"...Foucault in his Discipline and Punish describes the profound importance of the introduction of surveillance into the prison system by means of the 'panopticon' -- Jeremy Bentham's eighteenth-century design for a circular prison divided into individual cells, all of which could be observed from a single vantage point. This was a form of prison architecture in which guards could maintain constant vigil over the imprisoned. Such surveillance revolutionized the effectiveness of incarceration because its power came from the assumption of the incarcerated that they were always under surveillance and therefore must always act as if they were. For the observer, sight confers power; for the observed, visibility is powerlessness."
-- Bill Ashcroft, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Theory

My newest English student, Emilia, is secretary to the president of Prudential Insurance in South America, which is headquartered in Buenos Aires. When we first met, I asked her to describe her educational background and her experience as an English speaker. She explained that she had studied English through high school and had then decided to become a psychology major in University. But this only lasted for two years, she told me, because the situation in the country at that time was very dangerous. In 1976, when she was 20, she had to switch to studying business administration. I asked her what she meant by "dangerous".

"The military government would not allow people to think, that is why," she told me. She explained that the school of social sciences was one of the first places that the government targeted in its ruthless mission to stifle all anti-government sentiment.

"Before they took over," she told me, "the police came. The police came into the university and a student from a group of activists threw a stone at the head of a police officer. That entire group was taken away. They had trucks waiting outside the university to take them away. They never came back, no one knows what happened to them."

"But it was worse," she said, "when the military took over. There was no one who was higher than them, no one to say, 'you can't do that.' I was sitting in a lecture one day, I was twenty years old, I saw these dark figures, I don't mean black, I mean to say that they gave me fear. They stood, looking into the class and came in, arms folded across their chests. They had big silver rings on the fingers. They walked past us and stood in the back of the classroom." She folded her arms and tensed her knuckles, looking down at her fingers as if she were wearing the rings herself.

"So what did they do?" I asked her.

"They stayed there, listening. They watched. I got up. I walked out of the classroom and walked home. My father told me, I don't want you to go back there, it's too dangerous. I never went back."

I told her I had been to a class at the University recently, at the design school, which was built during the dictatorship.

"I could never study there," she said. "Never. I don't know how they do it. I will not even walk into that building."

*

I first visited the FADU (Facultad de Arquitectura y Diseño Urbano or School of Architecture and Urban Design) with my friend Mariano, who is a graphic design major. We drove along the river, up to the edge of the city, and under a metal archway that said "Ciudad Universitaria", or University City, in grey letters. We got out of the car and he led me to a massive cement cube of a building, a seemingly 1970's architectural disaster with rust stains bleeding down the walls from the metal window frames. We walked up the stairs and came through the entrance to a large atrium full of kids talking, laughing, sitting and drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, reading, shuffling papers, sketching. One girl was carving a piece of Styrofoam to look like a bird's beak. It all made a strange music of chatter and shuffling, a very loud hum. I wondered if everyone went silent, how long it would take for the echo to subside.

The atrium continued up to the roof, so I could see some of what was going on every floor. Hanging from the banisters of each level was an explosion of words and images on posters and giant sheets. On a large red poster, the Communist Youth demanded justice for the disappeared. Some student government organization wanted more funding for computers and summer courses. The Juventud Evita asked us to remember the lives of the disappeared. One giant tapestry covered the west side of the space, hanging from the banister of the fourth floor and reaching all the way to the ground. Along the top, it read: "Compañeros de la FADU detenidos, desaparecidos y asesinados por el terrorismo del estado" (FADU students and professors detained, disappeared and assassinated by state-inflicted terrorism). Hundreds of photographs of students and professors had been printed on the fabric. One showed a girl smiling, with sunlight illuminating one side of her face. Beside the photograph was her name, Carmen Balerio de Alonso, and the number 23, her age when she disappeared. Another showed a man with long hair and a mustache looking off to one side. His name was Enrique Conti and he was assassinated when he was 27.

On either side of the tapestry, I could see what was happening on the halls of the second, third and fourth floors of the building. Students passed by each other in a rush, quickly stopping to give a kiss on the cheek, slipping into classrooms. Some carried big portfolios or canvases or sculptures covered in plastic. I could also see into the classrooms of the second floor. I could see people taking out books and pens and pieces of paper, moving chairs and settling in to take some notes. Every wall in sight was made of glass. Across the atrium, on the other side of the second floor, I could see people getting bored in a lecture. I could see everything. It's great, I said, how you can see what everyone's doing. I imagine it makes everyone feel sort of connected to each other and connected in their work.

Mariano told me that this wasn't the designer's intention. He explained that the building was constructed during the military dictatorship, following the idea that this kind of design would prevent student uprising or conspiracy. So it's a panopticon, I said. I had learned about this idea in college. Yes, he said, a prison. The idea of a panopticon developed with Jeremy Bentham's 19th century prison design that gave guards total visibility of all activity in all cells from any point in the room. Complete surveillance was the objective. If people know they are being watched, their behavior will change to the likings of the person watching.

While Mariano was in class, I did some exploring on my own, walked around noticing how everything had been messed with a bit. How every wall, every surface, door handle, banister, public telephone, exposed pipe, window sill, table or chair had some kind of drawing or sticker or cartoon or message on it, as if they were reclaiming the space. But just like the history, the design of the place, the visibility of everything, was impossible to avoid, impossible to forget. I looked out at that giant tapestry again and tried to imagine seeing it there everyday, having these faces, these people who represent such a past staring at you while you eat your lunch, talk to your professor, make a sketch of your boyfriend's hand.

I walked around the corner to an "emergency" exit where the door was propped open. The stairwell was covered with graffiti, tiny messages, shapes, building fragments, cartoons, full out schemes, tags, stencil art galore. Among the more typical, giant-scale graffiti letters and random words and phrases like mierda (shit) and hijo de puta (son of a bitch), there were things that really jumped out at me. A large-scale cartoon drawing of a cow wearing a business suit made of cow skin. There was a bubble coming from his mouth that said, "Si, obvio, es cuero" (yes, obviously, it's leather).

Stencils of pot leaves, Marilyn Monroe, Jimi Hendrix, Che Guevara, Jesus holding a gas mask, the Michelin man, Rodin's thinker sitting on a toilet, stencils of machine guns with the words "HOLLYWOOD: terrorismo cultural" (cultural terrorism) printed beneath. An extremely long dialogue, written in pencil, between a girl and boy about why he didn't call her yesterday. A purportedly complete global history of major natural disasters, beginning with Pompeii, written and illustrated in permanent marker. A large slice of toast with a mean look on its face and the words "ANGRY TOAST" stenciled underneath. On the next flight down the steps, there were stencil images of human bodies lying on each step, facing in different directions. I walked down and found a message explaining that these were a reference to the thousands of bodies that had been dumped into the ocean by the dictatorship. Remember them, it said, when you look into the water.

Ellery Biddle is a Philadelphia native who has been living and writing in Buenos Aires, Argentina since November of 2005. Check out her recent piece on the Guerra Sucia to learn more about the time period she discusses above.

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