The Birth of the Machine by Nour Hamade

The Birth of the Machine an analysis on the evolution of power of/within the factory

Nour Hamade Elective Course Reason of Urbanism Fourth Year - Term One Lawrence Barth

2625 Words

“…but the punishment-body relation is not the same as it was in the torture during public executions. The body now serves as an instrument or intermediary: if one intervenes upon it to imprison it, or to make it work, it is in order to deprive the individual of a liberty that is regarded both as a right and as property. The body, according to this penalty, is caught up in a system of constraints and privations, obligations and prohibitions. Physical pain, the pain of the body itself, is no longer the constituent element of the penalty. From being an art of unbearable sensations punishment has become an economy of suspended rights.” Michel Foucault1

The Subject Power: the ability to control. When discussing the notion of ‘power’ (POWER), one cannot but use terms such as authority, or control, or action, or even violence. The term’s definition, as Wrong2 explained, has problems and limitations; “the notion of controlling or acting on resistance materials is implicit in the idea of power as skill or capacity.” Arendt and Lukes3 argue that we shouldn’t associate power with violence or monarch, disregarding the concept of monarch as power and government as power, authority and violence. All suggest that power is not always negative or authoritative. The construction of the subject - subjectification - puts into question the notion of an autonomous, unitary entity. Foucault4 theorised the subject as a social construction, describing it as the effect of power and disciplines. “There are two meanings of the word “subject”: subject to someone else by control and dependence, and tied to his own identity by a conscience or self-knowledge.”5 Both suggest a form of power that subjugates and makes subject to. The relationship between power and subjectivity holds a deep understanding of the evolving societal practices. Work, or labour, has existed through time; an activity that sought to give value to the individual, making him a productive subject 6 within society. Power does not exist if the subject being controlled is not ‘free.’ Power is only exercised over free subjects, where he (the subject) is given a number of possibilities - or choices - in which various kinds of conduct and modes of behaviour are available. Therefore, the subject at work can be subjected to as it remains a choice of his to be within the institution. This essay aims to analyse the evolution of power relations of and within the factory, understanding key moments of change of power - the machine - within space - the factory - that affected the subject the worker.

Foucault, M., (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. trans. Sheridan, A. London: Penguin Group. p. 11.

Wrong, D.H., (1980). Power: Its Forms, Bases, and Uses. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. p. 1.

Lukes, S., (2005). Power: A Radical View. 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 32-35

Foucault, M., (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. trans. Sheridan, A. London: Penguin Group.

Foucault, M., (2000). Power: Essential works of Foucault 1954 - 1984. trans. Hurley, R., ed. Faubion, J,D. London: Penguin Group. p. 331.

Foucault’s uses the term ‘productive subject’ to explain the subject who labours, in the analysis of wealth and economics. The objectification of human into subjects allows him to discuss the power relations of an autonomous object - irrelevant to individualistic self. Explained in Foucault, M., (2000). Power: Essential works of Foucault 1954 - 1984. trans. Hurley, R., ed. Faubion, J,D. London: Penguin Group. p. 326-331.

The Factory “This enclosed, segmented space, observed at every point, in which the individuals are inserted in a fixed place, in which the slightest movements are supervised, in which all events are recorded, in which all events are recorded… in which power is exercised without division, according to a continuous hierarchical figure, in which each individual is constantly located, examined and distributed among the living beings…” 7 Foucault explains this model of the disciplinary mechanism with a reference towards the plague epidemic at the end of the seventeenth century. However, it constitutes the overall notion of discipline through surveillance. Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon - or the Inspection House - serves as the architectural figure that places that disciplinary mechanism into reality. Eighteenth century notions of disciplinary and panoptic power made use of architecture in the presence of particular spatial and temporal constraints - physical spaces that made it possible to act on the forms of punish and discipline. The Panopticon features a central tower connected to an annular building that is divided into cells. Each cell extends to the entire thickness of the building to allow for inner and outer windows, where light was to penetrate to aid the inspector and glare the ‘prisoner.’ Bentham8 illustrates the utilisation of light within the building, where the occupants of the cells are backlit by the exterior windows “subject to scrutiny both collectively and individually by an observer in the tower who remains unseen.”9 The observer, placed in the tower, holds the ability to watch each individual in each cell, that have no knowledge on the location of the ‘man in charge.’ Any noise or light that might betray the presence of said observer were reduced or removed with the use of Venetian blinds - maintaining the observer’s identity and placement undivulged. Foucault stresses on the use of the Panopticon to be understood as a “generalised model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men.”10 Surveillance was disguised as supervision and training as discipline. Bentham’s model was created to be evolved - adapted to the necessary factors. The model meant that any discipline that involved a sense of power, hierarchy or control could be housed within. The pyramidal hierarchy where information, knowledge, laws and power must flow through the persons in control; from the highest man at power to the free man being conducted; Foucault uses the term ‘capillary function of power’11 to express his perception of the movement of power relations. Hence, the factory becomes that enclosed space where the generalised model functions to allow perfect efficiency and productivity: to concentrate; “to distribute in space; to order in time; to compose a productive force within the dimension of space-time whose effect will be greater than the sum of its component forces.”12 Since the industrial age and the initial construction of the exemplary model, there was the statuary perception of the psychological ties that the individual subject establishes with his work. That of the idea that work defines his identity and stamps his place on him like a destiny13. The fear that losing his job would rob him of his identity and that any change within the place or content of his work would 7

