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Taking a Look at the Public Eye

Chicago’s latest public artwork of note is titled Eye.  The artist, TonyTasset, apparently likes to say what he means.

Tony Tasset, Eye, Chicago

The thirty foot high eyeball has been placed in Pritzker Park and is getting a good deal of attention.  (The full installation is entitled Eye and Cardinal, but I haven’t heard a thing about the bird.)  One reason will be that it invites comparison with The Bean, a large, reflective object in Millennium Park otherwise known as Cloud Gate, by Anish Kapoor.  Both sculptures are examples of the role of spectatorship in the self-understanding of the modern city.

Imagine a large sculpture of a human ear.  Or nose, or lips.  Or perhaps a giant foot.  Not likely, although the urban environment certainly requires walking, and civic life is very much about talking and listening, and about smelling (sometimes to our dismay).  I can’t say that some artist won’t sell some city manager on the idea of branching out, but these figures still would not challenge the role of seeing as an organizing principle of modern society.  What artworks such as the Bean and Eye do is deflect our attention from the objects of sight to the process itself, which is a social process: we see ourselves reflected amidst those strangers milling casually around us, and we see the organ of sight itself as a public monument—as a monument to being together in public.

Nor are these works unique.  Think of all the observation decks, sightseeing buses, and other modes of spectatorship that are fixtures of urban tourism.  Note other artists who highlight urban optics, such as the Eye Walkers (my label) created by Medaman-Medaman.  These are but a very few of the many ways that urban culture is a distinctive kind of visual culture.  And one feature of that culture is that it generates diverse forms of interaction between the artworks and their audience.

Tassett Eye reflected in sunglasses

Where to begin?  We see Eye doubled as it is reflected in this guy’s sunglasses, and so one optical instrument is reflected in another, and the artwork is doubled by an optical trick to more accurately reflect the operation of binocular vision, which allows the artificial eyes to assume the place of his real eyes while what is transparent to him is reflective to us, which is what the artwork does for all of us (can you see your eyeball, and how often do you think about public spectatorship?), and those eyes could be staring at him, transfixing the urban space, but they actually are only a reflection where they are joined with other spectators, strangers who are simply part of the scene, non-threatening in part because all are accustomed to practices of mutual but non-hostile surveillance, and all this and more is there but way too serious against the allusion to crazy eyeball glasses, and so silliness is part of the photographer’s achievement here, which reflects in turn the comic element in the artwork and so in the civic attitude itself, and all of this is wrapped up in the good vibe of this guy’s happy smile as he’s just digging this giant eyeball in the middle of the city.

And to appreciate what is at stake, all you have to do is look at those teeth.

Photographs by M.T. Sullivan/flickr and Nancy Stone/Chicago Tribune.

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State-Sponsored Stupidity, and Why Dissent Still Has To Be Chaotic

Anti-Israel protest, Athens, Greece

This photograph of a protester being dragged by police in Athens, Greece appears  to be a small study in mayhem. The action seems to be going in two different ways at once: two cops are facing right and one is moving left, with the civilian body being drawn as if to be quartered between them.  There are signs of action everywhere–tear gas hissing from a canister on the left, a motorcycle ready to speed off on the right, and the four figures struggling across the frame–and yet the moment is paralyzed by the fact that everything is at odds with everything else.

The more you look at it, the less sense it makes.  The uniformed police are supposed to be agents of state order, but their movements and lines of sight are vectoring off in different directions.  The protester supposedly is a threat that has to be subdued by three armored men, but he is waring shorts and a t-shirt, as if a tourist, and his vulnerable, bared body is only capable of being hurt as it is dragged violently through the gas across the concrete.  He is being auditioned for martyrdom, not revolution.

And why would he subject himself to this madness?  He is protesting the Israeli government’s seizure of a humanitarian aid flotilla that was heading toward Gaza.  Let’s get this straight: he is protesting against the Israeli government, in Athens.  He is putting his body on the line against a government that is accustomed to withstanding international criticism, and he is doing it in the capital of a weak EU country, not in Israel or in the US, its most powerful and reliable ally.  A rationale can be found, of course: protests against the violent seizure of the ships are occurring throughout the world and thereby activating a global public sphere, and Greece does provide the major Mediterranean port for US Navy, but I think there is more to it.

