panopticon

noun

1. (historical)A kind of projector in the 18th and 19th centuries.
2. A type of prison where all the cells are visible from the center, particularly if it is not possible for those in a cell to know if they are being watched.

   “He was alive to every creak and dunt, the thinness of the walls, as if the tenement block was a kind of aural panopticon that funnelled every sound to the other residents, let everyone eavesdrop on their business.”

3. (broadly, figuratively)A place in which people are subject to constant surveillance at totalitarian command.

   “Perhaps the construction of such a genetic panopticon is wise. But I doubt that the proud men who wrote the charter of our liberties would have been so eager to open their mouths for royal inspection.”

   “The point is that while new terms of engagement (new regimens of power are installed to oversee the process of programization or new panoptica are devised) are being established, existing and/or new social projects continue to operate within the social space framed by the dominant discourse, which not only delays the progress of the intervention, but unsettles it.”

   “All this sounds like an unholy mess if one wants to produce a consistent, long-term database of biodiversity relevant information the world over. At the very least, it suggests that global panoptica are not the way to go in biodiversity data!”

   “Panoptica are “all-seeing” systems such as penitentiary houses. They were famously theorized by Foucault as architectures of control, exemplary for forms of surveillance that discipline people and create particular kinds of subjects.”

4. A room for the exhibition of novelties.