Foucault, M., (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. trans. Sheridan, A. London: Penguin Group. p. 197.

Bentham, J., (1843). The Works of Jeremy Bentham. ed. Bowring, J. Volume IV. Edinburgh: William Tait. pp. 39-62. Accessed 23 December 2019. https://books.google.

co.uk/books?id=8VEWAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false 9

Barton, B.F. & Marthalee, B.S., (1993). Modes of Power in Technical and Professional Visuals. Journal of Business and Technical Communication. 7.1 , 138-162.

Foucault, M., (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. trans. Sheridan, A. London: Penguin Group. p. 205.

Ibid. p. 198.

Deleuze, G., (1992). Postscript on the Societies of Control. Journal of October. 59, 3. Accessed 17 December 2019. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=01622870%28199224%2959%3C3%3APOTSOC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T 13

Donzelot, J., (1991). Pleasure in Work. In: The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentally. ed. Burchell, G., Gordon, C. & Miller, P. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. p. 252.

potentially become a threat to him. The model is fed into the eighteenth and early nineteenth century factory. Observance meant that there would be no disorders, theft, coalitions or distractions that could potentially slow down the rate of work - efficiency and productivity. The space of enclosure therefore creates the productive subject. Power as knowledge. Knowledge as power. The ways in which the factorial system operated until the twentieth century conveyed the ultimate emphasis on the importance of the hierarchy. The simple act of supervision meant that those in command held information of the whereabouts of all the individuals being ‘controlled’; being able to discipline their subordinates simply by knowing of their locations at all times. Their activities were monitored, their efficiency was noted and their purpose was measured. Foucault describes the Panopticon’s function as a “laboratory of power;”14 explaining that its mechanisms of observation allows it to penetrate into men’s behaviour; where “knowledge follows the advances of power, discovering new objects of knowledge over all the surfaces on which power is exercised.”15 Thus, the power to observe gives the power of knowledge, which is ultimately the power to control.

The Factory II Towards the second half of the twentieth century - following the end of the Second World War - we witness a paradigm shift. Still relevant to today’s dynamic, there was a contingent adjustment to the understanding of the public domain. Public and private life became intertwined. As Sennett describes: “public meant open to the scrutiny of anyone, whereas private meant a sheltered region of life defined by one’s family and friends.”16 The perception of an intertwined life mean that the public and private individual become one. The subject is then able to display his true-self both within the private eyes and the public domain - a sense of comfort with the self. It is also worth noting the importance of the abolition of strict rules and regulations within the workplace - allowing ones true-self to be admired. The subjects relations of family and work become one, making him feel more comfortable at work and allowing him to remain calm - the belief that he is not being subjected to, not being observed or judged, and essentially being admired simply for his contributions and self. This concept plays on the notion of romanticism; the fundamental principle that every individual has the opportunity to feel care and love, be inspired by art and beauty, and most importantly, be accepted for his individualistic and personal qualities and traits, hence, motivating him to work harder as the notion of the power relations in the workplace are diminished. Commodity fetishism, as philosopher Karl Marx17 stated, is the social act of applying an economic trade value to a commodity. The value-relation of the products have utterly no connection with the physical nature of the commodity. Nineteenth century capitalism was a capitalism of concentration, based on industrial production. Deleuze explains that “…(capitalism) erects the factory as a space of enclosure, the capitalist being the owner of the means of production but also, progressively, the owner of other spaces conceived through analogy (such as the worker’s familial house).”18 In present day, capitalism is no longer involved in production, a reality where the reliance on the global south for basic products stems merely from cost. It is a capitalism of higher-order production, of logistics: the production of production. It buys finished products or assembles parts, it therefore becomes a capitalism for the product, not for the production - marketing then becomes the centre of the corporation.

Foucault, M., (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. trans. Sheridan, A. London: Penguin Group. p. 204.

Ibid.

Sennett, R., (1976). Fall of Public Man. London: Faber and Faber Ltd. p. 16.

Marx, K., (1887). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. trans. Moore, S. & Aveling, E., ed. Engels, F. Moscow: Progress Publishers. pp. 47-53.