I don’t know about the specific individual, but I do know that similar scenes were photographed elsewhere in Athens and around the globe, and that they are part of a larger struggle over what can be known and admitted and acted on in the world today.  To put it bluntly, dissent still requires that people get beaten up in public in order to force governments to confront their own stupidity, and to demand that the press confront their complicity with stupidity.

Let me give examples of what I mean by stupidity and complicity.  The New York Times reported on Tuesday that at least one member of the inner circle of the Israeli government, “Einat Wilf . . . said that she had warned Mr. Barak and others well in advance that the flotilla was a public relations issue and should not be dealt with by military means.  ‘This had nothing to do with security,’ she said in an interview.  ‘The armament for Hamas were not coming from this flotilla.'”  The more you know about the flotilla, the more obvious its plan to challenge the blockade and garner world press attention, but guess which opinion prevailed in Israel?  (One thinks of BP executives mulling over the decision of whether to take an extra day or two to close the Deepwater Horizon oil well properly; Israel has not cornered the market on stupidity.)

But surely the Times is holding their feet to the fire, right?  Perhaps, until one reads later in the article that “The blockade was imposed by Israel and Egypt after the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2007.”  That “takeover” refers to the fighting between Hamas and the PLO that followed the elections in 2006, and the implication is that Hamas obtained power through some sort of coup d’etat.  What it does not say is that the fighting broke out after the PLO, US, EU, and Israel refused to accept the outcome of the 2006 democratic election won by Hamas.  So why would the Israeli government rely on a military response that lead directly into a public relations trap?  Because it had a long history of using force–e.g., the blockade–knowing that press coverage would be negligible.  (How many of you knew that Gaza had been blockaded by sea for several years?)

This time the story broke big, however, because this time there was video coverage to contest the print story.  Although the conventional wisdom is that visual images sensationalize while print reportage remains the mainstay of responsible journalism, it often is the case that print is the preferred medium of both stupidity and complicity.

To counter the institutions of state-sponsored stupidity, there need to be photographs that enact the senselessness of the state.  And to get those images, ordinary people still need to get beaten in public.  We should be grateful that some are willing to do so.  Surely, however, more needs to be done if we are to see sustainable resolutions of political conflict.

Photograph by Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP-Getty.  Those who think I’m being too harsh or imprecise when speaking of stupidity should note that the concept is being used in the debate in the Israeli press regarding the commando raid, e.g, here and here.

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Elena Kagan's Sexual Orientation Certificate

We might as well admit that American politics is insane.  Where else could selection for the nation’s highest court involve debate over a photograph of the nominee playing softball:

Elena Kagan playing softball

Really incriminating, isn’t it?  Do we really want a Justice who bats right?  But wait: if justices, in the immortal words of Chief Justice Roberts, are supposed to call the balls and strikes, then Elena Kagan’s experience at the plate might prove to be an important–dare we say empathic?–resource when on the federal bench.  Jokes aside, this snapshot is being used to raise the question of Kagan’s sexual orientation.  Softball + short hair = lesbian; didn’t you know that?

The use of this image is indicative of how easily photographs can be coded strategically.  Were it a photo of a male nominee, for example, it could be a sign of his being an ordinary guy who has not lost touch with the common life.  Were Kagan married, it might have been used to show that she is a team player.  And keep in mind that millions of American women have participated in pickup softball games, often as part of teams organized at the office or at church picnics; in short, it really shouldn’t mean much at all.  Instead, and thanks to the Wall Street Journal, the picture has become the excuse for public discussion of Kagan’s sexuality.  A topic, one might add, that has about as much relevance as baseball to the job description of a Supreme Court Justice.

