Digital Panopticon

The Panopticon, designed by Jeremy Bentham, is a prison structure in which a central observer can watch all prisoners, while the prisoners never know whether they are actually being observed. This uncertainty compels them to regulate themselves, embodying a crucial mechanism of power. Byung-Chul Han extends this idea to the digital age, where surveillance no longer depends on coercion but on voluntary self-exposure, through which individuals actively contribute to their own surveillance.
This work, written for three percussionists and four short movements, narratively explores these dimensions. The 2nd movement after the first introducution, depicts participation in surveillance through self-exposure, followed by the relentless pursuit by rulers within the system of control. The final movement portrays the fragmentation of the self, where everything is confined within a dense, multidimensional structure of domination.