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Governmentality and the Image
an Interview with John Tagg
Doi: https://doi.org/10.47659/m1.024.int
- Vol. 1, no. 1
- 2016
- April 2, 2020
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.
- Keywords: camouflage, Foucault, gaze, governmentality, surveillance, visibility, watching machine
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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.
- Keywords: camouflage, Foucault, gaze, governmentality, surveillance, visibility, watching machine
Summary
Author
Artists
PDF
Close
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.
- Keywords: camouflage, Foucault, gaze, governmentality, surveillance, visibility, watching machine
- Cover photo: Davor Kralj: Taklamakan (I think), 2020.
I would be reluctant to treat the monocular gaze of the camera and camouflage as a binary opposition. /.../ If we conceptualise the relation between the two as a duality – as visibility vs. invisibility, as watching machine vs. camouflage – then we run the risk of missing the fact that they are absolutely interlocked together and part of the same economy. I don’t see camouflage as being a response to panopticism, because camouflage is already part of the panoptic system.
Reading Time: 20 minutes
Reading Time: 20 minutes
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- Cover photo: Davor Kralj: Taklamakan (I think), 2020.
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