ri he Burden of Representation

Ecn)c n Photgrophis and 1Il5toriP

John Tagg

Mrnt1soTA

University of Minnesota PressMi nneapoli S

9 by he Unersity )f Mmnesota Pr s In memorjj of mj mother,T be A rue Sout[ Suite 290

Fthel Tagg, born 1922, died 1980iep MN 54(1 250

C yrt. t c of tTage 1985

r a ts reserved Nc part of 11 pub1iei ion may be reorodu ard n retr e al sy tam, or transmitted i any form or by ary

rie. m, Je tror te r teefanical ph i oc pymp reaordmg, ortfe w a, w thout the pricr s ci ci oermission of the oublisfer,

I ubF bed in Qreat Britia i byM \CMILLAN PRFSS I TD

ISBN 0 S166 405 4

Th use sity I Mm s a is aequ I c pportunltv dueatc nd en p y

Priited r Chi ua

Contents

J / ato

iled rneni3

In roduction

I A Democracy of the Image: PhotographicPortraiture and Commodity Production 34

2 Evidence, Truth and Order: Photographic Records

and the Growth of the State 00

A Means of Surveillance: The Photograph asE idence in Law

4 A Legal Reality: The Photograph as Property in

Law 103

5 God’s Sanitary Law: Slum Clearance andP otography in I ate NineteenthCentury Leeds

6 1 he Currency of the Photograph: New DealReformism and Documentary Rhetoric 153

7 Contacts/Worksheets: Notes on Photography,History and Representation 184

)te and i?eferncev 212

Bibiioraph3 231

237

vii

xii Acknowledgemenis

6 as rhe Currency of the Photograph in Screen Fducatwn, No 28Au umn 1978’ and Chapter 1 under the same title is T. D’ inettand J. Spena (eds Photography Politics One, Photography ‘N srkshop, I ondon, 1979

i tic author and publishers wish to acunowledge with thanksthe following photorraphic sources. Barnardo Photographic Archive,Carsbridgeshirc County Constabulary; Collectors’ Editions NewYork Internati mal Museum of Photography at George EastmanITou c Gernshe’ n C c Ileetion, Harry Ransom Humanities ResearchCenter, University of Texas at Austin; Kodak Museum’ Lceds CitsLibraries, University of Leeds, Brotherton Library, Library ofCongress, ashington; The Mansell Collection, National Archis C s,

ashington, National Portrait Gallery, London; Museum of theCity of New York, The City of Oakland, the Oakland Museum,iliforr a; Cral’am Osenden, Public Record OlIve, London ref:PCOM 2 291 ; Royal Society of Medicine The Trustees of theScience Museum, London’ Stockport Library, Local HistoryDepartment, Syndication International Ihc Bo rd of lrustces ofthe Victoria and Albert Museum, Londoi I he publishers hasemade every effort to trace the copyright holders but if any haveh en i sadvcrtently overlooked, they will be ph ased to iv ake thenecessary arrangement at the first opportunity

Los Angeles John Iagg

Ir troduction

I

sthumouslv publ shed book, Camera Lucida Rolandagainst hA appar nt rtrpretrs, ass us with a pcignart

r A the r alist position The camera is an instrument ofs e Beyond any encodiw of the photograph, theie is an

tc i I connation bctwcen ‘the necessariy real thing which hasaced before the lens and the photographic image; ‘every

to aph is somehow co-natura1 with its referent What thetog ph asselts is tAt overwhelming truth that the thing has

ti e e this was a reality which once existed, though it is a1 ty ne can so longer touchI e uiet passion of Barthes’s reassertion of a retrospective

raphie realism, whose unconscious signified must always be

F ence of death, has to be read against the death of his ownr his reawak ned sense of unsupportable loss, and his search

t imagc and not ‘just an image’ of her,2 His demand fora a demand if not to have her back, then to know she was

e consolation of a t uth in the past which cannot besed 1 his is what the photograph will guarantee’

I c nportaut thing is that the photograph poasesses ane dential force, and that its testimouy bears not on the tibject

u on time, Frorr a phenomencslogical viewpoint in theP ograplv, th power f authenticatiop exceeds the power ofr re entation

T age which is brought to mind is that of the photograph ash mask, But this same image serves to remind us that

The Burden of Repreienlation

ii c t graphy is not urnquc in its alleged phcnomcnological basis

I c d atF -mask sig ifics the same that has-been-and-is io-more’

bs riechanica iy substituting olume of plaster or bronz br the

vcxities and cc ncas tics of rc ently dcad flesh Yet it is ntireIy

quest orabli whethc a death-mask could conjure up the piercing

I St rcahts uhich Barthcs ssanted to expcnencc in his g ief Ihe

s m mas he said for the engra ed images produc d by the

pbs ionotracc — the briefly fashionable device for tracing profiles

s h ch was, in a sense, the ideological precursor of pfotography in

that the mechanical basis and reproducibility of its imag s not onl

ensured their relative cheapness and availability, but were also

seen at the time, the end of the eigh cc ith and beginning of the

nineteenth century. as the source if a truth not possessed h

cons eritional images.I nced not point out, of course. that thc existence of a photograph

is flu guarantee of a corresponding pie-photographic existent, The

notorious and retrospectivei clums montage which showed US

Senator Millarri Tvdings in earnest cons ersation ssith Earl Browclei,

appearing to implicate him in communist ssmpathies and losing

him his scat in Congress during the McCarths period, made that

crude and costly deception only too clear — with the benefit ofhindsight. laughably clear, perhaps. But such wisdom after the tact.

alwa s runs the risk of making montage a special case: a case ofmanipulation of otherssisc truthful photographic elements, On a

more subtle level, however, we have to see that everr photograph is

the result of specific and, in every sense, significant distortions

sshich render its relation to any prior reality deeply problematicand raise the cfucstion of the determining level of the material

apparatus and of the social practices within which photographytakes place. The opticall ‘corrected’ 1egai record of a buildingfaçade is no less a construction than the montage, and noless artificial than the expressivei} transbormed’ experimentalphotographs of Lois Ducos dr.i Hauron or, in a different context.those of Bill Brandt. The legal record i-, in much the same waythough for different. purposes, an image produced according tocertain institutionalised formal rules and techrical procedureswhich define legitimate manipulations and permissible distortionsin such a way that, iii certain contexts, more or less skilled anduitably trained and validated interpreters may draw inferences

from them, on the basis of historically established conventions It is

ir Pt .i ion 1 ft u ork that i he rv i dts u a 1ca r v c g d ca Fe n fc reed,

x gal r a tur I ph ogr’ F I c a Pvc inko plo grapl cfcrer and tic sign i F rekr

r resc ib e aid a guaran cc nothin5 tle 1eva i g WI t ‘nakc tIc li ik s a discriminsto y cern c 1

isto cal p occ r which part u a utica nI cc a - e t vo to orgaruse expericr cc and de

c a ics reah v tic paper image sshi h th ‘ough y

ses r ay be r meaningful in all sorts of i s Tan’ ilia eno oh Reflected light is gathered b a static

ii r 5 if particular construction, set at a pai ti ulad a tIe lj in its field of vu w. [he projected image ofth s t s bcuud, cropped and distorted bs the fiat‘yctar ula, tate of the camera which owes its structure not to the

the as . but to a particular theoretical conception of therai.jhierri 4 repo senting spart in isso dimensions. I’poir this plane.‘h muficoicortd plas of light is then lixed as a granular. chemicalflO’zotou”ation on a translucent support which. by a comparableit,cthnd. mas he made to sield a positive paper print.

