ri he Burden of Representation

Ecn)c n Photgrophis and 1Il5toriP

John Tagg

M
rn
t1
so
TA

University of Minnesota Press

Mi n nea poli S
 9 by he Unersity )f Mmnesota Pr s In memorjj of mj mother,
T be A rue Sout[ Suite 290
iep MN 54(1 250 Fthel Tagg, born 1922, died 1980
C yrt. t c of tTage 1985

r a ts reserved Nc part of 11 pub1iei ion may be reorodu a

rd 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, or
tfe w a, w thout the pricr s ci ci oermission of the oublisfer,

I ubF bed in Qreat Britia i by

M \CMILLAN PRFSS I TD

ISBN 0 S166 405 4

Th use sity I Mm s a is a
equ 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: Photographic

Portraiture and Commodity Production 34

2 Evidence, Truth and Order: Photographic Records

and the Growth of the State 00

A Means of Surveillance: The Photograph as

E idence in Law
4 A Legal Reality: The Photograph as Property in
Law 103

5 God’s Sanitary Law: Slum Clearance and

P otography in I ate NineteenthCentury Leeds
6 1 he Currency of the Photograph: New Deal
Reformism 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 28
Au umn 1978’ and Chapter 1 under the same title is T. D’ inett
and J. Spena (eds Photography Politics One, Photography ‘N srk
shop, I ondon, 1979
i tic author and publishers wish to acunowledge with thanks
the following photorraphic sources. Barnardo Photographic Archive,
Carsbridgeshirc County Constabulary; Collectors’ Editions New
York Internati mal Museum of Photography at George Eastman
ITou c Gernshe’ n C c Ileetion, Harry Ransom Humanities Research
Center, University of Texas at Austin; Kodak Museum’ Lceds Cits
Libraries, University of Leeds, Brotherton Library, Library of
Congress, ashington; The Mansell Collection, National Archis C s,
ashington, National Portrait Gallery, London; Museum of the
City 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 the
Science Museum, London’ Stockport Library, Local History
Department, Syndication International Ihc Bo rd of lrustces of
the Victoria and Albert Museum, Londoi I he publishers hase
made every effort to trace the copyright holders but if any have
h en i sadvcrtently overlooked, they will be ph ased to iv ake the
necessary arrangement at the first opportunity
Los Angeles John Iagg
Ir troduction
I
sthumouslv publ shed book, Camera Lucida Roland
against hA appar nt rtrpretrs, ass us with a pcignar
t
r A the r alist position The camera is an instrument of
s e Beyond any encodiw of the photograph, theie is an
tc i I connation bctwcen ‘the necessariy real thing which has
aced before the lens and the photographic image; ‘every
to aph is somehow co-natura1 with its referent What the
tog ph asselts is tAt overwhelming truth that the thing has
ti e e this was a reality which once existed, though it is a
1 ty ne can so longer touch
I 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 own
r his reawak ned sense of unsupportable loss, and his search
t imagc and not ‘just an image’ of her,
2 His demand for
a a demand if not to have her back, then to know she was
e consolation of a t uth in the past which cannot be
sed 1 his is what the photograph will guarantee’
I c nportaut thing is that the photograph poasesses an
e dential force, and that its testimouy bears not on the tibject
u on time, Frorr a phenomencslogical viewpoint in the
P ograplv, th power f authenticatiop exceeds the power of
r re entation
T age which is brought to mind is that of the photograph as
h 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 of
hindsight. laughably clear, perhaps. But such wisdom after the tact.
alwa s runs the risk of making montage a special case: a case of
manipulation 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 problematic
and raise the cfucstion of the determining level of the material
apparatus and of the social practices within which photography
takes place. The opticall ‘corrected’ 1 egai record of a building
façade is no less a construction than the montage, and no
less artificial than the expressivei} transbormed’ experimental
photographs of Lois Ducos dr.i Hauron or, in a different context.
those of Bill Brandt. The legal record i-, in much the same way
though for different. purposes, an image produced according to
certain institutionalised formal rules and techrical procedures
which define legitimate manipulations and permissible distortions
in such a way that, iii certain contexts, more or less skilled and
uitably 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 1
ca r v c g d ca Fe n fc reed,
x gal r a tur I ph ogr’ F Ic a Pvc ink
o plo grapl cfcrer and tic sign i F rekr
r resc ib e aid a guaran cc nothin 5 tle 1ev
a 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 n
I 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 T
an’ ilia eno oh Reflected light is gathered b a static
ii r 5 if particular construction, set at a pai ti ula
d a tIe lj in its field of vu w. [he projected image of
th s t s bcuud, cropped and distorted bs the fiat
‘yctar ula, t ate of the camera which owes its structure not to the
the as but to a particular theoretical conception of the
.
rai.jhierri 4 repo senting spart in isso dimensions. I’poir this plane.
‘h muficoicortd plas of light is then lixed as a granular. chemical
ou”ation on a translucent support which. by a comparable
flO’z o
t
it,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 sshatever
ds ioon of laboui the process is subject to. ‘[his is not the inflection
nor though irretries able reality, ,is Banihes would have us
beliese but the production of a new and specific reality, the
photograph, which becomes meaningful in certain transactions and
has real effects, but which cannot reli’r or he referred to a pre
phc.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 defined
purposes. it requires. therefore, not an alchemy but a history.
nuiside shich the existential essence of photography is empty and
cannot del er what Barthes desires: the confirmation of an
xisterr e tht mark of a past presence: the repossession ol his
r he sbody
e could go further Es cmi if we were confronted h the actual
t it about whose past) existence the photograph is supposed
s 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
perceptual relations that is. relations of pow er. Jr is Into this more extens;ve
onsdcus and unconscious, ultural. psychological and
—

