Reading Reports

Introduction

 Visual methodologies employ two chapters that comprise of two similar discourse analyses to bring out different views from Foucault. The first discourse analysis expresses itself through written or spoken and spoken material.  On the other hand, Foucault employs the second discourse analysis to show the institutional practices by focusing on the production, power regimes, and the aspect of technology.

Artistic Works That Deals With Institutional Critique

Through the second discourses analysis, Foucault criticises institutions made to subvert the human mind and the very change it brings. He goes ahead to talk about institutions like prisons, hospitals and asylums. Consequently, Foucault cites evidence from a book written eighty years before called the birth of prison to bring out the question of why the institution needed a change. The Birth of Prison goes ahead to state the type of punishment by changing the penal organisation in post-medieval Europe where visuality organisation and spatiality is central.

Foucault goes ahead to ask why the change from spectacular punishment to torture that follows a specific routine had to happen. Consequently, Foucault criticised the prison institution by saying the public execution that was present before is not the same us the current body punishment in prisons. Also, the body is seen as an instrument through which exercise is done upon it to change the way of doing things a phenomenon Foucault view as a way to deprive the liberty that is regarded as a right and a property.

Foucault described the emergence of new professions that could administer punishment and who could carry out the punishment on the subjects he named the ‘docile body’ due to their nature to conform themselves new principles in constraints and privations on obligations and privileges.  Also, the main critique made by Foucault about the new punishment body he called ‘docile body’ is that they are. The docile body had to discipline themselves through the machine that was mind changing through apparatus and technology.

Possibilities and Suggestions

Ashely Hunts Notes on the Emptying Of a City

 Ashely Hunt’s Notes on the emptying of a city is a dismantled film performance with the documentary images alongside the storytelling before a live audience. Just like the observations made by Foucault in Visual Methodologies, the Ashely Hunts expresses the feeling of people and criticises the system through written materials. Consequently, Ashly Hunts criticises the community by dehumanising the people by denying them rights and emptying their memories and homes to attain processes of democratic politics(Stewart). Ashly reflects on the building’s written marks by the police and soldiers in Beyond Katrina saying the inmates and prisoners refused to be evacuated, but a witness told the different account that the hurricane killed the inmates because the soldiers refused to vacate them.

Ashely Hunts goes a step further to look into the security clearance required for someone to gain access into the prisons especially when working with the media. Consequently, the notion around the prisons protection is that they are ensuring enough security, but Ashely criticises the idea by asking whether the protection is for the inmates or the pilled secrets in the prisons

Ashley goes a step further by looking into Orleans Parish Prison where there is total control of information and the things that the people do so that the head of the parish prison can stay in power. In prison, a pile of bodies is seen, but the minimum to no answer is given to any question asked especially from Sherriff Marlon Guzman.  Also, the Sherriff did not want to answer any questions paused by the human activist during the press conference, and once she arrives, the Sherriff quickly notes and concludes his briefing but she asked questions that seemed to bother him.

 The human activist asked how the Sherriff department was going to be looking into the matter that surrounds the prisoners who cannot be accounted for and ways the family members can get in contact with their loved ones(McNamarah, Chan Tov). Consequently, the human activist asked if the prisoners that were not accounted for were still alive prompting the Sherriff to respond by saying the activist's organisation is talking about issues that he wants to withhold. Also, the Sherriff warns the activists and tells her that she is on his list showing that she should stop digging information where there is no need (Han, Shuchu, et al).

 

 

Work Cited

Han, Shuchu, et al. "Generating Look-alike Names For Security Challenges." Proceedings of the 10th ACM Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Security. ACM, 2017.

McNamarah, Chan Tov. "White Caller Crime: Racialized Police Communication & Existing While Black." Available at SSRN 3312512 (2018).

Stewart, Suzanne L., Roy Moodley, and Ashley Hyatt, eds. Indigenous Cultures and Mental Health Counselling: Four Directions for Integration with Counselling Psychology. Taylor & Francis, 2016.