What strikes me about the controversy, however, is how it is part of a larger pattern of denial.  Consider how Kagan’s having to declare her sexual preferences is similar to demanding proof of President Obama’s citizenship.  A gay justice is almost as unthinkable as a black president, and so the question lurks.  Is she?  And it gets repeated regardless of the answer she has provided.  And the discussion of whether she looks gay is about as intelligent as asking whether Hawaii is a state, but there it is.

Regardless of Barack Obama’s manifest qualifications for the presidency, his election continues to be traumatic for those who want to insist that the first citizen has to be white.  (Since they can’t deny he is black–although that was tried–they have to deny that he is a citizen.)  Likewise, the selection to the Supreme Court of someone who might be gay is part of the sea change in American life that will never make sense to those who believe that heterosexuality is a principle of American national identity.  And so, despite her superb qualifications for the job, Elena Kagan is being asked to supply her sexual orientation certificate.

The good news is that, whatever is the case regarding Kagan’s private life–or that of the Senators who will be questioning her–America already has changed for the better.  (For example, a majority would support a gay nominee.)  The attempt to out Kagan or discredit her or continue to keep others outside the charmed circle of citizenship is becoming another lost cause.  To appreciate what that means, I’d recommend another photograph of the nominee.

Elana Kagan high school picture

We don’t know her batting stance, but this is an image of youth at its best: bright, joyful, and full of promise, ambition, and hope.  Thus, it also is an image of the American Dream.

Photographs by the University of Chicago and Hunter High School/Associated Press.

Cross-posted at BAGnewsNotes.

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When Can We See the Police?

Photographs of policeman, often in riot gear, are legion this week.  The rioting in Israel/Palestine is one reason for the images, but there have been earthquakes and demonstrations as well as bombings and other flareups of violence around the globe, and in every case the reassertion of law and order is part of the story.   Of course, that story is not without irony: you can see people being cordoned, kicked, shot at, detained, arrested, and in some cases even protected by the police, and it often is not at all clear that the cops are on the right side, or that there is a right side.  That might provide the most cynical justification for state violence, but the distinction between police and soldiers rests entirely on the assumption that the police are to be defined by just procedures, restraint in use of force, and direct accountability to their fellow citizens.  Perhaps the political and moral complications of today’s civil wars are one reason (but not the only reason) why it both is and is not easy to see the police.

Israeli border policeman at the Wall

This photo of an Israeli border policeman praying before the Wall in Jerusalem is likely to evoke highly polarized reactions.  It is part of a familiar archive of religious militants, especially Jewish citizen soldiers (often in ritual garb such as Tefillin), and the reactions are predictable: on the one hand, muscular defense of the sacred; on the other hand, the moral abomination of holy war.  This photo would seem to be tilted toward a critical reaction: the rough mantle looks almost medieval, the wooden club is worn from repeated use, the small head seems brutish, and the Wall–his object of devotion–is distant and hazy.  It might be titled, “Do Thugs Really Pray?”  But what interests me is that his face is not visible.

That lack of accountability, despite the harsh realism of the photo, may be why I think it can be paired with this seemingly very different image:

Mexican policeman shattered glass

This photograph–and it is a photograph rather than a cheap painting–captures a policeman in Acapulco, Mexico reflected in glass shattered by gunfire between rival drug gangs.  It might seem like something you could buy on the street; or, better, something bought on the street and retouched (defaced) by an artist working with found objects.  In any case, and like the photograph above, the scene is one of violence now temporarily inert, and the cop is both there and not there.  And in each case a hazy scrim provides some kind of moral buffer: both the religious background of the first image and the aesthetic foreground of the second suggest that we are not supposed to see the police by themselves but rather in a context that justifies their presence.

There are many times when a great deal of violence is prevented simply by seeing the individual cop as the representative of the state.  And there are times when it is essential to also see the individual in uniform, and for everyone to see that way.  What may be peculiar about the present moment–and we are a long, long way from The Andy Griffith Show–is that we see strong, often paramilitary police forces, and yet we really don’t see the police–not the individual, and not even the institution.  Displays of force, it seems, are there to intimidate but not to provide accountability for either those who would break the law or those who would act in its name.

Photographs by Menahem Kahana/AFP-Getty Images and Pedro Pardo/AFP-Getty Images.