our experier ‘e of the world held that we must insert the history of photographic ci idenee. The
codes d processes hich constitute pr F i is historic I n t existe i ial To conjure up sonietl ing JI
hey us est m nir g m a a ti
an tak it meant gful just as i i ivolses adav I sugge
nap \ei h r xp rienc tor tIc text hat on ask yourself,
mi ll it-c ourcd
the larguac s rerc -rtat’rs n t ust rhet r callv, urder what conditions won d a pho og aph
h eparat d from
r yhicl h y ar articula ed I cI Ne Mo e (of whicf the ear naryt be acceptable?
a! struc ir s and pta tic
‘

I I
trauma of Barthes wother’s deatf
and sshwh ther dis upt The
of loss which produces ifl him a
throws Earthes back on a sense H
eertainfl and units a nostalgic and
boning thr a prmlinguistic
—

transcending loss, on which he founds his idea

regressis c phantas. or. more What I no on to argue is that the coupling of evidence arid
present what is ahent
of photographic realism; to make pl
o
1 trraph in the second half of the nineteenth centurs was
real a poignant ‘reality one can
to make it ietiospectivel
up tutu the mergcnce of new institutions and new practices
ctl
representation hcwever. can t hoe
no 1 nec touch’. XSI exceeds
\{o’e thar this ‘t is a efict of the o s ation ard r-cord-keep’ng that is. those new techniques or
Is defit tion. he articul ted. nt un tnd regulader uhici wet’ se cert’-al to t°e
dtl uhrep sentati ntogiveri
pr du f h ubj’ tina
r c u’ g f th local a id natior al tate in industrialised
‘

arc n nice I t o
to th pha itass o I is w nctli ig m e We es at that time and to the dcselopment of a network of
cc have. Fe r alit of the paper print the sQ
work with the re i 1
disci arv institut ns — the polic prisons, as lums, hospitals.
,
material item. departments of public health, schools, and even the modern factor
than paper
But what is also real is what makes the print more ‘a stem itself The new techniques of surveillance and record
For this. however, we must look not to
what makes it meaningful. haiboured h 5 such institutions bore directis on the social bodr in
but to the consciouS and unconscious
some ‘magic’ of the medium. new usats They enabled, at a time of rapid social change and
through sihich the
processes. the practices and institutiOns instjl i!i’a an unprecedented extension and integration of social
phantasy, take on meaning, and exercise ,