Hoss could all this be reduced to a phenorneriological guarantee?,ucrs crage, chance effects, purposeful interventions, choices and

aratinris produce meaning, ssliatcvcr skill is applied and sshateverds ioon of laboui the process is subject to. ‘[his is not the inflection

nor though irretries able reality, ,is Banihes would have usbeliese but the production of a new and specific reality, thephotograph, which becomes meaningful in certain transactions andhas real effects, but which cannot reli’r or he referred to a prephc.tograohic realite as to a truth. The photograph is not a magical‘eranarun ‘but a material product of a material apparatus set to

t k in specific ontexts. by specific fhrces, fhr more or less definedpurposes. it requires. therefore, not an alchemy but a history.nuiside shich the existential essence of photography is empty andcannot del er what Barthes desires: the confirmation of anxisterr e tht mark of a past presence: the repossession ol his

r he sbodye could go further Es cmi if we were confronted h the actual

t it about whose past) existence the photograph is supposeds re us we could not hase the authentic encounter Barthes

We could not extract some existential absolute from the

The Burden of RepreentatiOu intioduetion J1-t

onsdcus and unconscious, ultural. psychological and perceptual

codes d processes hich constitute our experier ‘e of the world

an tak it meant gful just as hey us est m nir g m a a ti

mi ll it-c ourcd nap \ei h r xp rienc tor

h eparat d from the larguac s rerc -rtat’rs

I I a! struc ir s and pta tic r yhicl h y ar articula ed

and sshwh ther dis upt The trauma of Barthes wother’s deatf

throws Earthes back on a sense of loss which produces ifl him a

boning thr a prmlinguistic eertainfl and units — a nostalgic and

regressis c phantas. transcending loss, on which he founds his idea

of photographic realism; to make present what is ahent or. more

ctl to make it ietiospectivel real a poignant ‘reality one can

no 1 nec touch’. XSI exceeds representation hcwever. can t

Is defit tion. he articul ted. \{o’e thar this ‘t is a efict of the

pr du ‘ f h ubj’ tina dtl uhrep sentati ntogiveri

to th pha itass o I is w nctli ig m e We arc n nice I t o

work with the re i cc have. Fe r alit of the paper print the

material item.But what is also real is what makes the print more than paper

what makes it meaningful. For this. however, we must look not to

some ‘magic’ of the medium. but to the consciouS and unconscious

processes. the practices and institutiOns through sihich the

photograph an ietg a phantasy, take on meaning, and exercise

an effect What i r al is not just the material item but also the

discursive s stem of WI ich tnt image it hears is part. it is In the

realit not of the past, but of present meanings and of changing

discursive systems that we must therefore turn our attention ‘I hat

a photograph can coxrw to stand as evidence, for example. rests not

on a natural or existential fact, but on a social. semiotic process.

though this is not to suggest that evidential value is embedded in

the print, in an abstract apparatus, or in a particular signifying

strategy. It will he a central argument of this book that what

Barthes calls ‘evidential force’ is a complex historical outcome and

is exercised by photographs only within certam institutional

pta t ces and witir, parti’ulr historical relations the investigation

of wh ch will take us far from an aesthetic or phenomenological

context The very idea of what constitutes evidence has a history

a history which has escaped Barthes, as it has so many labourist

and social historians too. It is a history which implies definite

techiques and procedures. concrete institutions, and specific social

relations — that is. relations of pow er. Jr is Into this more extens;veheld that we must insert the history of photographic ci idenee. Thepr F i is historic I n t existe i ial To conjure up sonietl ing JI

i i ivolses adav I sugge tIc text hat on ask yourself,n t ust rhet r callv, urder what conditions won d a pho og aph

I cI Ne Mo ‘ e (of whicf the ear naryt be acceptable?

H

What I no on to argue is that the coupling of evidence aridpl1otrraph in the second half of the nineteenth centurs washoe up tutu the mergcnce of new institutions and new practiceso s ation ard r-cord-keep’ng that is. those new techniques or

nt un tnd regulader uhici wet’ se cert’-al to t°er c u’ g f th local a id natior al tate in industrialised

sQ es at that time and to the dcselopment of a network ofdisci1 arv institut ns — the polic , prisons, as lums, hospitals.departments of public health, schools, and even the modern factor‘a stem itself The new techniques of surveillance and recordhaiboured h5 such institutions bore directis on the social bodr innew usats They enabled, at a time of rapid social change andinstjl i!i’a , an unprecedented extension and integration of socialad i Ition, amounting even before klphonse Bertillon’ss ati ation of criminal records in the 1 880s - to a new strategy

ame time the emergence and official recognition ofnis ital photography was caught up with more general anddicue ‘ad transthrmations in society and in was of thinking aboutit. representing it. and seeking to act on it. The development of newregulators and disciplinary apparatuses was closely linked.throughout the nineteenth century. to the formation of new sorialand anthropological sciences — criminology, certainly. but alsopsv hiatrv, compa ‘alive ann torn1 germ theory, sanitation, and so

i nd the new kinds of professionalisms associated with them,id ook be th the body arid its environment as their field, theiriam of expertise redefimng the social as the object of their

‘a inca! intersentions On a profound level, indeed, the twodccc oprnenrs could not he separated. for, as Foucault’s work hashw i. the production of new knowledges released new effects of

ihe Burden of Rejiresen‘ation Jatrodu, tro

power. jusi as new fbrms of the exercise of power sielded new

knowiedges of the social bods which was to be transformed.’ Power

and meaning thus hase a reciprocal relation described in the

coupled concepts of the regime of power and the regime ol sense.

What characteriscd the regime in which photographic esidence

enrerçed. It crefr. was a complex administrative and drscursne

restmu It mit g Ii r ng on a social disision between the power and

pr s ilece ofp oducing and poi esrng arid the burden f being meaning.

In the. co itcxt of this historical shift in power and sen e,

photogm phic dot umr-ntation and esidence rot k forr-i, not all at

once, of course. fbr the photograph’s status as evidence and n cord

like its status as \rt) had to hr produced and nego iated to be

established

Vet it is important, to reiterate that this status ‘annot he

understood solek iii thu cuntuxe of ai hival pra rices arid new

discourses centring on the hod First, there are real dangers in

separating late nineteenth-century disccurses which specifs the

body from disc nurses of the social ens ironment which they came to

supplement but not supplant: indeed as the Quarry Hill albums

discussed below show photographic es idence has to be tracked

cross both domains. Second the changing status of ph tographs

must also he pursued through courts of law Select (3ommi tee

hearings, governmental inquiries commissioners reports, and

debates in legislatise bodies where the deterriinants of esdence

and proof were defined and redefined. This will mean m t only

investigating the legislation and judicial practices which laid down,

in various pohce. prison and criminal justice Acts, where and when

photographic records were required to be made and the terms

under which tht’ could function as evidence. It will also mean, as I

argue in Chapter 4, looking at the photograph’s second court

appearance. not as the instrument of criminal law hut as the object

of copyright laws which defined the status of creative properties

and thus contributed to that separation and stratification of

photographic production into the amateur and professional.

instrumental arid artistic domains which was laid out in the last

decades of the nineteenth centurs.

in both eases whether pursuing the photograph as instrument or

object of legal practices, we shall have to take lull account of

significant national differences, between Britain. France, the United

Stares, and so on. And, while we are being cautious, we might also

add r number of other reservations that must qualify attempts toes1elid Foucaufi’s metaphor of Panopticisi arid his concept of anc w mee hnologt of pow erknow1edge to the photographic domainF iryr, the rhronolog5 of change, whicl1 is unclear in Foucaultcanri,,t he taken to pomt to a singic and hnal resersal of thepolitical axis of representation or to mark a definite periodicitvor can national differences and inconsisttflcies he suppressed Forcxampb, if the l880s in France were a period of rationalisation inpcli e otographs, with the introduction of Bertillon’s ‘signaLetic’id r t t, care system, this does not mesh easily and conveniently

3 t d elopme sts elwwhere, In Britain, local police forces hadbeen [ring photography since the l86O, but, even afier the 1870

icqi icing county and borough prisons to photograph convictedpr’sotiers the value of such records for detection continued to bequstioned A parliamentary report of 18,3 summarising returnsiroin counts arid borough prisons showed that, of 13.631photographs taken in England and Wales under the 1870 Act up to

Dcemnher 31, 1872, only 156 had been useful iii eases of detection1} had to be et against a total cost of £2,948 18i 3d.6 Thus, the

Inc in Britain, like other offices, did nor obtainh r own photograpluc specialists until after 1901, following the

du lion not of an anthropornetric system like Bertillori’5 hutof 5i Edward Henry’s fingerprinting system, Even then, the fhrniat

t ae eptable record photographs was still under debate in th late‘Ci

-,

Sr ond, certain exaggerate d readings of Foucault— of which the

ussas s that follow are not Innocent face the problems of olderrsIops of the thesis of social control: they run the risk of

2. “rlooking more mundane, material constraints on the lives of theuomina[rd classes and of ovcrstatiiig the triumph of control, whiletrnging to notions of a thwarted but revolutionary class, As the

fistoran Gareth Stcdman Jom s has insisted, Benthannees andsangelicals in Brdaii. for example, were no more successful thandi als and Chartists in moulding a working class in their ownr e, thorn the ]850s on a workrngj55 culture was gradually

e ta[ i’shej which hoWe\ en conservative arid deferisjs e, proveds rtually impersious tc external attempts to determine’ its characteror dirctieni Yet, having said this as a partial coirectjve to some ofwhat fbllows, the fbrce of the argument is clear that the emergence31 photographic documentation and what Barthes sees as the