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Canada, Society of the Spectacle?

Some Americans like to think that Canada is a progressive paradise–not to put too fine a point on it, they imagine Canada as being America without the craziness.  You know, a place where you can drive the same car, sans road rage, or have all your favorite TV shows, movies, and music but not have to worry about society amusing itself to death.  Canadians strive and shop just like Americans, but still are the soul of decency, tolerance, prudence, civility, and common sense.

Like this:

Vancouver Olympics closing ceremony

According to the caption at The Big Picture, “Entertainers dressed as Mounties perform during the closing ceremony of the 2010 Winter Olympics.”  So that’s what they are: entertainers.  And what about the elephant in the living room, by which I mean the giant Mounty cake?  And speaking of Mounties, isn’t that other fine example of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police a Giant Cut-Out?  Not just any nation could have mashed up the Rockettes and a Victorian greeting card, but Canada is not just any nation.

I get a kick out of this photograph, which can be read in either direction on the big question of Canadian exceptionalism (just like American exceptionalism, except nicer).  On the on hand, we see the same ridiculous, over-the-top, mass pop aesthetics that we have come to expect from Olympic closing ceremonies, Super Bowl halftime shows, and the like.  On the other hand, it is still so, well, what you would expect from a nation whose frontier hero was a policeman.  That said, I want to side with the craziness and so cut back the myth of Canada the well-mannered America.  Face it, they’re nuts, too.

I should quit there, but I there is another point to be made for our academic readers.  Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle begins with the statement that “The spectacle is not a collection of images; rather, it is a social relation between people that is mediated by images” (paragraph 4).  That important point is too easily overlooked, but it also lets Debord off a very big hook: what if a specific image or collection of images suggests a different social relation, or one intertwined with another?  And what if Canada is doing the good work of providing a spectacle that can be read in either direction: as the epitome of fetishism and false consciousness aligned with the state, or as something that somehow gets close to that but ends up, well, more negotiable and not so threatening?

Look at this image again, and it’s all there: state power, the commodity fetish, the cult of the copy, separation celebrated, and gender ideology materialized.   But more is there as well: in a word, it’s nuts, and obviously so; more important, it is so obviously a theater of duplication that you have to believe irony is in the wings.  Excess may not be more of the same but rather one means for living within the spectacle.  And come to think of it, perhaps Canada knows a thing or two about being regarded as a copy, but with a difference for the better.

Photograph by Robyn Beck/AFP-Getty Images.

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Haiti After the Catastrophe: The Power of Ordinary Life

This week the New York Times ran a story entitled Haiti Emerges From Its Shock, and Tears Roll.  The government had declared a national period of mourning, and the point of the story was that Haitians finally were able to grieve openly and collectively about their devastating losses.  An accompanying slide show featured funerals and memorial services, while the story itself included eloquent testimonials that could have been included in any eulogy.

Whatever the good intentions behind the reportage, I can’t help but think that this and similar stories are themselves ritual events: specifically, memorial services provided precisely so that the American audience can psychologically declare an end to the disaster and move on.  The massive mobilization of charitable giving is slowing down, and the surge of compassion is being replaced by the daunting complexity of managing  the long effort of reconstruction, and, well, it’s been more than a month and the Winter Olympics are on.

Like any story, it seems that catastrophes ought to have a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Likewise, the dramatic rupture of the beginning culminates in the symbolic repair provided by ritual performance at the end.  And so it is that the shock of the initial trauma is soothed by the tears of emotional release during the time to mourn. These are important features of human life, and the press would be remiss in ignoring them.  That said, there is another story to be told that has nothing to do with dramatic gestures.

woman looking in mirror, Haiti

This is a photograph from the middle period of the disaster–a time when people already were beginning to get on with their lives.  Furniture from a ruined house has been put out in the street.  A woman is walking by, then stops and checks her reflection in the mirror.  You can see that she is adjusting something–her hair or an eyebrow, perhaps.  The scene is surprisingly intimate, and our gaze is not intrusive as she clearly would be aware that she is in a public setting.  Come to think of it, people often steal a moment of privacy to check their appearance in store windows or other public mirrors, much as she is doing here.