photograph an ietg a
not just the material item but also the ad i Ition, amounting even before klphonse Bertillon’s
an effect What i r al is ati ation of criminal records in the 1 880s to a new strategy
ich tnt image it hears is part. it is In the s
discursive s stem of WI
-

and of changing
realit not of the past, but of present meanings ame time the emergence and official recognition of
we must therefore turn our attention ‘I hat
discursive systems that nis ital photography was caught up with more general and
for example. rests not
a photograph can coxrw to stand as evidence, dicue ‘ad transthrmations in society and in was of thinking about
semiotic process.
on a natural or existential fact, but on a social. it. representing it. and seeking to act on it. The development of new
is embedded in
though this is not to suggest that evidential value regulators and disciplinary apparatuses was closely linked.
particular signifying
the print, in an abstract apparatus, or in a throughout the nineteenth century. to the formation of new sorial
that what
strategy. It will he a central argument of this book criminology, certainly. but also
outcome and and anthropological sciences
Barthes calls ‘evidential force’ is a complex historical
—

certam institutional psv hiatrv, compa ‘alive ann torn

1 germ theory, sanitation, and so
is exercised by photographs only within i nd the new kinds of professionalisms associated with them,
pta t ces and witir, parti’ulr historical
relations the investigation
from an aesthetic or phenomenological id ook be th the body arid its environment as their field, their
of wh ch will take us far
constitutes evidence has a history iam of expertise redefimng the social as the object of their
context The very idea of what
has so many labourist ‘a inca! intersentions On a profound level, indeed, the two
a history which has escaped Barthes, as it dccc oprnenrs could not he separated. for, as Foucault’s work has
implies definite
and social historians too. It is a history which hw i. the production of new knowledges released new effects of
specific social
techiques and procedures. concrete institutions, and
 Jatrodu, tro
ihe Burden of Rejiresen ‘ation
new add r number of other reservations that must qualify attempts to
the exercise of power sielded
power. jusi as new fbrms of sfor med .’ Pow er e
e
1 s Foucaufi’s metaphor of Panopticisi arid his concept of a
lid
which was to be tran
knowiedges of the social bods crib ed in the nc w mee hnologt of pow erknow1edge to the photographic domain
reciprocal relation des
and meaning thus hase a se. F iryr, the 5rhronolog of change, 1 whicl is unclear in Foucault
reg ime of power and the regime ol sen
coupled concepts of the rap hic esid enc e canri,,t he taken to pomt to a singic and hnal resersal of the
ime in which photog
What characteriscd the reg ive and drsc ursn e political axis of representation or to mark a definite periodicitv
complex administrat
enrerçed. It crefr. was a een the pow er and or can national differences and inconsisttflcies he suppressed For
social disision betw
restmu It mit g Ii r ng on a ning. cxampb, if the l880s in France were a period of rationalisation in
pr s ilece of p oducing and poi esrng arid the burden f being mea pcli e otographs, with the introduction of Bertillon’s ‘signaLetic’
er and sen e,
orical shift in pow
In the. co itcxt of this hist k forr- i, not all at id r t t, care system, this does not mesh easily and conveniently
n and esidence rot
photogm phic dot umr-ntatio n cord 3 t d elopme sts elwwhere, In Britain, local police forces had
pho tog raph’s status as evidence and
once, of course. fbr the neg o iate d to be been [ring photography since the l86O, but, even afier the 1870
to hr produced and
like its status as \rt) had icqi icing county and borough prisons to photograph convicted
established he pr’sotiers the value of such records for detection continued to be
erate that this status ‘annot
Vet it is important, to reit pra rices arid new qustioned A parliamentary report of 18,3 summarising returns
tuxe of ai hiv
al
understood solek iii thu cun iroin counts arid borough prisons showed that, of 13.631
the hod Firs t, ther e are real dangers in
discourses centring on the photographs taken in England and Wales under the 1870 Act up to
tury disccurses which specifs
separating late nineteenth-cen t whi ch they cam e to Dcemnher 31, 1872, only 156 had been useful iii eases of detection
ial ens ironmen
body from disc nurses of the soc Qua rry Hil l albu ms 1} had to be et against a total cost of £2,948 18i 3d. 6 Thus, the
indeed as the
supplement but not supplant: tracked Inc in Britain, like other offices, did nor obtain
w pho tog raphic es idence has to be
discussed below sho stat us of ph tog raphs h r own photograpluc specialists until after 1901, following the
the changing
cross both domains. Second Sel ect (3o mm i tee du lion not of an anthropornetric system like 5 Bertillori’ hut
ugh courts of law
must also he pursued thro sion ers rep orts , and of 5i Edward Henry’s fingerprinting system, Even then, the fhrniat
uiries commis
hearings, governmental inq rriin ants of esd enc e t ae eptable record photographs was still under debate in th late
where the dete
debates in legislatise bodies s wil l mea n m t only
‘Ci -,