The Burden of Repr entahon Ii’j/(t100

photograph’s ‘evidential force were bound up uith new discursne

and institutional forms, subject to but also exercising real effects of

power, and developing in a complex historical process that is all

but obliterated by the idea of a continuous ‘documentary tradition’

which takes the status ol photographic esidence as neutral and

given

III

Docume itar as such u as a later development belonging both to

a different phase in the histom of the capitalist state and to a

different stage of struggle around the articulation, deployment and

taus of ,ealut rheorics. Taking its name fu m a usage oioed b

the film critic John Grierson in 1926, documentary came to denote

a discursi e for nation which was s ider by far than photography

alone, but which appropriated photographic technology to a central

and privileged place within its rhetoric of immediacy arid truth

Claiming only to ‘put the facts’ directly or viceriouslv, through the

report of ‘first hand experience’, the discourse of documentary

constituted a complex strategic response to a particular moment of

crisis in Western Europe and the USA — a moment of crisis not

only of social and economic relations and social identities but,

crucially, of representation itsclf of the means of making the sense

we call social experience. Outside this crisis, the specificity and

effectivity of documentary cannot be grasped. Focused in specific

institutional sites and articulated across a range of intertextual

practices, it was entirely bound up with a particular social strategy.

a liberal corporaust plan to negotiate economic, political and

cultural crisis through a limited programme of structural reforms,

relief measures, and a cultural intervention aimed at restructuring

the order of discourse, appropriating dissent, and resecuring the

threatened bonds of social consent.

Integral to such a venture, therefore, was a discursive stiategy

whose rcahsation was to give the documentary mode — which, by

contrast, remained oppositional in Britain in the I 930s a central

place in Franklin Roosevelt’s reformist ‘New Deal’ programme. By

mohihsing documentary practices across a whole series of New

Deal agencies. Roosevelt’s administration did more than assemble

prjpaganda for its policies. It deplm ed a rhetotic with largericims than tins: with claims to retrieve the status of Truth in

se a tatus threatened by crisis but whose renegotiation wasescntal ii social relations ot meaning were to he sustained andii weal and social identities resecured while demand for reform

on tamed ithiri he limrts of monopoly capitalist relations.

(‘ rrainl docunientar traded on realist niodes arid practices ofin cc at’on which had onger histories in the growth and

snueles lI urban, industrialised societies. Such histories implicated

d i ar too, in the dtselopmcnt and deployment I havectrcribed of new discourses on societ, new ways of scrutinising it.

ix m ng it, and seeking to transfhrm it. I he process was, as IhaVe ahxade argued, hound up with the emergence of institutions,practices arid professionalisms hearing directls on the social body

iahen thruugh novri techniques of surx illance, recordehu ipine training and reform. Intersecting with older practicesa ‘iscourses of philanthmpv, thes new institutionalised

s articulated with and extended the sphere of influence ofmu ucturecl state apparatus in ways which integrated socialula tin i ir an unprecedented manner derolving it systematically

t dontains of 11ff never before subject to such inters enticin. I’heii m ary movement of the paternalistic New Deal tate

het)ngcd to this hn,tor of centralising, corporatist reform which.in is the imd-nineteenth century on through health, housing,rnitation. t ducation, the prvention of crime, arid a trategc of

erninglv benevolent social provision, had sought to represent,c r ard reconstitute the social body in new ways.

Social welfare was thus wedded to a mode of governance whosetig tion did not pass unresisted whether actively or passively,

set ulin h sought to establish its rule not primarily through coercionand authoritarian control, as under fascism, but through relationsif dejendence and consent Central to it, therefore, was anemergent formation of iiistitutioris, practices and representations

F hr iished means fbr training and sugveilling bodies in greatnumbers, while seeking to instil in them a self-regulating disciplinean t position them as dependent in relation to supervisoryapuaiatu. es through whfi h the interventions of the state appearedboth benevolent and disinterested, In the context of this modern

r , of pow er, we can safely dismiss the view that the res ersalof the political axis ol representation in late nineteenth- and early

10 The Burden oj’ Representation

twentieth-c ntur documentation and the subsequent amassing of a

systematic archie of subordinated class, racial and sexual subieets

can he looked at as ‘progressive’ phenomena or as signs of a

demm ratisation of pictorial culture.

If there is a continuit, then, it is that of deseloping systems of

production, administration and power. nor of a ‘docuIncntaiv

tradition’ resting on the supposed inherent qualities of the

photographic medium, reflecting a progressive engagement with

reaht or esponding to popular demand Yet even at this level,

the continul4 is one of uneven and sporadi development In

changing historical circumstances, at moments of recurrent crisIs or

rapid transformation, s’. sterns of gas ernaoce could not survive

unchanged and had to be renegotiated in v ays crucially focused on

the logics of social meaning and systems of representation v hich

they sustained and wlijun, in ruin, sri ved as theii suppol ts.

The photographs examined by the essa’ s in this study are

patterned across such shifts and crises in the discursive order The

years in which the Quarry Hill arta of Leeds was systematically

surveyed and photographed, for instance marked the close of a

period of instability in Britain - of high unemplos ment, social

unrest, threatened epidemics. and immigration — which called forth

new social stratagems, new techniques of representation and

administration, through which, it v as hoped, a specific kind of

attentioo to the material needs of the poor would provide the

means of their regulation and retnrmanon. It was in such a context

that the institutions, practices and discourses of social welfare came

to be articulated in the space of the local state, Crisis was averted

and a nev phase of development was prepared by a social

restructuring negotiated through local apparatuses deploying new

powers and new modes of representation. just as in the USA in the

1930s, in the midst of an even more profound economic, political

and cultural upheaval, social unity was recast and a new relation

between corporate capital and the state was worked out at a

national level, in which weifaie structures and documentary

practices played a crucial role in securing social regulation and

conscr t within a social democratic framework rhc ‘Depres ion’

years and the temporisrng rtsponse of liberal deirocracv as I have

argued. provided the setting in which documentary rhetoric as such

emerged. But it was half a century earlier that, in the most

developed capitalist countries, the local structures of the welfare

[ last phrase. however, runs the risk 0f remaining ouR alfitnrica. Irs pnthcsis fo stop lv re ss mOd cay e us in

t dv of e iding sigirif ‘ant n oral difference but alsoii re her a eomflex and dis or tinuous hi tor\ Between

‘lv rinent of photoaraph in the sselfisrisni of the last quarteri ‘iincteeorh century and the emergence of the liberal.

-I aer c document try mode of the lO3Os important changesv he analys d Ir the rineteenth century, for example. we

etc .‘ ‘,ith th in, omc ntal demos tiirnt of phor )graphyci’ icqcd adinirustratis e practices and the profi’ssionalisedeases 1 new social sciences aothropologs

, crimInology.lea riatoms, psych try, public health, urban planning,

and o on all of them domains of expert si in whichccments and evidence were addressed to qualified peers anddii uiated onls in certain limited institutional contexts, sue h as

f law, parliamcntars committees, profrssional journalsitr it of local government Rival Societies and academic

c cs, I i the terris of such diseour es. the working classesersed peoples, the criminal, poor. ill-housed, sick or insanee eonsttuted as the passive or. in this structure. ‘feminised’ —

ib us of knowledge, Subjected to a scrutinising gaze. forced to

5w s et cut oil from command of meaning, such groups werei”na ,‘nt cl as, and wishfullx rendered, incapable of speaking.a rig or organising for themselves. The rhetoric of photographic0 tinier tation at this period, whether attached to the

ci rentahst arguments efpublic health and housing or focusedFe alleged pathologies of the body isolated in medical and

crminologtcal discourse, is therefore one of precision. measurement.r.druiation and proof separating out its objects of knowledge.s’ ioing emotional appeal and dramatisation, and hanging its

on echnical rules and protocols whose institutionahsationhad to be negotiated. As a strategs of control, its success has beengreatly exaggerated: hut as a strategy of representation. its claimsand their consequences seem to have gone largely unchallenged.

