Prison or Protection?
An Essay on Simon Denny’s “Amazon Worker Cage”

Back to Foucault, who deliberated on different forms of power and authority in various social contexts. Foucault referred to western societies from the middle of the 18th century to the middle of the 20th century as "disciplinary societies", wherein the pairing of the individual and the institution is of central importance. In disciplinary societies, the individual is drawn into various institutions throughout his or her life; and is released again to become embedded in another institution. A family, an educational institution, military service and ultimately a job in a factory or an office. Meanwhile, during the course of his or her life, the individual may spend time in a hospital or psychiatric clinic; occasionally time is spent in prison. Each of the above-listed institutions enacts its own system of rules, be it written or unwritten, to which the individual is subordinate. To Foucault, the “Panopticon”, as conceived of by the British philosopher Jeremy Bentham, was the architectural manifestation of disciplinary society. This concept of a prison, designed around 1800, envisioned a circular structure of prison cells, wherein windows on both sides provided for maximal transparency. In the center of this ring-shaped building was to stand a tower - housing a guard who, from this central position, could monitor all prisoners. This architectural array was meant to install absolute efficiency: Even if the guard was absent, the possibility of his or her presence would lead the inmates to take over the guard's task; they would discipline themselves to conform to the rules of the institution.

The pertinence of Foucault’s reference to panoptic power structures becomes clear when looking at the evolution of the disciplinary society into a society of control, starting around the middle of the 20th century (Deleuze, 1992). In the chapter “An ethics of surveillance” (Bauman & Lyon, 2013, p. 163), Bauman speaks of “feedback loops” that were developed in the context of industrial production and became the modus operandi of the society of control. A supervisory system observes and collects data and upon an individual’s noticing or being informed that he or she is being observed, the circle is complete: knowing that he or she is being observed, the individual adjusts his or her behavior accordingly to conform to the standards of the respective institution. The institutions of the disciplinary society remained and disciplinary and controlling power from thereon went hand in hand. The part of such systems that defines “normal” or “desired” behavior, both in relation to general morality as well as to ethics of work or productivity, also holds the power of control: To this end, a wide variety of data is being collected. Not only many public places, but also most of the larger institutions are nowadays equipped with cameras. Zuboff (1988) describes this complementation of disciplinary and controlling forces without referring to the term “control” when she interconnects “Panoptic Power” and “Information Technology”. Today, there is no need to build towers for a permanent monitoring of individuals – minuscule cameras are available at a prize less than € 30.00. Zuboff states that:

“Information systems that translate, record, and display human behaviour can provide the computer age version of universal transparency […] Such systems can become information panopticons that, freed from the constraints of space and time, do not depend upon the physical arrangement of buildings […].” (Zuboff, 1988, p. 322)

Around 130 years after the rise of Taylorism, Amazon is one of the companies that are taking the Taylorian ideas into the modern age. Small-scale division of labor and a breakdown into specialized locations for packaging, sorting and dispatching make it possible for orders to be delivered on the very day of purchase. When it comes to employee selection, Amazon uses algorithms that estimate a prospects’ eligibility. Furthermore, there has been a plethora of scandals (Canales, 2020) surrounding the issue of “employee monitoring”. For example, Amazon used employees’ social media activities to anticipate complaints about working conditions and tendencies towards the formation of unions.

Where Taylor had to use means of direct human observation, such as measurement tape and a stopwatch, companies like Amazon can now resort to the help of modern technology and artificial intelligence. Throughout the corporate history, Amazon has filed a large number of patents. Amongst a multitude of patents, one of the more striking examples is a bracelet (Cohn, 2018, Patent No.: US 9,881,276 B2), which tracks employees’ hand movements and prompts them towards the correct parcels via vibratory signals. Praised as a gadget that facilitates work, its true value lies in the fact that it can monitor and store data on dimensions of interest to Amazon, such as working hours, task efficiency and breaktime.

Another such patent, by now retracted supposedly due to a societal echo of ethical concern, is what is now known under the keyword “worker cage”. Amazon itself mentions the word “cage” in the original text of the patent: “[…] a cage-like structure […]” (Wurman et al., 2016, p.18). What was later referred to as the “cage” in the media is only a small part of a larger whole.

It recognizes errors that constitute deviations from this plan and indicates them. The operating employee is reduced to the physical correction of such errors: Basic repair work, maintenance and replacement of weary parts fall into his or her responsibility. It goes without saying that these operations are meticulously documented to then be optimized.

The abovementioned exhibition “Mine” has this “cage” at its center: Denny has built the original cage as a static, non-functioning model by using the original plans. Denny himself describes the “cage” as a “[…] sculptory description of a kind of relationship between human labor and different types of machinic groups […] a very confronting object.” (KunstsammlungNRW, 2020).

