Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault was a philosopher, psychiatrist and historian, and an author. He was also a post-structuralist. He looked at the way the audience and the users of the systems impact and interact with systems. He is best known for his critical studies of social institutions. He studied the Panopticon Prison (pictured above) system, which was designed by the philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century.

Foucault was interested in power, particularly at power within society.
He looked at prisons and the study of madness – organisational system segregate people. He felt that this was a rational approach to imprisonment, as the pictured design enables the guards to see all the prisoners.

He looked at people who break the law – locked up and constantly watched. Also looked at what is considered mad, what we do with this within society.This concept of being watched – a controlling space.

BACK