I'm preparing a presentation "Visualising the Posthuman Courtroom" for the 7th International Conference on The Arts in Society next month in Liverpool UK.
http://artsinsociety.com/conference-2012/
In the paper I focus upon the spatial implications of video conferencing. As the accused person is the main subject of my research, I'm interested in exploring the impact of video conferencing upon the courtroom structure of the custody dock. Many issues arise, including: questions of dematerialisation (refer to
Linda Mulcahy, Legal architecture: justice, due process and
the place of law Routledge, 2011); mobile justice; the phenomenology of courtroom architecture (refer to Juhani Pallasmaa,
'Hapticity and time' (2000) 207(1) Architectural
Review); the phenomenology of screens (refer to Ingrid
Richardson, 'Faces, interfaces, screens: Relational ontologies of framing,
attention and distraction' (2010) 18 Transformations; and Lucas Introna and
Fernando Ilharco, 'Phenomenology, screens, and the world: a journey with
Husserl and Heidegger into phenomenology' (2004) Social
theory and philosophy for information systems 56); and permeability.
I've just started writing about 'permeability', having come across the notion in Keith Farrington's 'The modern prison as total
institution? Public perception versus objective reality' (1992) 38(1) Crime & Delinquency 6. He analyses Erving Goffman's 'total institutions' (see below) in a broader
social context as having a range of networked connections and relationships. He
finds that prison environments are “enclosed within an
identifiable-yet-permeable membrane of structures, mechanisms and policies, all
of which maintain, at most, a selective and imperfect degree of separation
between what exists inside of and what lies beyond prison walls.”(pp.6-7) Following this line of thought, video
conferencing can be seen as adding a layer of permeability to the correctional
centre, opening up opportunities for a greater level of human interaction for inmates than
provided by a telephone. This is of great importance when considering
inmates’ access to legal advice through video conferencing, and to the maintenance
of family relationships through video family visits. Perhaps with video
conferencing the correctional centre is not so totally cut-off from society as
Goffman’s concept of the 'total institution' may suggest. Anyway, this is just a work in progress...
For a fascinating visualisation of docks – from cages and plexiglass to more open structures, I was pleased to find this page on the web: "Obscure Design Typologies: Courtroom Docks"
http://strangeharvest.com/obscure-design-typologies-courtroom-docks
Farrington p. 6 summarises Goffman’s theory of
the total institution. In note 1 p. 24 he writes “1. Goffman actually
identifies several basic themes or attributes that he sees as characterizing
and distinguishing the “total institution”: (a) total control over the inmate population which the administration
attempts to achieve and maintain; (b) the total
structuring of the inmate’s environment and activities; (c) the total submergence of the inmate’s
preinstitutional entity as he or she is socialized into and forced to adjust to
this environment; and (d) the total
isolation and separation of the institution and its inhabitants from the
larger society in which the institution resides. It is this last meaning of the
total institution concept – and this last meaning only – with which the present
article is concerned.” See: Erving Goffman, Asylums: essays on the social situation of
mental patients and other inmates, Anchor (Anchor Books, 1961).
