Governmentality and the Image
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Keywords

camouflage
Foucault
gaze
governmentality
surveillance
visibility
watching machine

Categories

How to Cite

Tagg, John, and Ilija Tomanić Trivundža. 2016. “Governmentality and the Image: An Interview With John Tagg”. Membrana – Journal of Photography, Theory and Visual Culture 1 (1):24–27. https://doi.org/10.47659/m1.024.int.

Abstract

John Tagg is one of the most prominent contributors to critical theory and history of photography. In the interview, he talks about the contemporary relationship between (photographic) image and governmentability, on the asymmetrical distribution of power relations that it implies and on the possibilities of resistance to the omnipresent social surveillance. Within the contemporary apparatuses and machineries of surveillance, the image often represents only a nodal point for collection of nonvisual information. As the value of the image within these machineries shifts away from their representational character, the image is increasingly becoming weaponized and is in the final instance, destined to become a trigger rather than visualisation device of the apparatuses of social control. Therefore purely visual strategies of resistance, such as camouflage, are not sufficient to fight against the increasingly automated machineries of social control and changed conditions of governmentability.

https://doi.org/10.47659/m1.024.int
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