An electronic panoptic society: Hierarchical surveillance, normalizing judgment, and examination in American hard rock band Starset

Abstract

In the early 21st century, the whole society finished the transformation from a panopticon to an electronic super panopticon. With the development of intellectual technology, the view of surveillance increases. People in a technological society are monitored in every movement they make. In Starset’s post-apocalyptic society of the future, people are controlled by technology and become docile and prolific labor machines. This essay will analyze three songs by American hard rock band Starset, Breach, Where the skies end and Icarus, using three of Foucault’s theories of discipline and punishment, hierarchical surveillance, normalizing judgment and examination. Under the disciplinary surveillance, people from Starset’s post-apocalyptic society have been tamed by the power of technology and are constantly disciplining themselves and checking themselves, becoming a single efficient producer. It also shows that society is becoming a transparent high-speed panopticon prison.