redefined. Thi
and proof were defined and n, Sr ond, certain exaggerate d readings of Foucault of which the
judicial practices which laid dow
—

investigating the legi slat ion and ussas s that follow are not Innocent
Act s, whe re and whe n face the problems of older
criminal justice
in various pohce. prison and mad e and the term s rsIops of the thesis of social control: they run the risk of
required to be
photographic records were It will also mea n, as I 2. “rlooking more mundane, material constraints on the lives
of the
n as evidenc e.
under which tht’ could functio rap h’s seco nd cou rt uomina[rd classes and of ovcrstatiiig the triumph of control, while
g at the pho tog
argue in Chapter 4, lookin object rnging to notions of a thwarted but revolutionary class, As the
t
the inst rum ent of criminal law hut as the
appearance. not as of crea tive pro per ties fistoran Gareth Stcdman Jom s has insisted, Benthannees and
ined the status
of copyright laws which def and stra tific atio n of sangelicals in Brdaii. for example, were no more successful than
separat ion
and thus contributed to that and pro fess ion al. di als and Chartists in moulding a working class in their own
the ama teur
photographic production into r e, thorn the ]850s on a 5 workr 5 ngj culture was gradually
arti stic dom ains which was laid out in the last
instrumental arid e ta[ i’shej which hoWe\ en conservative arid deferisjs e, proved
.
decades of the nineteenth centurs s rtually impersious tc external attempts to determine’ its character
whe ther pur suin g the photograph as instrument or
in both eases ount of or dirctieni Yet, having said this as a partial coirectjve to some of
we shall have to take lull acc
object of legal practices, tain . Fra nce , the United what fbllows, the fbrce of the argument is clear that the emergence
, between Bri
significant national differences tiou s, we mig ht also 31 photographic documentation and what Barthes sees as the
are bein g cau
Stares, and so on. And, while we
 The Burden of Repr entahon Ii’j/(t 100