SIt.tti’ ,ii

i pared itt gui t th m was a ne reg’mt cf

]7o’ Burden j Representation 1 3

Br co itrast w th th I st quart ci thc m tee itI cent . 1’ e

irnit . political and ultural (rises of the I 92fls and 931)s

occurred in mote des eloped capitalist democracies in which. whtlc

F tc hnkal md instrumental us of pfotngraphy ‘ontinued nd

SI rcat1 stcrrat s d ar ext rdcd, a wIdri io a hn of

social cc ,erisus is as also demanded, A crucial it flee tion of the

discourse of documcnta’ion thet fore took place Mobilising new

r ien of r riss reproduction. rh dot umentarv p ‘acth cs of hr

9 (1 , the gi eouall the prcs net of a des lohng at g

profession. it crc addrs wed not only to experts but also to spe ific

setors of a broader lar audience, in a concerted effort to recruit

them to ti c dis ourse of paternalistic, state-duet ted reform.

D ur e ita F tography traded on the status of the off c’al

document as proof and inscribid relations of power in repie enta on

is hh is were structured like those of’ earlier practices of photo—

dot urrierltatimn: both speaking to those ith relative power about

thos esit oned as lacking, as the femirised Othc Is pas isc but

pathetic objects capable onE of ofTer’ng tFemselscs up to a

henesolent, transcendent gaze — the gaze of the camera and the

eaze of the paternal state. But in its mode of address, document-try

transformed the flat rhetoric of evidence into an emotionalised

drama of cxperi rice that worked t( ifect an im’ ginar identification

of viewer and image. reader and representation, which would

suppress difference arid seal them into the paternalistic relations of

domination and subordination on which documentary’s truth difeets

depended. At the same time and in keeping with a reasserted

environmentalism which displaced again the geneticism of

nineteenth-c rnturv anthropomerric sciences, it transposed the static

sTaration of bodies and space characteristic ol earlier photographic

records into an ethnographic theatre in which thc supposed

authenticity and interrelationships of gesture, behaviour and

location were essential to the ‘documentary’ salue of the

representation. The comparative measurement of specimen subjects

and spaces in isolation gave place to what the Farm Securits

Administration photographer. John Collier Jr, called ‘visual

anthropology’.’One notable, if partial exception to this might come to mind in

the work of Walker Evans. But if, for photographers like Evans, an

older archival mode of documentation remained available as a

rhetorical resource to mark out a difference both from documentars

Ii S uboli ti-a egie i did . or lr s th thtma ared nstit itiona spaces of at sth ticise 3 photography is hich,sns ;afseijtcd from Stiegliiz arid others and in is hich. grs en theirsjrjt anO separateness by the 19.30 the Pieto ialists’ explicit

S S U 11 utdru s )f A Seni ) ‘ii sger nc s.s ry It wasr C t onE e hsion of the PC WCi’ relatic ns o archival

s,i,stsomis that marked Evans’s practice, but also its increasingFnn am within the’ iris ilcgccl ‘High Art’ spaces of an ever

r a d rd hiera ch cal cultureI’ s iu sod spaces that the New Deal diwumentars modeimr.cd. indeed, opening rip new sites fur cultural practice was

-

“ Crdl r its straregy and rhetoric, ‘iViiat enabled this novelsr an hrop logical liscourse tc reach it vider audi nec

a cn t. gcn r an the l9jOs with tfe accelerating deselopment,rel r-lstuitauon sf new technologies new cameras, film stock.

hansieal reproduction, presses papers .inks: newis ts fi’ r ph’ s layout presentation and reportage newk p ca i n and exhihitic r ard new methods of finance.

.r-iuwn ‘m’ and distribution. Such innovations changed the basis ofij’!iicsl (‘un’muflicatiofl and made publicity central to the political

, [‘ a Feir rroment sin, docuirentarv emerged not as aci iti or a sihetic disc urse, but as a popular form

iifl an uripccedented audience and dispersal. The s-ens years inI-’ is nbc lhcrai statist measures of the New Deal were beingat t sri bug for witnessed a crucial Fistorical ‘rendezvous

o an social stra egy Only in his conjunctureaid ‘a” dueutnemrtary mode take on its particular force, command

ideitsnean,sn arid exert a power, riot as the esocation of a pristineuth it e pc icall nsobihs ‘d riset ic of l’ruth a st ategv of

i c c ral interventi r aimed at reseahng so nal unityand s’ ‘sciiine ‘if belief at a time of far-rr aching crisis and conflict.

P1s’stcsgrapfsr’rs of the Hictonical Section of’ the Division ofI fiomm tior I the Res t lem at Adminis rap w later absorbed by

r it hdministration a id th Offict of Warlrfonmmninn did not tlseremrc just reflect’ a social arid economiclipa.easal. Working for an innevatory New l)eai agency and

idies nig imar is tI e urban populations of the north and east,n I t rakc a particulr sense of the crisis of Ih

S oth an I s st, r ndetirig social disintegration and misery visibleand legible within the terms of paternal philanthropic reformism

II I (l(’IOj I Jir en,i On

tO tins it 1 0i1iii Ietrlc\ 1150 ii U fll(tjtI15 ‘it d”Icrinu

I )c(rnnv iiich Rois cci ctat’co poLitic St I ((i d(pendcd

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ni 1)150) tt ( snppi ssed, ir I the t ‘s i d c urnc ntarc st I

iilIitIrf d mliv ill tialt ulic Inrii lii the plc tsrtai nrnInuollIsai1nl’ (tf

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I tur w th the inspccifc rF crone of far hialism arid l Wdo n of

tl i 11 hc Ooic ‘i\JL. I/Ce 101 ‘li1 o! lit/li C atTiC t 3 appeai tdl\ U.

cc nIt iental anti dan txer )n5IS taiiiicd cc tit tlit’ iibc rahsni ii a

cI crc Iitc i p ‘ri 5 i e Iri r cci alongsidc tin CC til dissociated

urn’ e sahsm of disitlcntihc arors 05 tdcrnist p1 aetlces Su ii pi dCtlt’i’S

ij)fl cisc d inthtr Ii eedorni again t felt hens ditoriai

ci Ia nrc sip ho ais an 1 ost o [a tic Se In mse cts in i

spare in’s’ind politics the plipolat. and naunnal euitnre. It scas in

this Irection that 10 pnhcc of the aluseurn of \l derri \r t cc is to

S t’c r i iding a lid1 of rhc tot icai hber ihsation and corp ratc

modernism whni cc as In c hanactm misc a nccc phase in tht ‘t’cliInl ,Ii

( ild \Var’. f ‘i der th< (nra ctrsi ip )1 John Siarkoccski, Walker

Lvais staged a singular rc I iir i to the Mils( n in cc huh his work

was it ad as. at ccilc c . a Pt ttgramnp 00 a peculiar pliotoorripilo

modernism md the 0 nt c I depar nrc i a ii’cc and eIect

documenuau r ft adition h mnded dc ccii from Issairs In I rank, Arbus

F nii’dlandem and I lie rest -

1 hr histo inst duc non of complex practice to stvhstic strc ams,

t;t”tl. Opflcm’[l or tc otietied bc a pricilegeil critic im antI r th II anscc utdc nt parc of thc Musc urn, tipific ci thc

‘g c attempt to impose a cor poratist hegemonr 10 a reasc’t tedai iiierani’hr But whaiec r sense or necc’ssltc on Ii a critical

it I tint nt the rp ‘0nea it3n’ ‘ ru ight hac’c ha at thc• it5 “orb r t nrrc nec scas straiicd to tilt pt)i1i of hrcakmu 1

111(1 liar adt,xiial mixture of SO( ml ano choingicalF x )ti( cc y eurism, ft tishist d artistic subje tic its, and

- , 1 dallas 10 Cunlcersaltc . 11111 h mar once 111th appeared-

- , is cIllihIlicIno cc a cinrradictor and inhcrcnti ulista hi1’ni c ‘rical clan cc ith whir Ii a modish tradition waS,

lOt it (I ihiot i’ntiid appear, hr turns, modernist anti icalist,- 5al ,,sch ,\rnenlc ,lr,, nl))<-cnc ci; tmno and subjectic elm expressive,

on I human md ohsc ssic c Iy pri atistic irs cflectic its was

‘if. ‘l’hc’ assimilation tI phritographic practices to ‘Fine Art’cc as tm night cc Ph difliculties, and that prc anious

ic ii Photcigraphc did not sit w Ii in thc modern museumI Oc hisrctrr of phlomgm aphiv stands in relation to the liistors

-, 5’’ is a historm <ti Scnititig would to the histors of’ Literature It

clue ‘d to a units and assimilated to the c crc Canon ithi’ jini ma Illr aup thcorcticahI, called intoc1uestion, The idea ofa derti t photographic lint tge has no morc’ status than the

r I p ipular documc Iltarm tradition to which it has been- ‘1 rp’c ci and cc hh it has rc’grettablr served to re-incite.

i F about thc dnm nan nc pic s ntations cf photographicni tilt F’nitecl Stan’ in the I thetis antI h971)s is also to say

or-‘ u hint he context in Bnt’rin in which the rcscarcli for

o s, was begun. I hcrc too, a variety of residualml’ i’. ill arm prac tices scene posed as the popular, humanistic, or

c’ he I I ft alternatives to recently imported versions ofI k o r ahist a( sthr ticism, though both were set against the

it t toni c atisrn of the Ror at Photographic Society and10 nil 510 and stercotrpicai exaggerations of commercial

a p1 , dc rticing ann photojournalism, fhr institutional,o c. I, It11 ,mfsct thc’oretmcal means to challenge this continual re

1 1 e tc rrns of a nimic tecnth-century debate on the

16 The Burden of Rep reientation

nature of photography by developing new fiwms of interv ntion

and provoking a radical realignment had hardly begun to emerge.

