Synoptic Infrastructures: the all-overness of a new city development

Abstract

The talk considers the concept of synoptic vision – “the few” gazing at “the many” – to analyse elite messaging on urban policy and planning. Originally articulated by sociologist Thomas Mathiesen to describe a mass-media driven viewer society, the synopticon has also been used by researchers to analyse state-messaging in the neo-liberal city. The talk looks at the synoptic mediation of the development of a newly established state capital in southern India – Amaravati, Andhra Pradesh – where an “all over, all at once” infrastructure strategy scattered construction across a 217 square kilometer site. Decisions about planning, land-accumulation and build-out were broadcast to diverse stake-holders in ways that demonstrate the entanglements of synoptic power. The talk argues that technology-driven communication platforms promoting the new capital’s development enacted synoptic viewership and the concurrent staging of the site’s ultimately disastrous physical transformation.