discursne prjpaganda for its policies. It deplm ed a rhetotic with larger

photograph’s ‘evidential force were bound up uith new
real effects of icims than tins: with claims to retrieve the status of Truth in
and institutional forms, subject to but also exercising se a tatus threatened by crisis but whose renegotiation was
s that is all
power, and developing in a complex historical proces escntal ii social relations ot meaning were to he sustained and
tradition’
but obliterated by the idea of a continuous ‘documentary
neutral and ii weal and social identities resecured while demand for reform
which takes the status ol photographic esidence as
on tamed ithiri he limrts of monopoly capitalist relations.
given
(‘ rrainl docunientar traded on realist niodes arid practices of
in 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 have
III
ctrcribed of new discourses on societ, new ways of scrutinising it.
ing both to ix m ng it, and seeking to transfhrm it. I he process was, as I
Docume itar as such u as a later development belong
and to a haVe ahxade argued, hound up with the emergence of institutions,
a different phase in the histom of the capitalist state
deploy ment and practices arid professionalisms hearing directls on the social body
different stage of struggle around the articulation, iahen thruugh novri techniques of surx illance, record
oioed b
taus of ,ealut rheorics. Taking its name fu m a usage
came to denote ehu ipine training and reform. Intersecting with older practices
the film critic John Grierson in 1926, documentary
raphy a ‘iscourses of philanthmpv, thes new institutionalised
a discursi e for nation which was s ider by far than photog
logy to a central s articulated with and extended the sphere of influence of
alone, but which appropriated photographic techno
truth mu ucturecl state apparatus in ways which integrated social
and privileged place within its rhetoric of immediacy arid
uslv, throug h the ula tin i ir an unprecedented manner derolving it systematically
Claiming only to ‘put the facts’ directly or vicerio
of docum entary t dontains of 11ff never before subject to such inters enticin. I’he
report of ‘first hand experience’, the discourse
t of m ary movement of the paternalistic New Deal tate
constituted a complex strategic response to a particular momen
ii

a momen t of crisis not het)ngcd to this hn,tor of centralising, corporatist reform which.
crisis in Western Europe and the USA —

social identit ies but, in is the imd-nineteenth century on through health, housing,
only of social and economic relations and
sense rnitation. t ducation, the prvention of crime, arid a trategc of
crucially, of representation itsclf of the means of making the
specifi city and erninglv benevolent social provision, had sought to represent,
we call social experience. Outside this crisis, the
Focuse d in specifi c r ard reconstitute the social body in new ways.
effectivity of documentary cannot be graspe d. c

range of interte xtual Social welfare was thus wedded to a mode of governance whose
institutional sites and articulated across a
y. tig tion did not pass unresisted whether actively or passively,
practices, it was entirely bound up with a particular social strateg
ic, politic al and set ulin h sought to establish its rule not primarily through coercion
a liberal corporaust plan to negotiate econom
s, and authoritarian control, as under fascism, but through relations
cultural crisis through a limited programme of structural reform if dejendence and consent Central to it, therefore, was an
at restruc turing
relief measures, and a cultural intervention aimed
the emergent formation of iiistitutioris, practices and representations
the order of discourse, appropriating dissent, and resecuring
F hr iished means fbr training and sugveilling bodies in great
threatened bonds of social consent.
y numbers, while seeking to instil in them a self-regulating discipline
Integral to such a venture, therefore, was a discursive stiateg
mode which, by an t position them as dependent in relation to supervisory
whose rcahsation was to give the documentary —

central apuaiatu. es through whfi h the interventions of the state appeared

contrast, remained oppositional in Britain in the I 930s a
Deal’ progra mme. By both benevolent and disinterested, In the context of this modern
place in Franklin Roosevelt’s reformist ‘New
a whole series of New r , of pow er, we can safely dismiss the view that the res ersal
mohihsing documentary practices across
le of the political axis ol representation in late nineteenth- and early
Deal agencies. Roosevelt’s administration did more than assemb
10 The Burden oj’ Representation
pared itt gui t th m was a ne reg’mt cf
twentieth-c ntur documentation and the subsequent amassing of a i
SIt.tti’ ,ii
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
[ last phrase. however, runs the risk 0 f remaining ouR a
tradition’ resting on the supposed inherent qualities of the
lfitnrica. Irs pnthcsis fo stop lv re ss mOd cay e us in
photographic medium, reflecting a progressive engagement with
t dv of e iding sigirif ‘ant n oral difference but also
reaht or esponding to popular demand Yet even at this level,
ii re her a eomflex and dis or tinuous hi tor\ Between
the continul4 is one of uneven and sporadi development In
‘lv rinent of photoaraph in the sselfisrisni of the last quarter
changing historical circumstances, at moments of recurrent crisIs or
i ‘iincteeorh century and the emergence of the liberal.
rapid transformation, s’. sterns of gas ernaoce could not survive
unchanged and had to be renegotiated in v ays crucially focused on -I aer c document try mode of the lO3Os important changes
v he analys d Ir the rineteenth century, for example. we
the logics of social meaning and systems of representation v hich
etc ‘,ith th in, omc ntal demos tiirnt of phor )graphy
they sustained and wlijun, in ruin, sri ved as theii suppol ts.
.‘