Or perhaps it is more accurate to say that, if mam of the necessary

resources weie present outside the spaces of photography — in the

‘rgmeuation of pstoonceptua1it ati and the impetus to cultural

actisism, in thc trickle of translated post structuralist theor,, in a

revitalised Marxist debate, and in a resurgent, theoretica11

articulate women’s movement — they were far indeed from beginning

to disrupt photographic practice, education, oi curatorial and

admir istratis e policyBefore passing on to a consideration of how these issues shaped

the essa\s sihich follow, I want to look first at an apparent conflict

in the argument put forward in thç early chapters of the book. Is

there not a contradiction between (he claim that the development

of photograph as a technology of surveillance and record entailed

a radical reversal of the political axis of representation. and the

recognition of the opposite movement in the dispersal and seeming

‘democratisation’ of photography, following the introduction of

equipment and sers ices accessible to a wide amateur market?

Clearly there is a contradiction - one that must be engagtd with,

one iooted not in the argument hut in the process of historical

development and symptomatic, at a deep level, of contradictions

central to a capi alist mode of production which must place its

means of produe ion in tof hands of those it expropriates and in

which there is ar inherent antagonism between the socialisation of

production and consumption and of the mechanisms of discipline

and desire, and the prisate appropriation of surplus value. At the

sa ne time, this contradiction in the deployment of photographic

technologr also has to do with conflicts inherent in the longer

historical development of reproductive means of cultural production

which, as well as raising levels of production and consumption and

seeming to disperse cultural activity in ways difficult to control,

have also had the opposite eflct of facilitating th imposition of

cultural hornogeneits. while simultaneously creating new dis isions

of power both between the possessors and controllers of the means

of cultural production and the dispossessed, and between those

who are and those who are mt literate in the appropriate cultural

languages Within the space of these contradictions there is

undoubtedly room for cultural resistance, dissent and opposition.

Yet this dissent rarely develops. More particularly, the emergence

o na n’iu ur base or, perhaps more accurately, the productionof ,. new consumer body for photography did not represent a

ihailerige to the existing power relations of cultural practice. Inía ‘t, mas have furthered their solidification. Why?

tt ct A5P, photography rly pased ui pupulai hands int cud scnse of the term The development of popular amateur

ph” toeraphv was entirely dependent on the large-scale productionouipmene and materials, mechanised sers icing, anti a highly

c nise marketing structure, which together made possible ai i e of ndustrialisation of photography and the emergence

of initir tional, monopolistic corporations such as that pioneeredby C (rge Eastman. For the new class of amateurs and even forcit ui i.mtrssionals. large parts of the photographic process were

t ely rin on ard in the control of this photographic industrys e atel or corporately owned means of production were

entcntrated and necessitated elaborate divisions of labourorid koss ledge — both developments opposed to democraticci er In c risequence. too, at the level both of equipment and

i nue of the process made available was highis’in cmi ed or tailored to thc needs of mechamsation andsrai,dardisation The instrument that was handed over was, of thisrio siev ccv limited, and the kinds of images it could producev th r r senerely restricted on the technical plane alone.

Ott cnifl antly perhaps, if a piece of equipment was madeailahh-. then the necessary knowiedges were not. Technical

knowledge about the camera was not dispersed hut remained in theh of of prs ialis& technicians, themselves dependent on means ofp e tics did not own or control. Knowledge of thein .icm a fpieture-making was equally specialised and constitutedan nctracingIv professionalised skill, usually calling for much moreelabijn training and equipment than that available to theart ca d i tailing a difference so marked that, for photographyw pt n r to a higher status, the explicit connotators of Artcharacteristic of late nineteenth-centuri Pictorialism proved entirelydispcn..,able. By contrast, popular photography operated within atecgiueal’ i ut strained field of signit’ing possibilities atid aci a icted range of codes and in modes — such as thelie on rtra t pose — already onnoting cultural subordination,.\ccordt-cI a lessem legal status than either commercial or so-calledart’stn photography and. hs definition, positioned as inferior in an

18 The Burden of Representation 19

increasingly stratified arena of cultural production, amateur

photographic practice was also largely confined to the narrow

spaces of the family and corn moditised leisure which imposed their

own constraints b tying it to consumption, incorporating it in a

familial division of labour, and reducing it to a stultified repertoire

of legitimated subjects and stcreotpes.

All this must be weighed before we can even begin to talk about

‘democratisation’ or criticise the alleged po ertv of popular

photographs. If amateur photography operates in an exceedingly

limited institutional space and signifying range. then it is hemmed

in on all sides h divisive harriers to technical and cultural

knowledge, ownership and control. But beyond this, even if

variation, innosation and dissent were exhibited by amateur

photographic practice. it would not carr the sseight of cultural

significance. because, by definition, its space of signification is not

culturally prisileged. Any success in shifting th parameters of

signification — one definition of inventiveness and imagination

would therefore be outweighed by the social hierarchy of registers

of meaning. Thus dissent or innovation in popular photographs is

rarely seen as transforming signifying possibilities or contesting

orders of pract’ce (as. for example, in Jo Spence’s professional,

institutionally promoted reworking of the family album). Rather

what it insolves if it is to he visible at all, is a change of level,

moving upwards in the hierarchy, ceasing to be ‘amateur’

photography in evaluative terms, graduatmg to another space: the

space of professional, technical or, more usually, Art photography.

(Witness the migration of the work of Lewis Carroll. Lartigue or

Mike Disfarmer among others.)

l’his is what calls into question wholesale and normative

condemnations of amateur photography. There can be no totalising

definitions of originality or imagination spanning the complexly

demarcated spheres of modern cultural practice 1 he field of

portraiture, for instance, dominating as it does so much of amateur

photography, is divided, oser its entire range, into a number of

zones defined by diflercnt forms of practice, different economies

technical bases. cmiotic rcsourcs and cultural statuses, No

absolute set of criteria crosses these zones. Nor can their separation

be seen as a ready-made basis for evaluation Rather, we must try

to grasp their historically produced relations not only as levels in

the market, but as levels in a hierarchy of practices shose most

g ii’ ta ii cc ‘asir glv sustained by post-ma ket institutions,lI ‘r sh c rriddle gror nd ranges from commercial art

to “iatt’ whose lower registers arc designated ‘kitsch’,

‘cr9 s ilcr ‘ans:rteur’ or popular culture’.’ These arc distinctions

w n Tariicur hictri’I c”taral i’o_r atmi anfis nec ti c particular historiographic s it sustains. Their

tiirrais iscal ordering is a function ot die tensions and conflicts ofrlr P riupriicnt of rultural production under the political and

is Ia s o capitali m and the dissonant drives of market‘a ion arid rcrul reproduction. It is these tensions and conflicts,

_peciali’, ia’t ccii the colonisation of new markets and thet’r du ii o social salues, that necessitate a stratified culture in

Is a i u an I selectively supported ‘High Art’ moreNib Jtalning riorma,avc social mores is articulated in and

rt-irouh a nninsailv defining difference both from ‘commercial’ andrca ‘p ula cul urc The diflerenc then, is one that isist tin Is idi c d and internal to the syst ‘m, not one founded

ssential opposition, as conservative cultural critics fromM,ndva rir ld to Clement Greenberg have claimed,

ic g ‘r ral ultural sphere, the hierarchisation ofher trap w acticts rested on the historical development of

djstjr r cC Ois ‘rules, institutional bases and secondars supportivesir en ore’s But it also needed to he secured at the legal and

