Nora Ancarola developed Panoptic_Frontier 601 on the basis of the research carried out by Michel Foucault in the 1970s, in which the philosopher presents an archeology of disciplinary devices used from the 16th to the 19th centuries, focusing on three institutions which articulated social indoctrination during the modern period: schools, hospitals and prisons.
It is precisely in Foucault’s analysis of the penitentiary system that the concept of “panoptism” appears, a reference to social theorist Jeremy Bentham and his Panopticon (1791), an architectural design with a vigilance system enabling one to watch without being seen, widely considered as the forerunner of today’s efforts to control public spaces. Ancarola also examines the so-called German hut, a euphemistic reference to the Gestapo bunker built at the start of WWII on the cliffs at Portbou.
Finally, Panoptic_Frontier 601 is an exploration into the process in which frontiers become militarized, and the violence wielded by the state powers against the migrant population, as well as the penalizing archetypes generated by the media, politicians and the legal system.
The show groups together all of these elements in a videoinstallation where projections, light boxes and objects graphically exemplify the technical grammar of a system of visual surveillance. Thus, she brings the experience of the Panoptic into the protected environment of the museum with the witness accounts of those suffering harassment and persecution at borders, using images and language to create an understanding of how surveillance is carried out in present-day society.