ci’ icqcd adinirustratis e practices and the profi’ssionalised

The photographs examined by the essa’ s in this study are
eases 1 new social sciences aothropologs crimInology.
patterned across such shifts and crises in the discursive order The
,

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

years in which the Quarry Hill arta of Leeds was systematically
and o on all of them domains of expert si in which
surveyed and photographed, for instance marked the close of a
of high unemplos ment, social ccments and evidence were addressed to qualified peers and
period of instability in Britain -

dii uiated onls in certain limited institutional contexts, sue h as

unrest, threatened epidemics. and immigration which called forth
—

f law, parliamcntars committees, profrssional journals

new social stratagems, new techniques of representation and
itr it of local government Rival Societies and academic
administration, through which, it v as hoped, a specific kind of
cs, I i the terris of such diseour es. the working classes
attentioo to the material needs of the poor would provide the
c

ersed peoples, the criminal, poor. ill-housed, sick or insane

means of their regulation and retnrmanon. It was in such a context
e eonsttuted as the passive or. in this structure. ‘feminised’
that the institutions, practices and discourses of social welfare came
—

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

to be articulated in the space of the local state, Crisis was averted
w s et cut oil from command of meaning, such groups were
5
and a nev phase of development was prepared by a social
i”na ,‘nt cl as, and wishfullx rendered, incapable of speaking.
restructuring negotiated through local apparatuses deploying new
a rig or organising for themselves. The rhetoric of photographic
powers and new modes of representation. just as in the USA in the
0 tinier tation at this period, whether attached to the
1930s, in the midst of an even more profound economic, political
rentahst arguments efpublic health and housing or focused
and cultural upheaval, social unity was recast and a new relation
ci

Fe alleged pathologies of the body isolated in medical and

between corporate capital and the state was worked out at a
crminologtcal discourse, is therefore one of precision. measurement.
national level, in which weifaie structures and documentary
r.druiation and proof separating out its objects of knowledge.
practices played a crucial role in securing social regulation and
s’ ioing emotional appeal and dramatisation, and hanging its
conscr t within a social democratic framework rhc ‘Depres ion’
on echnical rules and protocols whose institutionahsation
years and the temporisrng rtsponse of liberal deirocracv as I have
had to be negotiated. As a strategs of control, its success has been
argued. provided the setting in which documentary rhetoric as such
greatly exaggerated: hut as a strategy of representation. its claims
emerged. But it was half a century earlier that, in the most
and their consequences seem to have gone largely unchallenged.
developed capitalist countries, the local structures of the welfare
 ]7o’ Burden j Representation 13

1’ e Ii S uboli ti-a egie i did or lr s th tht

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

the I 92fls and 931)s ma ared nstit itiona spaces of at sth ticise 3 photography is hich
irnit political and ultural (rises of
.