One might be tempted to fault her.  “How vain!  What a princess.  Doesn’t she know her country has been wrecked?”  I don’t see it that way.  Instead, I see an act of triumph over adversity.  A small act, to be sure–we are at the lowest level of the micro-political here–but an assertion that life as she knew it will go on somehow and she has a future in which it matters how she looks.  In short, amidst near complete disruption of the normal state of things (where one’s bedroom now is in the street), there remain practical opportunities to do what you would want to do anyway.

I think this ability to assert the small routines of everyday life is an important political resource.  And just to make sure that we understand how much resilience is at stake, look at this:

woman sweeping, Haiti

A woman is sweeping up the debris in the street in front of a pile of decomposing bodies.  From her smock and broom, I’d say she’s swept up before.  And why not now?  She can’t move the bodies by herself, but she can sweep, and that has to be done if the place is to get back to normal.  And don’t tell her that the scale of destruction is too great or that recovery will take many years or that there’s nothing she can do.

As in the first photo, we see a lone individual engaging in what is usually a private activity, but now in a public space or a space having unusual public significance.  In each case, I think we are seeing a civic practice, albeit in a peculiar sense.  These are not the practices of state action or global mobilization by state and non-governmental organizations; instead, they are the simple habits of vernacular life.  Habits that have transformative power precisely because they aspire to no more than continuity.

Photographs by Ruth Fremson and Damon Winter for the New York Times.

Cross-posted at BAGnewsNotes.

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Vanishing into Modernism

One of the pleasures of going to an art gallery is to see the other people there as artworks–that is, as if crafted for display, and displayed to reveal something important about who we are as human beings.  Of  course, some people seem better suited to being seen this way than others.

Woman in art gallery

This woman striding through a gallery in London seems obviously stylish—high heels, short skirt, long, sleek hair, ramrod posture, stiletto figure, all in basic black, one can go right down the fashion magazine checklist.  Less is more, however, and her lean minimalism and striking pose suggest that she is not merely stylish but as much a work of art as the two paintings on either side of her, as if she were the middle panel of a triptych.  But for the blurred edges that indicate motion, she could be a sculpture by Alberto Giacometti.

alberto_giacometti

And not just any sculpture, but one that sold this month at a Sotheby’s auction for $103.4 million.  That fact may account for the presence of the first photo above, as the publicity about the sale may have activated the Giacometti neuron in at least one photographer’s brain, and the photo was taken at Christie’s auction house, but the woman had to be there as she was for the photograph to be taken at all.  And so one artist was paying homage to another, but he could do so in part because the artistic influence was so pervasive that life was already following that art.

No one gets up in the morning to put on their Giacometti outfit, but many do spend a lot of money and effort to appear stylish, and the hundreds of his stick figures that populate museums, books, posters, and other media of the art world played a role in defining the aesthetic norms of contemporary cosmopolitan society.  That modernist norms can be traced across art, fashion, and photography as well as interior design, architecture, and other arts is hardly surprising, as a universal economy of representation was the point, but I want to suggest that something more than homology is at stake.

Women walking in Athens

When this photograph turned up as well, I had to wonder what was going on.  One answer is that a second photographer had been cued to Giacometti’s gaze.  But now I began to think that this was not merely a study in influence, but rather that Giacometti had seen something then that was becoming ever more evident now in modernity’s continued development on its own terms.

But what is being shown?  People are transformed into shadows, women are styled into nothingness, mass is consumed by motion, life crafted for the gaze reverts to the vanishing point, all that is solid melts into air. . . . Each of these ideas is a start, but just that, at understanding what is being revealed.  And perhaps it is worth noting that the last photo was taken before the Greek parliament building during a week when the Greek financial meltdown was threatening the EU (and world) economy.  And so, once again, billions of dollars have gone up in smoke across the globe as modern financial systems operate with the radical autonomy and disregard for common sense that may be a key to artistic innovation, but little else.

