As our hyperconnected lives accelerate, the boundary between the “real” and “virtual” world becomes increasingly blurred. The convergence of our physical reality with the digital creates a hybrid reality, readable by machines, allowing the digital world to “see” the physical world. Establishing an algorithmic capitalism based on a multidimensional reality that redefines our daily lives, this system relies on a new essential resource: data.
The Panoptic Code is a project by Fanny Pimpurniaux [student member, UQAT], fits into this context. It was presented at the RIMA 2024 from November 6 to 8, as well as during a artistic residency at the Agora des Arts in Rouyn-Noranda on December 6, 2024.
Today, the project continues to evolve in all aspects, demonstrating through an immersive installation, the technological manipulation of humans. Here is its creation story.
The Panoptic Code is an interactive experience that demonstrates, through an immersive installation, the technological manipulation of humans and its peak towards technological singularity. By working on a technology that eludes us due to acceleration and amplification, this research-creation shows technology gravitating around humans in a dystopian society where reality is constructed by the digital and creates tension between the body and the screen representing the all-connected world. This means there are more connected non-humans than humans.
The concept is to create a dystopian world inspired by transhumanism, bleak and ravaged by the darker side of humanity. Technology has taken a major place, infiltrating society and the human body, causing it to lose its own identity. Perception is altered, happiness is paid for. Humans are no longer themselves, manipulated in their world. The city is encrypted, data cores are everywhere. The digital experience thus becomes more immersive than reality itself.
The Control Paradox
This concept describes an era where machines will not only match human intelligence but surpass it, triggering a cycle of autonomous technological evolution. According to this theory, beyond a certain point of development, human civilization would enter a phase of technological growth of an entirely different order. The work will be unsettling, creating a world of anxiety-inducing information through saturation, where the connection is omnipresent, in everything and at all times.
The striking visuals of the Panoptic Code project were created exclusively using “TouchDesigner”, a visual and sound creation software. This development, spread over four months, experienced constant evolution. Although I had no prior knowledge of this software at the beginning of the project, I undertook self-directed learning. Even today, I continue to deepen my skills to push the limits of what I can produce.
For the sound aspect, the compositions were made by gathering and mixing royalty-free sounds. These elements helped generate an immersive sound atmosphere evoking the anxiety and overload related to digital data, thus reinforcing the dystopian atmosphere of the work.
The structure of the project was one of the fundamental questions of the creative process. After thorough reflection, I opted for aluminum as the main material. This choice goes beyond mere functionality to become a symbolic element: aluminum embodies both the coldness, and the dehumanized nature of the dystopian universe represented. Moreover, its physical fragility, marked by the imprints left upon contact, evokes the brutality and vulnerability inherent in this futuristic society. The structure is not just a support for visual projections but an integral part of the work, designed to engage the spectators. It allows the public to move within the installation, interact with it, and experience the reaction of the aluminum to their presence.
This interaction creates a feeling of oppression and confusion, blurring the line between understanding and misunderstanding. These individuals become both actors and subjects of the work, without fully realizing they are being observed, although it is possible to feel the implications. In this sense, the individual is transformed into an isolated “atom” in a binary universe of 0 and 1, captured by an abstract and invasive technological reality.
The work also includes a distinct introduction, where spectators can test the future interactive advancements of the project. In this introductory phase, a visualization distorts the participants’ body image, reminiscent of camera surveillance where every piece of data is collected and analyzed. This segment amplifies the central theme of surveillance and identity deconstruction while actively engaging the spectators in the artistic experience.
Thus, The Panoptic Code not only questions our relationship with technology but also how it redefines our perceptions and identity in a data-saturated world. It challenges us to reflect on the profound impact of technology on our daily lives and the potential consequences of living in a hyperconnected, dystopian society.
The theoretical singularity of the project
Contemporary art disrupts spatial-temporal perception by questioning our relationship with the world. Spectators become an integral part of the work, exploring an immersive space rather than contemplating a simple object. Through new sensory experiences, it redefines their understanding of reality and time.
Digital identity becomes a fluid and multiple entity, shaped by online interaction but also vulnerable to the dangers of a “digital suicide” resulting from poor management of the virtual image.
This exploitation radicalizes with algorithmic capitalism, where algorithms become the new form of power, dictating our social and economic interactions. This digital reality, merged with the physical, generates unpredictable artifacts, revealing the system’s limits and anomalies.
Finally, art explores the perversity of the sublime, where aesthetics goes beyond mere pleasure to delve into ambiguous and troubling territories. This sublime, blending wonder and terror, confronts spectators with their own limits, eliciting fascination and discomfort in a precarious balance between the beautiful and the frightening.
This world, saturated with information and surveillance, is the stage for a progressive dehumanization where the boundary between human and machine fades, giving way to a society of ultra-control, with humanity in decline. The abundance of data in this dystopia has not enriched humanity; it has stripped it of its humanity, reduced to an exploitable resource, manipulated, monitored, and controlled at every moment. Any attempt to escape this system is met with the omniscience of algorithms, which anticipate, influence, and neutralize.
After obtaining a bachelor’s degree in visual communication from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels,Fanny Pimpurniaux moved to Quebec to pursue her studies in digital art. She is currently in her second year of a master’s program in digital creation and new media at Université du Québec in Abitibi-Témiscamingue (UQAT).
Fanny developed an early sensitivity to engaged works, whether in painting, theatre, cinema, or immersive environments. She creates work that is not only aesthetic but also carries powerful messages about society at large.
Remerciements
I would like to thank my professor at UQAT, Jean Ambroise Vesac, who accompanied and supported me throughout this project, as well as the director of the master’s program in digital creation and new media at UQAT, Aude Weber. I also wish to thank the CNM lending service and my technician during the testing phase, Sébastien Duplessis, and all the students and cameramen who supported this project, as well as Hexagram for this DEMO.