,sns ;afseijtcd from Stiegliiz arid others and in is hich. grs en their
occurred in mote des eloped capitalist democracies in which. whtlc
sjrjt anO separateness by the 19.30 the Pieto ialists’ explicit
F tc hnkal md instrumental us of pfotngraphy ‘ontinued nd
S S U 11 utdru s )f A Seni ) ‘ii sger nc s.s ry It was
SI rcat1 stcrrat s d ar ext rdcd, a wIdri io a hn of
crucial flee tion of the r C t onE e hsion of the PC WCi’ relatic ns o archival
social cc ,erisus is as also demanded, A it
place Mobilising new s,i,stsomis that marked Evans’s practice, but also its increasing
discourse of documcnta’ion thet fore took
‘acth hr Fnn am within the’ iris ilcgccl ‘High Art’ spaces of an ever
r ien of r riss reproduction. rh dot umentarv p cs of
des lohng g r a d rd hiera ch cal culture
9 (1 the gi eouall the prcs net of a
,
at
I’ s iu sod spaces that the New Deal diwumentars mode
profession. it crc addrs wed not only to experts but also to spe ific
imr.cd. indeed, opening rip new sites fur cultural practice was
setors of a broader lar audience, in a concerted effort to recruit
Crdl r its straregy and rhetoric, ‘iViiat enabled this novel
them to ti c dis ourse of paternalistic, state-duet ted reform.
-
“

sr an hrop logical liscourse tc reach it vider audi nec

D ur e ita F tography traded on the status of the off c’al
a cn t. gcn r an the l9jOs with tfe accelerating deselopment
document as proof and inscribid relations of power in repie enta on
,rel r-lstuitauon sf new technologies new cameras, film stock.
is hh is were structured like those of’ earlier practices of photo—
hansieal reproduction, presses papers .inks: new
dot urrierltatimn: both speaking to those ith relative power about
is ts fi’ r ph’ s layout presentation and reportage new
thos esit oned as lacking, as the femirised Othc Is pas isc but
k p ca i n and exhihitic r ard new methods of finance.
pathetic objects capable onE of ofTer’ng tFemselscs up to a
.r-iuwn ‘m’ and distribution. Such innovations changed the basis of
henesolent, transcendent gaze the gaze of the camera and the
—

ij’!iicsl (‘un’muflicatiofl and made publicity central to the political

eaze of the paternal state. But in its mode of address, document-try
, [‘ a Feir rroment sin, docuirentarv emerged not as a
transformed the flat rhetoric of evidence into an emotionalised
ci iti or a sihetic disc urse, but as a popular form
drama of cxperi rice that worked t( ifect an im’ ginar identification iifl an uripccedented audience and dispersal. The s-ens years in
of viewer and image. reader and representation, which would
I-’ is nbc lhcrai statist measures of the New Deal were being
suppress difference arid seal them into the paternalistic relations of
at t sri bug for witnessed a crucial Fistorical ‘rendezvous
domination and subordination on which documentary’s truth difeets
o an social stra egy Only in his conjuncture
depended. At the same time and in keeping with a reasserted
aid ‘a” dueutnemrtary mode take on its particular force, command
environmentalism which displaced again the geneticism of
ideitsnean,sn arid exert a power, riot as the esocation of a pristine
nineteenth-c rnturv anthropomerric sciences, it transposed the static
uth it e pc icall nsobihs ‘d riset ic of l’ruth a st ategv of
sTaration of bodies and space characteristic ol earlier photographic c
i c ral interventi r aimed at reseahng so nal unity
records into an ethnographic theatre in which thc supposed and s’ ‘sciiine ‘if belief at a time of far-rr aching crisis and conflict.
authenticity and interrelationships of gesture, behaviour and
P1s’stcsgrapfsr’rs of the Hictonical Section of’ the Division of
location were essential to the ‘documentary’ salue of the
I fiomm tior I the Res t lem at Adminis rap w later absorbed by
representation. The comparative measurement of specimen subjects
r it hdministration a id th Offict of War
and spaces in isolation gave place to what the Farm Securits
lrfonmmninn did not tlseremrc just reflect’ a social arid economic
Administration photographer. John Collier Jr, called ‘visual
lipa.easal. Working for an innevatory New l)eai agency and
anthropology’.’ idies nig imar is tI e urban populations of the north and east,
One notable, if partial exception to this might come to mind in
n I t rakc a particulr sense of the crisis of Ih
the work of Walker Evans. But if, for photographers like Evans, an S oth an I s st, r ndetirig social disintegration and misery visible
older archival mode of documentation remained available as a and legible within the terms of paternal philanthropic reformism
rhetorical resource to mark out a difference both from documentars
 II I (l(’IOj I Jir en,i On

