Ranciere - The Future of the Image

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2 THE FUTURE OF THE

Image, which refers to an Other. and

to nothing but itself.

This simple line of argument alrea

That the Same is the opposite of the

gible. Understanding what this OtherIn the first place, by what signs is its p

recognized? What allows us to say that

visible form on a screen but not in an

for example, in a shot from Au hasard

episode of Questions pour un champiofrequently given by detractors of t

television image has no Other by vi

In effect, it has its light in itself, wh

derives it from an external source. This

Debray in a book called Vie et mort de

has its light in-built. It reveals itself. W

becomes in our eyes its own cause. Sp

or substance. 2

The tautology posited here as the manifestly nothing but the tautology

The latter simply tells us that the Sam

other. Through the rhetorical play of



4 THEFUTUREOFTHEI

then descends along the dark neck of

the camera ascends in the opposite dire

girl whose hand this is, her brother and

accompanies this action ('We must hav

'Children, that's impossible'), withoumouth that utters these words. The

father with their backs to us; their b

while he answers them. A dissolve then

shows us the opposite of these words:

angled shot, the father and the childleading the donkey. Another dissolve

the donkey's baptism - another close

see nothing but the head of the animal,

pours the water, and the chest of the

candle.

In these credits and three shots we h

'imageness' - that is, a regime of relat

and between functions. It is first and f

between the neutralityof

the black osound. The melody that pursues its d

separated notes, and the braying whic

convey the tension of the story to come



THEFUTUREOFTHEIM

nification or speech and its effect, whi

expectations. These operations do not d

ties of the cinematic medium. They e

tematic distance from its ordinary em

director would give us some sign, hfather's change of mind. And he wou

for the baptism scene, have the camera a

additional shot in order to show us t

children's faces during the ceremony.

Shall we say that Bresson's fragmenrather the narrative sequence of those w

the theatre or the novel, the pure images

the camera's fixing on the hand that po

hand that holds the candle is no more pec

fixing ofDoctor Bovary's gaze on Made

or of Madame Bovary's gaze on those o

peculiar to literature. And the fragmen

break the narrative sequence. It perfor

with respect to it. By separating the expression, it reduces the action to its esse

in words and hands pouring water over a

the action into a sequence of perception



6 THE FUTURE OF THE

The image is never a simple reality

primarily operations, relations betwe

visible, ways of playing with the before

effect. These operations involve dif

different meanings of the word 'imagor sequences of shots can thus pert

'imageness' Conversely, one cinemati

same type of imageness as a novelistic

That is why Eisenstein could look to

Greco or Piranesi, for models of cinemGodard can compose a eulogy to cin

sentences on Rembrandt's painting.

The image in films is thus not oppo

casting as alterity is to identity. Telev

wise has its Other: the effective perfo

cinema also reproduces a constructed

a camera. It is simply that when we sp

we are not referring to the relations

happened elsewhere and what is hapbut to operations that make up the ar

are seeing. 'Image' therefore refers t

There is the simple relationship that p



8 THE FUTURE OF THE

galleries and museums. But this form

resemblance is itself caught up in a sing

is growing disquiet: does not resembl

the visible? Or does it involve subjectin

operations and artifices whose matrixcounter-move then emerges: what is

blance is not the operativeness of art,

the spirit made flesh, the absolutel

absolutely the same. 'The Image will

tion', says Godard: the Image- that isChristian theology, the Son who is no

but partakes of his nature. We no long

iota that separates this image from the

to regard it as a promise of flesh, c

simulacra of resemblance, the artifices

of the letter.

IMAGE, RESEMBL

HYPER-RESEMBL

In short, the image is not merely doubl



10 THE FUTURE OF TH

better than the Barthes of Camera L

cally has become the bible of those

photographic art, whereas it aims to

not an art. Against the dispersive mu

of art and games of signification, Bimmediate alterity of the image- tha

alterity of the One. He wants to esta

between the indexical nature of the

the material way it affects us: the

pathetic effect that he contrasts winformation transmitted by the phot

it receives. The studium makes the ph

decoded and explained. The punctu

with the affective power of the that

which was unquestionably in front

camera obscura, whose body has em

and registered by the black chamber,

now through the 'carnal medium' of l

of a star'3

It is unlikely that the author of M

para-scientific phantasmagoria whic

direct emanation of the body displa



12 THE FUTURE OF TH

written in visible forms and as obtus

ing and history, was not invented by

obscura. I t was born before it, when

uted the relations between the visible

specific to the representative regime i

exemplified by dramatic speech.

For the representative regime in th

resemblance to which the modernity

even an art of the unrepresentable, is

of a certain alteration of resemblansystem of relations between the s

between the visible and the invisible.

character of the poem involved in the

defines two essential relations. In th

narration and description words mak

not present, seen. Secondly, words m

pertain to the visible, by reinforcing

ulating the expression of an idea, by

control of an emotion felt . This dua

assumes an order of stable relations

invisible- for example, between an em

tropes that express it, but also the e



14 THE FUTURE OF TH

their imbecility, which is then no lon

person or a thing, but the very stat

indifference between them, the status

of this imbecility - this incapacity fo

significations- its very potency.