Modernism is now seen in some circles as a period style, but some have claimed that modernity will not–cannot–ever end.  Even if that were to be true, modernist art and fashion alike might prompt one to ask who, what, and how much caught within modern processes of change will simply vanish.

The first photograph is by Tim Ireland/PA; the third photograph is by Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP-Getty Images.  The sculpture may be L’Homme qui marche I or another like it.

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Silhouettes of Abundance

One might expect a silhouette to signify some deficiency, at least of knowledge.  Instead of detail, we see only darkness; instead of personality, anonymity.  When life is reduced to simple cut-outs, we seem to be in the realm of craft projects, not the sensuous intelligence of art.  Photography, however, can take us to a third place.

India Weather

This boy has been caught in a sliver of time, just enough to isolate his youthful figure before it returns to splash and flow, all movement and delight in the water.  We can see exactly the odd proportions that characterize the child’s body, and the awkward awareness of that body in space–something that will be completely dissolved as he enters the water.

Reducing the individual boy to an outline seems to essentialize something–the human form, perhaps, and, more likely, Childhood.  Thus the image reminds us that, whatever is there, is fleeting.  Likewise, although the hard surface of the water will return to liquid, that igneous surface reveals another reality beneath his simple pleasure.  Enjoy the moment, kid, because soon enough the world won’t be so giving.  The mood is nostalgic, and with that, all too conventional.

No visual technique need have a single emotional effect, and adulthood is more than the loss of innocence.  This second photograph suggests another, very different experience.

silhouette china

Visitors stroll around the National Grand Theatre in Bejiing.  Here even silhouettes have silhouettes.  The ground appears to be something like a fun-house mirror, and yet the shadows are as crisp as the standing figures.  As above, motion as been arrested, but here many small details suggest continual movement as each individual projects a specific inclination.  The various groupings tells us that we are in a public space, one where individuals go their varied ways, small groups congregate for varied purposes, and everyone is comfortable enough among strangers.  Again, the silhouette reveals something fundamental about both a place and a time of life, or, perhaps, an historical period.  The mood, which comes from both figures and ground, is at once peaceful and agitated, like the modern civil society that it mirrors.  And whereas the first photograph made water appear like rock, this photo suggests that the ground itself can melt like ice cubes in a world where all that is solid melts into air.

Silhouettes depend on darkness, but these photographs are distinguished also by the play of light.  Each can prompt meditation in either direction: toward a more pessimistic or a more optimistic end.  I guess I’m feeling optimistic today.  If the first image captures a state of nature and the joy of childhood, the second suggests that there is something luminous about adult life in a modern society as well.  If that is so, the better images will be those that help us see, not the outline, but the form.

Photographs by Rajanish Kakade/Associated Press and Andy Wong/Associated Press.  You can see other posts at NCN on silhouettes by using the search function in the right sidebar.  The light in the images is today is silver, but the title of the post continues a theme also expressed with gold.

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Public Images of the Clinical Eye

The eye can see a great deal, but it rarely sees itself, and never directly.  Perhaps that is one reason why photographs such as this one remain somewhat scandalous.

eye-examine-indonesia

This close-up of an eye exam in Indonesia exposes the eye as an object of sight.  We see a soft, wet organ, an aperature that ironically looks camera-like, and coloration that we know isn’t normal.  The orange and red could be a sign of disease or only a diagnostic dye, but in any case the organ’s vulnerability is highlighted.  The blunt thumb holding up the eyebrow is there to help, but it could just as easily blind the man, whose fragment of a face is tense with the strain of holding his eye unprotected before a bright light.  His mute fear becomes even more animal-like when contrasted with the optical instrument in the left foreground.  We are seeing an eye, but one that is trapped, first in disease and then in the clinical apparatus.  His eye has been made an object of the clinical gaze, which comes from outside the frame.

