical requirements in order to explore imaginary worlds of incarceration. Trained as an architect, Piranesi abandoned the field at age 20, moving from his home town of Venice to Rome: the intellectual capital of Europe and the center of the Enlightenment.
Magna Dolorum
Invisible Prisons
River City's Panopticon will be modeled on this historic design by Jeremy Bentham, with an educational Visitor Center and Gift Shop.