I I ‘I . s we have seeti, popular amateur photographyis oak is s, has beer, possible is itliout the development of a large(U1f uh,tnuarhic industry, fostering the emergence and dominationhr miatonal cor p rations such as Fastman Kodak The corporate

j dcc on w s both the condition of existence of popularnhor’,’ srhi and its limit. It is as Hew technical, organisatronal andniariwr( niethods shic’h laid the basis first for the enormously

nsf bit nass production of photographic images, and thcn ine or pi’ a e of capitalisation, for the cvi n more lucrative

‘n(t’itri Ied production both of’ photo-mechanical reproductionsarid ‘1 eqUipment and materials, Unscrupulous competition andt c P yes r ent costs of such developments inevitably rai ed

or atutors protection and controls, registered iiiietrtsari,n and tegal disputes on censorship and copsright through‘uhich in part the contradictions between cultural privilege andc n is U potentiality tithe new means of cultural production5P got, atedl

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pIn 1 • F ete. ajldias r 1 Itasis tin th. p..’ ci c ties ts ‘it disc ‘1’ Ii

pta 1 he put pa si to as old tI I.i (is C. &spr 551

it d 1 htclpre in 1 socialist art tror1 ntaiiciS 1 tIlts’s LIIMU’ll fot’)a i tl5’’t

i c o r bccurc ilcnt

‘I

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cf 1 C Ion I h itt •,cc itsi I ttesttils Ce (IC

It Is i c, 1 semiotic ‘ ‘if ian utint ‘tvst( F I Iifferenttattcn It ifs ‘‘ ‘plaint a C 10

a. ‘ii ilk i I sttliutitiii ot sate. ijl tt I.tIt’,its. 1 Lit is •

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• t iic.’ti tilt , tnttsing ssste ins ‘. ishith js ‘trot. cd. oilute tultu ii a tiqes itt ic i a sen and dct rninant

at’ r al it St ate it i th c , ur’ise qiruc t and0’ S t iiigu’ •t t itt’ UIPIC ci iii

C IS r I rstplac.t.. 1 r i icttt’upi C Ciii t’plaiation ith

atiaissis bu rat tier IC) tra t i iciatoni bctss en tl C

map out Ic pi duc us its an I eRr c tisits of sit c ss C1

at. ccunradic tnt’ • ii c’nnIiic road iançuages: to plot ihi limitsg is hat thes t in articulate anti how fjy thcs can reniaiii

•it itt teet ‘alOne the identification cut’ their epeakert and• h ‘t ttmu iii’ Cons ictions of those tites addiess. discursa e

-¾ ,‘zi ft as this does not pretend t.i hr fiitai 1)1 nhaustisr.

I) - ‘‘is’s. base- cnndinor,s of ucistenci is hich thr do not den rmme• i aas “ast compuse molt than lax wages alone Mon r a.

its scs of th r elk is cannot 1 t C tIC! thati a cot ditionali llama n tIC mint, pCispCCtl and form f pta ticc

ft a snf inaditI it thu cultural FJCtiCC6 and S%StCirS A mcanmt,

* Ic’tci cfrCpr cntuion dctCrminCd m Its mnnitig aidsome mc r basic material realits is not. therefore to pos t

inomous discutsisc realm. EquaU what is not di COUFSC

It ‘•t

Itisist ) 1 1 listi

si’at is s h i cttinix

I

Is tpflI I

2-I The Burden oj Representatior

cannot be held to constitute a unified, distinct and counterposeddomain an ontologically prior unity of being to which discoursema be referred 1The argument is crucial here for cultural theoryas it isa earhet for grasping the rature of photographic

f.resIntatlnr i/that L dfped is not th nnn discu’si’i but theconeepti n of it as a unitary category with general attributes,know ible t irough a noiwdiscursive ‘expe ‘ience’, yielding general

iteria of epistemoiogical validity. 1 he non-discui sive, the real, isdriers ly constituted in different discourses and practices andcannot I e ‘magined as a universal, common r necessary refc rentexistIng autonomously, ret somehcm available through a non—discursive representatIon to serve as a measure of truth. just asthere i- no object of knoss ledge or process of knowledge in general.outside specific discurstve systems. so there can be no general testParticular bodies of discourse and practice can and do developtheir onn appoprian criteiia of adequacs and -ffectivitr. specificto their uhjcctives and to the technologies they deploy, but notvalid beyond their domains, ,\s bases fhr disputes and tests. suchcriteria may be radicallr diflerent but their effiacr is sufficientliestablished in the context of the determinate purposes andcircumstances of’ the discourses and pra twes to which they relateFhere is no necessity to posit a beneral measure and certainly nobasr to tIc ide a of measuring their relative degrees of ope mess toan iirag’ned authentic experience far original realits

Fh’ difficultie’ tiis pu s in the way of he kind of analysis whichsimply wants t view signifyine vstems as ncoding and decodingpratics nd to locate them within what Aithusser calledIdeological State Apparatuses’ cannot now be avoided 20

.ltbus cr s decisive ads ance as to treat ‘ideology’ as socialtelations displacihg notions of ideas or consciousness which hadhitherto reduced ideology to a snusrcpresentation of the social rnthought ‘Ideology’ now appeared as the effect ofdefinite institutions.practices and forms of subjection. as an indispensable mode oforganisation and conduct of social relations. What Althussercontinued to insist on. however, was the general and unifiedcharacter of these relations and of the institutional processes bywhich they isere produced and held in place. By subsuming all‘ideological social relations under the mechanism of the ‘IdeologicalState Apparatuses’, Althusscr elided diffIrences between theinstitutions he named, inflated the concept of the state to a point of

an edu ida icr, and condemned his m idel to a circularitye Ide )logical State \pparatuses were bound to perform

r a funet on procured for them in ads anec hr the powercf putpose and ideology of an air ady ruling class ‘The

as irnt what it et out to explain, 1 he di y erses

a id institutional structures of the Ideological States coo d secure nothing ir themselves hut only function

as rI I x of an already inscribed power and tepetitiveir re-enact.(-p(2c t I a was already ordained at the level of the relatro iss’oduet . nw which a complex di ersitv of irreducible social

r’iatiOI wuc now collapsed.for all Aithusser’s intentions of’ breaking with expressive.

o admgs of Marxism. his retention of the idea of unifiedr instances pcrliirniing functions set foi them hr their

,,rnons in a structured totality returned his theory to the sameeparanion and functionalist reduction of social practices and

‘.nre herarchr of causality that characterised the bases,,,’Tsiructare model.” When the concepts of pre-given unities and

th trar sjj tencv of epresentation art rejected, this model isdecor’ m ed, and with it goes the function of repioduction: the idea

tha cultural institutions and practices of particular societyr’r Ii ut a necessary unity of character and ideological effect

diti ns of capitalist production are for example, complexd compatible with a wide range of fa rilial tnanagerial,

) , administrative and cultural forms and even these mayr ilowed to stand in the way of the colonisairon of new

I he p itical, economic and cultural fields are not,niflcs constituting definite sectors or instances, goserned

by t’ p ace in an architectonic otalityRt-g’cti g the architectural model of floors or levels does not,

is sec. mean asserting that cultural ‘nstitutions. practices andh n,,zrsons are either autonomous or inconsequential. Nor is it tocler.s that cultural practices and relations can he changed,challenged or reformed through institutional interventions. politicalpracrices err state actions, or that such interventions will have

on wider social relations. It is rather to insist that thesecheers arc not given in advance and that change in one culturalr’isi’ution will not set off an inexorable chain of echoing

is rv’rcussions in all the others. It is also to acknowledge that thet ,mnlex conditions of cultural institutions cannot be specified in a

ltraI a ii ,li r foire

gcrieralifcv I ii w ui i a eF needsa

gem rat nt a i n I r di id al it c rp rat e hcr in the

Pam of a the of al atic it a t ) v if th i j citation of

the subject

[lie same cotip d to h d i also he made

against iecent atti t s p t a tF e its of ideologi hr a

psi t hoanats tical act f th o dt C 10 1 of thc snhject in

which, as in Aithus am un he ahstrat tnt ss and

universalits of the theott neat rat eh t i m ins oked are in constant

tension with the historic ilness of the apparatuses in ii hit h this

mechanism js supposedli mac ad. L is oUt of thc putposts of the

essas s a tiich foiloss to suggc st that the histont al relations of

representation and suhjeetic n ae much more complex anrl

overdetermined than thea appear ui generalsed and htstorieallr

unspeefic accounts such as Laura sIulver ‘s seminal anali sis of

spectatorial relarions of poster in ciassieal Holls stood cinema ‘2 or

Eli7aherh Cost ics equally influcnual essay AN oman As Sign.

