Olasumbo Temitope Olaniyi Unit 14 Masters Year 2 (M2) ABSTRACT ‘’Surveillance is permanent in its effects even if its discontinuous in its action’’- Michael Foucault In a city like Johannesburg - characterised by surveillance capitalism; with the recent flooding and installation of about 15,000 of CCTV cameras (Swart: 2019), an everyday journey in the society by default becomes an apparatus for very great control (Foucault: 1975); the insertion of a tool of universal architecture of behavior restriction threatens human nature. As a result, numerous problems such as extreme levels of public fear, violence and insecurity on the streets of real magnitude emanate, contributing to the unending search for safety, freedom and privacy and the tension between transparency and accountability simultaneously. How much security is too much? (Blum: 1972). What kind of power relations are created as a result of these decisions? What are the spatial gains or implications? Does this make public officials more accountable? What checks and balances can be put in place with respect to mass surveillance? This presentation will focus mainly on the subject of political accountability, democracy, analogue and digital means of surveillance and the consequences of the forms of control present in the city of Johannesburg. This will take the form of ethnographic drawings, collages and forensic immersive investigations with a bit of reference to technology. In the next few weeks, I will be engaging in research and field work at strategic locations to produce a series of pictorial lexicons and forensic drawings derived from an. Also, I will briefly outline analytical techniques adopted and developed with a few supporting drawings. It is of dire importance to architecture as it brings to limelight queries that are majorly left unanswered due to its sensitivity. This research will aim to be a bridge between every citizen and public official not by dismantling the system but disciplining, recalibrating and reorganising it using social institutional imaginaries or architectural strategies as a new form of control to create a balance and refinement in the state of security and distribution of power posed by the digital discrete future (Zuboff: 2016).
REFERENCES Books: Blum, R. H., 1972. Surveillance and Espionage in a Free Society. Praeger, 1972. Foucault M. 1995. Discipline and Punish – The birth of prisons. Vintage Books.