This staging becomes even more intense in the next photograph.

eye-surgery-indonesia

Once again, we see an eye isolated as an object of clinical manipulation guided by an instrumental gaze signified by medical instruments.  All the dramatic values have been enhanced: the eye is more fully decontextualized, with even the face now absent; the instruments now are inside the eye cavity during surgery; the light on the eye is harsher while the eye itself is immobilized (and sure to be harmed if it moves). This is a moment of extreme vulnerability, but if any emotion is to be supplied it has to happen without any cue from the patient, who in fact could be anaesthetised.  The emotional vector, if any, will follow another feature common to both images: the presentation of this clinical intervention to a third viewpoint, that of the spectator.

Every photograph can be thought of as being reflexive, that is, as showing not only some part of the world but also the act of seeing.  That seeing can be further refined as seeing photographically, and as seeing individually, or publicly, or in many other senses as well.  The two images above operate somewhat like popular science writing: they put the viewer alongside a medical intervention as if you could be part of the scene on the basis of your interest rather than actual expertise.  Thus, one watches as if an attending physician or as if in an operating theater, but actually from a third position of the public spectator who becomes aligned with the structure of expertise.

It probably is significant that both the expert and public viewers are not visible.  The eye being seen is completely subordinated to being an object of sight rather than a perspective on those watching, and one should note that the embodied eye is poor in the first case and blacked out in the second.  So, it might seem that these images are not reflexive: the clinical eye is the eye examined, not that of the examiner, and the public is not represented in any form but the photograph itself.  But as I’ve tried to suggest, the images can reveal quite a bit about two intertwined ways of seeing.

Photographs by Beawiharta/Reuters,

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China: Marching into the Twentieth Century

Like the recent Olympics, the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China has supplied spectacular images of brightly colored, state-sponsored performance art on a grand scale.  Many of the photographs are of military troops marching on parade.

chinese-woman-entrained-60th-anniversary

Something seems to be lost in translation, however, as what we see here is a far cry from the amateurism and informality of a typical Fourth of July parade in the U.S.  A better comparison would be with an Army drill team–if the U.S. Army drill teams had 10,000 troops.

These massive formations of perfectly entrained, tightly choreographed, visually striking troops embody design principles seen throughout Chinese public arts–again, think of the many displays of common movement at the Olympics.  Given the work that goes into it, the performers must take great pride in what they do, and from comments at photo blogs it seems that Chinese spectators around the world really like what they see.

But what do you see if you are not Chinese?  I confess to being somewhat baffled by these images, not least because I can’t help but see them as the latest iteration of the Victory Day parades in Moscow during the Soviet era.  That is, I have the ideological reaction that I was supposed to have when being shown these images in the U.S. press at the time: I see the totalitarian state revealing itself all too clearly in its supposed show of force.  Where the Soviets or the Chinese want us to see massed might, we see the state using enforced conformity to crush freedom and individual expression.

LIFE, Time, and other media outlets loved to shoot the Victory Day/May Day parades, and no wonder.

soviet-may-day-marching

Today, it looks shabby, perhaps even comical, but at the time it was seen as the work of a state using all its resources to mold Mass Man. The USSR is gone, but the Cold War interpretive framework is maintained by shots of marching troops in North Korea and elsewhere.  (Russia continues the tradition as well, but coverage now is more varied.)  And if that isn’t enough, there still are movies of goose-stepping Nazis, which probably is where the visual convention started.

But are the Chinese formations living monuments to conformity?  Is the authoritarian reality behind Chinese capitalism being revealed–worse, is it being made appealing through their production of the visual spectacle?

60th-anniversary-parade-women-entrained

I think the answer probably is, in a word, “no.”  Public art does not have one style, different nations share some conventions but also draw on unique cultural traditions, and in any case times change.  The ideological categories of the cold war are not completely out of date, but they are about as good as cars from the same era.  Rather than hazard a reading, I’d rather ask others what they see, whether they like the images, and  why.  Even so, I can’t shake my basic reaction and think that, for all the progress that China is making economically, they still are experiencing something like culture lag when it comes to fashioning civic performances to articulate their version of modern development.

Of course, one of the characteristics of the new China is that they can set their own fashions, thank you very much.

Photographs by Joe Chan/Reuters, Howard Sochurek/Life, Sipa Press/Rex Features.

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