Operating as the latter does in a timeless space between

anthropulogi and semiologi. it i not attuned to grasp the crucial

processes of historical and institu ional negotiation or yield ant thing

but a schematically abstracted diagram ol power and a mvthologreal

periotlisa tiori

l he problems clearly go beyond solution hr supplement. What

has heeome vulnerable is the very concept of ideulogy which

aeqmuretl a novel eetitrality in Marxist theorising only in the 1 960s,

as the struggles and problems of modern capitalist societies

compelled the recognition of complex fields of social relations not

adequatelt grasped hr classical .\Iarxist models. As a means to

index certain beliefs.txperienC a, ot forms of consciousness. seen as

necessarily representing and otgamsing the actions of unit itting

social subjects. to a ro it Cfl0ti of matenal ci tss position or interest,

the category proved, it the words of one social historian, ‘inert and

unilluminatingly mcductiae 2 E er in Althussei s penetrating and

innox atory analysts and certainly in most defences of left’

documentary photography), it could not be disentangled from

a ci dentctos c rad cc cdbotkrosab t

v ri oicu u Fccnc t f r

i F at rcprescm at if 1 1cF F s t 2 rneasorcd No a 1 p

ti tiori arid sol Ii

a tices hi collapsF m mptc s articulations t 1

a hist i leat Inuments in p it dg sation and ficctis itt of i ‘ cm a i

thin a is idc r plas of powt i . Ac io c ddi ss 5 muggld tan only dr note a dispersed. a gmc 1

•o’d it , )utc omc, cut across hi other forms c4 conflict. aiIi r. 1Fl . oh lila \ su’ ii ,st hom’ ‘gene i 2 aod

,$ar ich otitces ea led into ix ing at roomc- fntcdanc, ‘ t’

a attccii ts ti gaugc soeh ar ooreomc- rlai ens

-—- so nor santage Far n moved item chc absc,lic-y

. ,,.scd hstorieist uarmatic,ci, they must rather be seen aosc

- nc uceific limiced forms ‘it politic at i aleolari’ ni. dependen’a a ‘lliat, historical Tm-a ns and pat rieolat. clatleogcahie

p ‘:ii’a. erspecos rs who 11 lots c To he constructed and are riot

VIII

a dcci mcam circunispc ct than the ambtioos of tmaditonatI . mccc at them r i even as thes ate refit ted in the earlier ot

ha 5sa s a hc h toltciss . uircunispeetion of this sort. however.dor u imopis pohticai disengagement. and if tile relation that is

pc a’ ° tn Cli ‘her mv and practice is hanged. it is not ahard Inedcottotal anals as asaconditional calculation fi tF

[22 t of specific forms cii practice under detemmi iatek inc glamotir of a ntaster knowledge. nut it r ia

o ptot oting departures in cultural prae i e byr t c haracterise specific sit oatic r s of aetiom

m g hc edt cts of pme-erriptive theo y at d wF ei c the to the continual adjustments necessary tc

r

I

26 ‘Fe Bc’rde J Rep merentatiotl

general c i ‘p tot F

p edictcd rca aaante u o gird

t nf a few

idc o cp lcn id C n ‘quc nces

I e c ti t re i sea aralstic-sI

i r e s f 1 o stt etlo t a halt,

it orati arc F e n t t bev r- here

t- 0 n

d ou i

8 i Bard r JR fir ;entation 0

I ctise ottr o 1 o ra’ .f a h pu d nbilising

ueottr o lMrxsn inpl F i rid rsro

tfticis pt fr b tc s‘

p ha

r c )ftrn d i Ice r t t a Ic s fl

‘so”c liii d ° vlU 1a 0tiofl

prosed d c c t’i tI de i s of Itural

oractid and a ms c i p b it cs r r r a o ‘conflict

in prescnt-daa ci cr qu r i F onth and

dispersal of new k d c at ‘ t c u t onal andcultural institutioi s d i 1 f r nodalith 5 of

pots ci -

ft stas precisels I if i I ba 1 1 a.- er’s theors of

Ideological State Appar s c s to those ss hose

strogglt s - especialls aaainst r d the suhotdination of

mime n las, most inimediatels . 00 a cepted poht teal domains

and sc crc inhibited or mat ginaisc b th’ ss oi kerisru. r ro000nsnl

arid essi ntialtsm of existing yiaisr and serialist theore Hence.

to’). its popularits en the lctt as a basis list tiistering eultui al

actis sm and legitimising culture1 sti uggla struggle ii’ a iilrhiough, hui in and n the institutiun of phi’tographv, for example.

Ye - paradoxir ally, Althusser’s m’idel served smulraneooslv to

disarm die very struggles it seemed to have validated. Bs Incating

such struggles. as ste have seen. in sshar he defined as stateapparatuscc Mthossci ensured tha thcr remaint d tied to and

limited hr r onditions of struggle o iginating outside their sphere

and got erning the entire supposed social totalits . In the terms ofsock an analysts, specific and local institutional interventions had

to pate the ssas for revolution or else he condemned as reformist

measuies. liable to collapse back or merck reinfiise ‘the system’.

What seemed to open yew possibilities of action in a whole range Of

cultural, familial arid educational sires turned out, in effect. to

obstruct innos ators practices hs reinforcing traditional notions of

ret oititiona r str uggle, with all their -sccompanving exaggerations

of the role‘of the theoreticails ‘nforme I activistBut Althusserianism was not alo ie i ding this process. While

Foucautt’s work si emeo 11 a mu n r ore etiecrive conception

of a ‘mi’ rophysics’ r F o c ant o o 1 struggles against its

‘capillars fbrms’!’ thr r m s nt n f I in. utional histories

into a gent ral metal ho for w discin na tipclago’ had the

same clchilitatir g f t or action R if bed of i historical

d Ic r icalr aints, Foucao su ropticr g noherr roteqtanof&lhssesn- ‘i r of

or a’ t h o ss misfic darkce ft cci ithc o to at gltoftl ther lik a Idwa

A -., hoi ‘‘v cc ha a ur

t ia is d repressio 1 e socicta of rv illa c cr ce a F dco og a 1 sclf’suhjct tior I c prospec of

c y d y strugghs a d successful specifc nt r entiord rg is ch o alising sistems, whic arc opcsa Ily 1 angc. Faced with a ta k t 11

r xi r g apabilities. arousal to action g c ct a ieprcss on

Ix

ft t’O ,1 tic a’-gomcnts developed hcioss seer too far, at times, iniv’ von ,a these tutalising t ndctico’s. the general tack on

v,1-’ s :1 as are set is headed the opposite was, This, as I havesrrr ,5tc, is oot a course ss loch means abandoning cultural polttical

ace -s’s or suggesting that cultural practices arc autonomous,ui’’ n’ hronal or tnsial. What des elops across the articles, read inroe’ -roec in ss bids they were written, is rather an attempt to hrcakfr’’ii absto it al modes of textual anals sis without falling into are’4’Jrris aaount of the relation of cultural practices to economicand p,iiiica’ social relations and the state, The issue of the staterena’rs entral to the themes of this book, ‘Fri reject Althussefsth,or’l Ideologit State Apparatuses is riot to dens the histoncalimt.,er,rncc 01 significant rhanges in flu rature of the state inties faced industrial societies, to underestimate this states capacityli’rgrriit rating intcrvcntions, or tci question its strategic importancefm st’”,ggte as the institutional concentration arid condensation ofp’-mtc 1 pi seer and rrprtscntation. It is equally crucial, hots esetrid 1 t into reading evers plas ol posser relatirins as thepr d1 f F crt or covert actions or structure of the state any

r - - tnt rt dcx of some immanent disciplinary will W c havcto dcvelop an -tccount of social relations, the state andtahty in which, theoretically and lustorically, it makes

a k f ultural politics and cultural interventions and vet it

c conecice of a variety of non-reflectionist practices

I

a’ B der fRep e Hat e d ‘on 31

[he importance if this to eultoral political analt SN 15 manfes

since, without it. such aria1sis uould have no status at all.