Deleuze, G., (1992). Postscript on the Societies of Control. Journal of October. 59, 6. Accessed 17 December 2019. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=01622870%28199224%2959%3C3%3APOTSOC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T

Kant defines desire as “the faculty which by means of its representations is the cause of the actuality of the objects of those representations.”19 Same-day, one-day, next-day. The techniques for marketing quick deliveries serves as a primal example of the ways in which the modern city is created to serve the time-pressed worker. The ability to obtain products virtually, and have them delivered within hours demonstrates the efficiency of the logistical machine. The oiled machine acts as a mean of blurring that notion of time and space. Its efficiency distorts and obscures the physicality of time, distance and geographies. Logistics follow, predict and serve the ever-changing trends of an unstable economy of desire. Power itself then becomes obscured. The power made evident in the Panopticon is no longer visible; it is concealed in the spaces of logistics. Moritz Kahn explains: “the method of production should not be adjusted to the building, but the building should be adapted to the production,”20 thus, process dictates space and form follows performance. There was a transfer of the seven principles of mass production, including power, accuracy, economy, continuity, system, speed and repetition, as variables of Taylorism,21 to architectural design. Here, the spaces of capitalism and consumerism are manufactured. Commercial demands for efficiency and frugality are fulfilled at the same time as maximum functional flexibility. Concurrently, the introduction of open floor plans, flexible hours, job enrichment, self-managed work teams, continued retraining, though not regarded as serious attempts to alter the capitalist regime, saw a new attempt at shifting the relationship between the subject and his work. The relation of individuals to their productive work has been at the focus of all those in power. Capitalism’s extensive history gives us the ability to judge the mere effectiveness of those continuous attempts of the pursuit of the worker’s happiness. The notion of increasing profit and productivity serve as the only logic of the capitalist regime. Donzelot argues that “the outcome of reforms and experiments conceived in response to a malaise caused by the pursuit of productivity, designed to induce a range of local improvements in the regime of work, the sum of which would amount to global change in the relationship between the members of our society and that regime.”22 Therefore, the concept that there is such a thing of the exemplary model diminishes. The subject’s capacity to adapt then becomes a measurement of his potential and his identity. Instead of defining the individual by the work he is assigned to, the accent is then put on the individual’s autonomy, where his productive capabilities are a representation of his personal - individualistic skills. In comparing the two systems of the formation of logistical space and subjectivity, we present the mutual shifts that occurred from the eighteenth century to the modern day ideology. Firstly, the factory as a space of production adapted to the change of the capitalist regime. The space of production then becomes the production of production - where the subject that was being controlled to produce and become a productive subject, is then amended to become the target of the producer. Then, the pastoral care, presented in the form of the abolition of visible power and strict rules within the factory (workplace), demonstrates the subjects of labour economics, worker/ manager relationships and class difference within the wider scape. In a sense, the pastoral care presented to the working class is not truly care - it is simply a disguise of power. This creative power of capitalism is not concerned with caring as an act, but as care as a technique; a mode or strategy to deploy power against subjects. At an attempt at diminishing the pyramidal hierarchy, the result is a mere disguise of the reality. By blurring the boundaries between those in power and their subordinates, those in control gain additional authority as they are positioned on the same plane.

Kant, I., (1911). The Critique of Judgement. trans. Meredith, J. Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 16

Bürklin, T. & Reichardt, J., (2019). Albert Kahn’s Industrial Archtitecture: Form Follows Performance. trans. Busch, H., ed. Peterson, K. Basel: Birkhäuser. p. 12

Ibid. Taylorism is a theory of management that analyses and synthesises workflows, developed by Frederick Taylor at the end of the nineteenth century. Within production, it was used as a mechanism to further enhance and improve productivity - minimising errors and increasing efficiency. In Donzelot, J., (1991). Pleasure in Work. In: The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentally. ed. Burchell, G., Gordon, C. & Miller, P. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Donzelot argues that Taylorism meant that the worker becomes a mere component in a mechanical production process. However, that Taylor also recognised and exploited the reduction in bosses’ authority consequent on the conferment of protective rights on workers and unions. 22

Donzelot, J., (1991). Pleasure in Work. In: The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentally. ed. Burchell, G., Gordon, C. & Miller, P. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. p. 251.