Each number raises questions that remain unanswered and open for speculation. Denny thus forces the viewer to question and scrutinize what he or she is confronted with. A specification of color cannot be found in Amazon's patent. Denny opts for a white version before a dark background in the Düsseldorf exhibition. What do we associate with the color white? The associations of sterility and cleanliness stand for the avoiding of (human?) error, mistakes and blemishes. Futurism, transparency, innocence, and neutrality are other terms that come to mind. On the contrary, the title “Mine” evokes associations of dark corridors, of dust and the opposite of sterility and transparency.

The cage as a part of an automated workspace and as constructed and presented by Simon Denny can further be interpreted as the architectural inverse of the surveillance as proposed by Bentham (i.e. a “guard” in the center, the “guarded” around the center). Although there is still an “inmate” - he is no longer a prisoner but an occupant; a human remnant moving through the center of an automated system. The observing force is no longer positioned in the center, but is everywhere around the center, universal, so to speak. Cameras are filming from every corner, while machines collect and save data. Denny reproduces this inversed panopticon and the potential trepidation that it may evoke in the exhibition room as the “cage” stands, illuminated from above, in the center of the room with the visitors moving around it. When referring back to real employees in real Amazon warehouses one may even interpret Dennis “cage” in its most literal and symbolic sense – the employee is a prisoner of his or her limited abilities; surrounded by machines that perform what used to be his or her job in a more competent manner thereby demonstrating his or her weak competitive position. The worker is trapped in his or her limited human ability.

Denny’s self-conception is that of a critic of capitalism and indeed, in reference to the above interpretation, the “cage” also symbolizes a crystallization of a class society. In the future, education will become ever more important, as physical labor will successively be delegated to machines. Those who do not acquire the ability to program or instruct “management modules” remain enclosed in the cage of limited abilities. When relating Denny’s work to the panopticon proposition, a literal interpretation of the cage as a symbol of confinement derives further validity if considered in light of an idea of philosopher Zygmunt Bauman. In discussion with sociologist David Lyon, Bauman refers to the Panopticon as a “Ban-opticon” (Bauman & Lyon, 2013, p. 117), thereby emphasizing his opinion of the potential by-product of all surveillance: Contrary to military surveillance, which oftentimes ultimately results in the death of an individual, he believes that the controlling, sanctioning and categorization of individuals (credit rating, eligibility in the job market etc.) based on relevant data, if telling a tale of inadequacy, result in their social death (receiving no loan, finding no job etc.).

When looking at the bird, the viewer may also be reminded of the work-field of mining: In many mines, miners brought a canary bird underground. If the birdsong stopped or the bird even passed out or died, this served as a warning signal of impending monoxide poisoning. The image of a classical “birdcage” is also quickly evoked: The chirping bird in the cage, at the place where the worker is to be seated, confronts us with our moral indecision and our anthropocentrism in dealing with nature: The locking of a person in a “cage” provokes ethical debate whereas we believe that caging millions of birds as pets is normal and appropriate. As such, the birdcage is a symbol that may even cause its contemplators to imagine themselves as the future pets of intelligent and independent robots.

So tracked! Is the life of thousands of men, women, and young persons at the start of the new millennium. It seems as if the nature of our stress has changed in modern times. While, 150 years ago, people came home exhausted as they could not keep up with the demands of the changing world of work, the nature of our exhaustion is different today. The knowledge of the ubiquitous collection and analysis of our data exhausts us. At a time when we all carry a smartphone in our pocket, most of us are “linked-in”. Today, most of us carry their own panopticon with them and in the brave new world, he who refuses to be transparent sorts himself out, as whoever is not “linked-in” is “left-out”.

In times of datafication, surveillance and the emerging of what is often referred to as “Industry 4.0”, Denny’s cage is a symbolic yet powerful seismograph of the current state of development. It vividly highlights two themes that are inherently tied to the topic of “artificial intelligence”: peoples fearing of losing their job due to being replaced by intelligent machines and the concern about the omnipresent monitoring and storing of data. Not only in the case of Amazon do these topics belong together. Optimists see the birth of a new generation of machines as slaves to the human race, such that humanity will be liberated from the strain of physical labor and free to live up to its creative potential. Hence, some even anticipate a bloom of the arts. The pessimistic, on the other hand, fear that humans might become secondary; existing as quaint “pets” to artificial intelligences, that will become so intelligent that they will continue to develop without human intervention. Whatever the future may hold; we should be alert to as many scenarios as possible. Quite often it is artists like Simon Denny who help us see the world from different perspectives and who capture its’ ability to change.