lb historical analsses gathered here rest on the siesi that

nltural 0 ctice [as t’ s’gnifican e and in ture onstit t a site

01 turge presep as of rei p n latnocuitas

(a’ plex 0 ocia prac ti nd t ms I prc en Mat w i ch do

ue;t “epa’ ‘s, but construct, inflect, maintain or snh cert the relations

of domination and subordination in which hetcrngeneous socia’

identities art produced. Such practices belong therelbre, ti a held

of- owa fleets sO ci they ‘re a t ulated sich onoiTiC

a d fOi seal pta ti’es epr it’ ti rs a d el o w’tfou

r supp It g an nifled )utco r e They also de end o specifi

historii ails devel, ‘ped tneans and modes -if prudot tion and other

conditions of existence sshich them do not determine: hut ihes

ann”t h& c’s aluared hs reterener’ to these eonrii i’’ns as to a source

or orig fbi r bleri f r at’ I sis i c eale ate ts’ sped i

c urc ral I Ct 0 ultural [ta’ ic s in rela ion t dcii

cot ditionalitm, B thest ‘fleets Cannot he stablished outs Ic such

historical cali. olations, There are no necessary and binding rules of

connection between conditions of existence and modes of production

and efTbt at the Ic’s el of signification rio inceintros ertib e laws 0

elatior for exampl”. [etwe”n r sas media eo porate owe ership.

and tr alisatior and lepoliticisation of swaning Or, to put t

eother v as, the ommodits status of tertain cultural products in

capitalist societies cannot be equated svith their sign status, as in

the theorm of Ibtishism and, on a more facile level, as in so mant

a tacks on the prodoetior of saleable art objects in ‘left’ cultural

r icisr i of the b”Os.[‘here r no laws of equ va en e tier, betwee i the conditiors

and effxets of signification, only specific sets of relations to be

pursued. There h no mechanism of expression. biking holistic

classes to their supposed outlooks and cultures-, only a complex of

pr eesses of production of meanings ghng on under definite

0 torieal constraints ard n hying the eleetise and r a’ tisated

mobdisatior of determinate means and relations of production in

institutional h’ameworks u hose structures take partienlar histcn ieal

forms ‘[here is no meaning outside these formations, hut the are

not meinolithie. The institutions, practices arid relations si hieb

compose them offer multiple points of entry and spaces for

)ntestat or and not just or their m rgins There is ni space,

Ia

rho efo e. that an be )ndemned in ads ance as necessarils a site of‘‘rporationi or prvdeged as the proper site of cultural action -

rhe eallerm or the streets: pris ileging one space os er another,bus’ e e iriay be a funetior of a particular discourse and/or

si, utioi al o uci I ne potcutialitic. of action depend on ateo latior of conditions, ti e natu e of the site, the mea is of‘Rural production ims ols ed, the means of intces’ention, the mode

ur calculation deplos ed. and so on. But the sites and the discursiveairietice s they support are never isolated, ‘l’heir interrelations andlit rat ies — ‘ fit’, ‘craft ‘iriass conimunicatic ns ‘pop lar culture’,

i t sub ultur’d tvles’ also eonsti ute les els of it ter enti an

m ding tie r assr 1eeifie forms of practice1 ia consequences all this has for cultural practice and for

n’ ippirig out the grounds lot coltoral struggles are clear, thoughrt.r’st .“inseqoruees cur against is hat traditional aesthetics and

n assor e can b taker at gi at t d The dramat uniti ‘s arcu her a b eoone pat at ag oraeo ssieche

‘i if in i stirtit ral tcr is or Fe abs act, m tholog’calt’ the avait-gaed.’ and certain riperatie s erstons of art histor

a r lass struggle. Ihen, ion, no one strategs’ can be adeqoate for‘H I”’isitm of sit’s and onfranrations: there are no recipes für

to ocial cot uia ds, or tists’ -nandates I c e. n prospect ofi r in or sok cf art o eai )nly nc ageit r kind cfmc e thc o it to c ins of d. The pecialness of tf e artist and

cr”nlr’o nal oicetl”etoal can no longer serve even as a mohilisingno th Cultural institutions require a svhole range of functionariesa t a’ tinicians who contribute their skills to or sers ice cultmal

ad on at a ‘ehole series of points in a whole variety of way

is cqoa c cuhora ii ihili ation raust thereforc be as highlytiatifled and alleetis’’ as the dominant mode of prodoetion arh, r tive ,rs the film industry, television, architecture or, indeed,

nc” srtist—clealer-’-erinic_-moseom circuit: as collective and complexas iiit kills, pta nices, codes, technical rules, procedures, protocols.

a ges, habits, dIsosions of about arid distinctions of ranklid x ke op the institutional base.hut ., in this, practice is stripped of universalint and rohhed of

eLa’antees, the argument also turns on critical theory, Theoes can-li, argued calculations cif the effects of particular practices inp ‘cif ‘onditiotis. or provide criteria for characterising situations

1 od s of action but it cannot lay down the lines of an

lhr Btndr’n of R’pri’4en fe/ion

oi)Jecrivc process r presc rihe ncr essary ci rections, \either can i

opt rate from any thing Fut an irnplicat d internal per speetive. a

politn a) posit on that has t ) be construc ted a basis in it wn

ndi ionalits as tself a cultui al proc ti If this opens the was for

a spec if practu c is Pecus els c xpiodes ht pi isileire tuac riticisir

s the jioliti al spe ii urn has lairned for itself since the

Enlightenment

It aft suggests the lrnits of a methodological debate which was.

tim os t di-eadc , the dc rntnant focus for oppcsilic it t ) traditional

appi oar hes in a r Fustc rs a in fi n and photographic theors [he

pr hlexr s of ucF a lous pi oxed to b n t only the the r neal ours

1 it edo is ism. c cit etetsrn and metaphysical essentialism of the

s a iimus s rsiotis of the ix lief in methodological finalities ‘I ht

gr ‘at st dangc es la iii the way ni w riot al arid historical practices

ft mi st p irr irick,’red mit 9 u(’ctifltts (ii their nwfl institute nial

lirsits, p w i elatir ns, and fields of iimtt rs ntion fri this, advocates

of social histons were as tj1t5 as the most abstract structutalists.

For all the concern w itli ‘dominant r presr ntations ri a)

opportunities fi)r anials ‘us, orgaitisation and engagement were

titissed: if the niijorits , for xample, cot ountered dominant art

listens through o ortsm arid lt’ture consumption, the strategmu.

irriportanec of wot k in thc se areas, outside museums was nes er

seriously grasped. nor did new curricula eflectisely equip students

o i inter s t ne in these fields ‘1 he arena of onfron to non was nes en so

diversified Concentrated in certain limited spaces, predominanti

iii higher clucation, and seerningir content if not sec ur in its all

but complete ar ademicisation, the rn thodological challenge was

staged arid signifh ant ground was gained. But the s ers tei ms of

this at ademit success were to contnihutc to tts serious vulnerability

in the fact of catastrophic political change, state interc ssiotis,

economic c uthacL. redundancies and unernplomcnt. Ironically.

thc ‘. ens issucS that had begtin to come to the fore in theory now

threatened to overtake a thc oretical mm ems nt which had begun in

st ry ddE rent conditions, in thc rducational expansion and

uphcas als of th I 969s

,\t this polio, left till last of course, it has to be said that I am

talking about civ own work, as well as thai if othero talking,

indeeti. ahoot this book and the condo ons which disrupted its

writing and d las ed its completion It is more than th oretical

sec unci thoughts which separate its point of departure from its

cut 01 romp! tion td tic a ra proc s ‘s of pc vcr ancoistituti ma! struggle with w fitch it wanted in deal are ritten on it

ion d epis pr r h ps tI ui the a ‘ s ott n in it If this was to Ic ad10 sen. to tie nror titan a deft ttist si w t she theoretical pmoject

w It h t’li book is part tli c w uld hr or pot it ir fir ishing th‘-mutcrO e Btmt die argum’ or retom us crmtd,il S5iiting this hoot

or It pr ‘ iii t N arooc a as the a nd’tjc Os which fram tsrem r’titton hut nemrhct is it e\lioustecf hs them. IVhar it ran do ftiii sit isc orsis 5 ructuru S in ssInr h ti sc c udiric> t can he

mspu d and mmrie of resisranuc’ draw it out. I hat is not cml ego andit is not art e it) to it But ti point s II ‘ithc r to thi o s awas htak, mum iaagimie it u’s er congl cc. 1li’ problem no lit s iii

loping rio St t tr gt s, pr letter iiscou sc s, iristi ott Iii, ancf

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