Accordingly, there is no reason to

with goodness knows not what intr

words or the painting's brush-strokes

has changed and art which has becom

two image-functions - between the carried by bodies and the interruptiv

non-signifying presence. This dual

achieved by literary discourse by cre

with painting. It wished to transpose

anonymous existence of genre painfound to be richer in history than the

paintings obeying the hierarchies an

down by the poetic arts of yester

Maison du chat qui pelote, or the di

the young painter through his wind

of detail from recently rediscovered

the silent, intimate expression of a



16 THE FUTURE OF THE

Indeed. the point in the nineteenth

images were redefined in a mobile re

presence and encoded history was al

major trade in collective imagery was

of an art developed that was devoted

once dispersed and complementary:

'society' with uncertain reference-poi

and amusing themselves in the form o

around market products a halo of wor

them desirable; assembling, thanks tothe new procedure of lithography. a

shared human inheritance: remote li

popularized bodies of knowledge. Th

makes decoding signs written on ston

motor of novelistic action, and when

chaos of brush-strokes in representat

geoisie of the golden age, is also the

pittoresque, and the physiognomies of

the smoker. the grocer and every ima

launched. It is a period that witnesses

tion of the vignettes and little tales in

recognize itself, in the double mirror



18 THEFUTUREOFTHE

the critical discourse that refers the o

the forms of the other to their hidde

twining of art and non-art, of art, com

which contemporary mediological di

intending by the latter, over and abprofesses itself such, the set of discou

the forms of identity and alterity pec

properties of apparatuses of producti

the simple contrasts between the imag

punctum and the studium, propose is thphase of this intertwinement - that

thinking about images. The critique o

exemplary fashion by the Barthes ofM

of discourse that tracked the messag

power hidden in the innocence of

imagery or in the pretension of artis

course was itself at the heart of an am

the one hand, it wished to aid art's

imagery, to achieve control over its opower to subvert political and commo

other, it seemed to chime with a politic



20 THEFUTUREOFTH

dreamt of by Edward Gordon Craig

longer stage 'pieces' but create its ow

without words, as in the 'theatre of

consists exclusively in the movemen

stituting what was once called the sthe meaning of the clear contrast form

the one hand, the typical art display

imagery of a world, where the port

Baron X are placed side by side with

napping in the shade; on the other, aexpression in coloured signs of an in

sity.

To illustrate the second form, we

and programmes of the Simultaneis

tivist age: painting as conceived by

nay, whose plastic dynamism em

rhythms and metamorphoses of mo

in synch with the speed of cars or th

dramaturgy a a Meyerhold, inspiredof the circus or inventing forms of b

homogenize theatrical interactions w



22 THE FUTURE OF TH

discovered that the lost pleasure of impay for the benefit of forever tran

knowledge. Especially when this k

credibility, when the real movement o

the traversal of appearances itself pro

The complaint is then no longer th

which are no longer such to anyone,

they no longer hide anything. While s

lamentation for the lost image, othe

rediscover the pure enchantment omythical identity between the iden

alterity of the was, between the pl

and the bite of the absolute Other.

But the three-way interaction betw

of resemblances, artistic operationsdiscursiveness of symptoms cannot

beat of the pleasure principle and the

this, perhaps, is the tri-partition pr

exhibitions devoted to 'images', bu

affects each type of image and mix

powers with those of the other two.



24 THE FUTURE OF TH

voici', 'Nous voici', 'Vous voici' -exhibition - make them witness to

people and things, of things between

between themselves. And Duchamp'

does service, via the pedestal on wh

it. It becomes a display of presen

identify the dissemblances of art

hyper-resemblance.

Contrasting with the ostensive im

metamorphic image. Its power as artexact opposite of Voici: the Voila th

an exhibition at the Musee d'art mo

sub-titled 'Le monde dans Ia tete'

involve an idea of the relations be

much more broadly inspires a numhibitions. According to this logic, it

specific sphere of presence isolatin

products from forms of circulation

imagery and from operations interp

images of art possess no peculiar

separates them in stable fashion

resemblances and the discursiveness



26 THEFUTUREOFTHE

productions of imagery into opaque,ing the media flow. On the other, it

utilitarian objects or the indifferent

tion, so as to create the power of the

contained in them. Installation art t

metamorphic, unstable nature of im

between the world of art and the wo

interrupted, fragmented, reconstitut

witticism that seeks to establish new d

between these unstable elements.Naked image, ostensive image, m

forms of imageness', three ways ofco

power of showing and the power of

of presence and the testimony of his

sealing or refusing the relationship beit is remarkable that none of these thr

function within the confines of its

encounters a point of undecidabilit

compels it to borrow something fro

This is already true of the image

most obliged, to guard against it -

solely on witnessing. For witnessing



28 THEFUTUREOFTHE

image. The procedures ofcutting andbecome the stock-in-trade of advertis

it generates both adoration of its

attitude towards them created by the

ing it.7

No doubt the argument is not decis

undecidable can be interpreted in t

necessary discreetly to draw on the r

logic. For the ambiguous montage to

critical or ludic gaze, the encounteaccordance with the logic of the o

presenting advertising images, disc

sequences in the space of the mus

curtain in small dark booths that gi

work damming the flood of commeffect is never guaranteed, because

place a small card on the door of the

viewers that, in the space they are

learn anew how to see and to put the

that usually captivates them at a d

power attributed to the properties o

sponds to a rather simplistic view of



30 THE FUTURE OF THE

edged. The Word is only made flesh

additional operation is always req

products of artistic operations and

of the original Other. The art of Voici

refused. It needs to be presented dis

'copy', or a complex relationship betw

into an absolute origin.

Without a doubt Godard's Histoire

most exemplary demonstration of

maker places his imaginary Museumof the Image that is to come at the

counter-pose to the deathly power of

of the Image, conceived as a cloth o

original face of things is imprinted

obsolete stories they oppose the pu

presented by the bottles of Pommard

mill's sails in Foreign Correspondent,

glass of milk in Suspicion. I have sho

pure icons had themselves to be remmontage, diverted from their arrangem

to be reintegrated into a pure kingdom

power of video superimposition.9 T

Ranciere - The Future of the Image

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