The Machine With references to Foucaultâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s evolving understanding of the concept of discipline, from the seventeenth century plague epidemic, to the nineteenth century Panopticon, and todays image of labour, we witness a continuous change in the ways power, punishment and discipline are mobilised. It begins with an exceptional situation, where power is present and visible in every instance; where the acknowledgement and knowledge of power being present is what constitutes the subjects to be controlled. In the Panopticon, the generalised model is simply a way of demonstrating power relations in everyday life, where the acts of observance and surveillance act as forms of power; where the unawareness of the observer develops a sense of fear that forces the subject to act in the prescribed manner at all times. Today, invisible power manifests itself in everyday life. â&#x20AC;&#x153;One of the most crucial if overlooked aspects of architecture is the capacity of buildings to either support or diminish the spontaneous powers of human beings to act in spaceâ&#x20AC;?23 The ability and use of architecture to encompass and serve power, both visible and invisible, is therefore a crucial part in the power relations being presented. The shift in factory from an enclosed space of production to the global laws of marketing conveys how the same power - that of creative capitalism - operates in different spaces; here the entire society becomes part of the factory; where desires are supervised and personalities are monitored in order to create the utopian ultimate city; all that aim to feed the logistical machine. In a conceptual understanding of urbanism, it could be said that the factory - as well as the prison, school, hospital and the home - serves as a microcosm to the understanding of the city. The disciplinary mechanisms that are at play within the workspace - the rules - serve to discipline and teach the subject. The factory is a type of location of bodies in space, where the distribution of individuals is relevant to the work they are undergoing. It is a space of hierarchical organisation, of the channels of power, and the instruments and modes of intervention of said power. Like the factory, the city is the macrocosm of these individual bodies operating in the larger scale; learning to navigate and operate as individuals within the scope of the machine. Ultimately, the factory is - in retrospect - a space of producing the exemplary model; a space that creates men fit for society outside of these enclosed spaces of the factory, the prison, the school, the hospital and the home. A space that establishes the necessary disciplines that allow these subjects to interact and exist.

Plummer, H., (2016). The Experience of Architecture. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. p. 7.

Selected Bibliography Arendt, H., (1958). The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Arendt, H., (1996). On Power. Journal of Speculative Philosophy. 10(3), 210-229. Accessed 2 January 2020. https://www.jstor.org/ stable/25670190?read-now=1&seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents Barton, B.F. & Marthalee, B.S., (1993). Modes of Power in Technical and Professional Visuals. Journal of Business and Technical Communication. 7.1. Bentham, J., (1843). The Works of Jeremy Bentham. ed. Bowring, J. Volume IV. Edinburgh: William Tait. pp. 39-62. Accessed 23 December 2019. https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=8VEWAQAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_ summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false Bürklin, T. & Reichardt, J., (2019). Albert Kahn’s Industrial Archtitecture: Form Follows Performance. trans. Busch, H., ed. Peterson, K. Basel: Birkhäuser. Colebrook, C., (2005). The Space of Man: On the Specificity of Affect in Deleuze and Guattari. In: Deleuze and Space. ed, Buchanan, I. & Lambert, G. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Darley, G., (2003). Factory. London: Reaktion Books Ltd. Deleuze, G., (1992). Postscript on the Societies of Control. Journal of October. 59, 3-7. Accessed 17 December 2019. http://links.jstor. org/sici?sici=0162-2870%28199224%2959%3C3%3APOTSOC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T Donzelot, J., (1991). Pleasure in Work. In: The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentally. ed. Burchell, G., Gordon, C. & Miller, P. Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf. Foucault, M., (1977). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. trans. Sheridan, A. London: Penguin Group. Foucault, M., (1980). Power/Knowledge: selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977. ed. Gordon, C. Hertfordshire: The Harvester Press. pp. 146 - 165. Foucault, M., (1989). The Order of Things: An archeology of the human sciences. trans. Tavistock & Routledge. New York: Routledge. Foucault, M., (2000). Power: Essential works of Foucault 1954 - 1984. trans. Hurley, R., ed. Faubion, J,D. London: Penguin Group. Foucault M., (2008). The Birth of Biopolitics. trans. Burchell, G., ed. Senellart, M. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Holland, E.W., (1999). Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis. Oxon: Routledge. Kant, I., (1911). The Critique of Judgement. trans. Meredith, J. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Lazzarto, M., (2014). Signs and Machines: Capitalism and the Production of Subjectivity. trans. Jordan, J.D. Cambridge: Massachusetts: MIT Press. Lukes, S., (2005). Power: A Radical View. 2nd ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Selected Bibliography (continued) Lyon, D., (2006). The search for surveillance theories. In: Theorizing Surveillance : The Panopticon and Beyond. Devon: Willan Publishing. Marx, K., (1887). Capital: A Critique of Political Economy. trans. Moore, S. & Aveling, E., ed. Engels, F. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Plummer, H., (2016). The Experience of Architecture. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd. Sennett, R., (1976). Fall of Public Man. London: Faber and Faber Ltd. Stivale, C.J., (2005). Gilles Deleuze: Key Conccepts. ed. Stivale, C.J. Chesham; Acumen Publishing Limited. Wrong, D.H., (1980). Power: Its Forms, Bases, and Uses. New Jersey: Transaction Publishers.