Panopticsorts is an internet-based interactive project exploring the use of personal information and database profiling using historical contexts and reference. The piece derives its name in part by way of reference to The Panoptic Sort: A Political Economy of Personal Information, the work of media scholar Oscar Gandy, published in 1993.

The piece invites users to register on the site, and in doing so, submit information that is then used to qualify aspects of their character and person within an online database, the contents of which are made available online. The project draws upon a range of 19th Century sources, particularly those grounded in the pseudo-sciences of Phrenology and Physionomy, seeking to draw ideological parallels with concurrent social practices in population segmentation and market analysis.

It is the general acceptance and complicity we display towards the administrative and technological apparatus of the modern capitalist state that partly forms the basis for Panopticsorts. The piece has evolved out of a period of research into the sociological arguments and facets that define the role of the information economy in relation to existing patterns of social and institutional praxis.

Concerned less with angst leaden paranoia surrounding the activities of specific government agencies, the basis for the Panopticsorts project is focused on the wider imperatives, both historical and operational, for the collection of personal information itself. Surveillance and technology are a part of this, something that is itself reflected in the status and delivery of Panopticsorts as an 'intelligent' internet application. Nevertheless, the rationale behind the work itself seeks to address a broader scope of social discourse than any entrenched debate around the subject of technology and 'Big Brother'.