1 ii U fll(tjtI15 ‘it d”Icrinu t;t”tl. Opflcm’[l or tc otietied bc a pricilegeil critic im ant

tO tins it 0i1iii Ietrlc\ 1150
d(pendcd I r th II anscc utdc nt parc of thc Musc urn, tipific ci thc
I )c(rnnv iiich Rois cci ctat’co poLitic I ((i St

on tnc] kecc lh’ai broke apart. cc tO ‘g c attempt to impose a cor poratist hegemonr 10 a reasc’t ted
B na— tic 11 sIc tnrc of lIt
cond 1mm. drirnc-t,tic ai iiierani’hr But whaiec r sense or necc’ssltc on Ii a critical
Us 01l t 110’ id-pt iiìt of Rtst-cft
1
it I tint nt the rp ‘nea
0 n’
3
it ru ight hac’c ha at thc
I ni’ no n g i in Ot do am ir itt ‘

dpltc td cccn’ • it5 “orb r t nrrc nec scas straiicd to tilt pt)i1i of hrcakmu 1
it Liet tOOL s 1101 tin <bc iiiiic ItiL”\ ‘ist nUr.i titt’.
111(1 liar adt,xiial mixture of SO( ml ano choingical
to 5 u’vic c o war cchich iin ior’lic miiupolisd iiidisrriai ,tncl
w nit It t Ii F x )ti( cc y eurism, ft tishist d artistic subje tic its, and
aric 110 ai nil >r iicS chat th \c c l)c al ta
nOd 1 dallas 10 Cunlcersaltc 11111 h mar once 111th appeared
don tidi IC ailS citiiizotl cc oil irnI and pcstwa i 1100 s, U hell - , .

Cit stlUc c’ilbtt -

, is cIllihIlicIno cc a cinrradictor and inhcrcnti ulista hi ’
1
UitUI II 101111 111011 ottO silapc \‘il1lt i ,1 ictS -

ni c ‘rical clan cc ith whir Ii a modish tradition waS,

pr )lifc rat I in dii at ni s h c I nih ar cm In I \lc( a hs i. in ii
lOt it (I ihiot i’ntiid appear, hr turns, modernist anti icalist,
Scol L ni thc I am Sw in tc \drninistr Itioli c phi>torapiii C ccl 1011
as 5al ,,sch ,\rnenlc ,lr,, nl))<-cnc ci; tmno and subjectic elm expressive,
ed, [lit c1n nIncIltarist Phuto I,caOne
-

Scos iii tint ,il’Sti tic

‘s i d c urnc ntarc st I on I human md ohsc ssic c Iy pri atistic irs cflectic its was
ni 1)150) tt ( snppi ssed, ir I the t
the plc tsrtai nrnInuollIsai (tf ‘if. ‘l’hc’ assimilation tI phritographic practices to ‘Fine Art’
iilIitIrf d mliv ill tialt ulic Inrii lii
1nl’

llis’I lflC, mc cOt P ji ‘ci It itiit 0101) cc as m night

t cc Ph difliculties, and that prc anious
I u1lG ,IUUOICC (Ori(I!t

R c Strc ker s St indai I ( ii ecc J st ir hi rid ut ic ii Photcigraphc did not sit w Ii in thc modern museum
11 I I!’ Fwtdy cC IICI)1 I Oc hisrctrr of phlomgm aphiv stands in relation to the liistors
11 011 lItCI1loilti ri h
1
sit
01

Icdcc iltI St ‘it inii pi pull t itd patrialcilal -

, 5’’ is a historm <ti Scnititig would to the histors of’ Literature It
Signihc antic
I gi p tot r ii hr aik r F its clue ‘d to a units and assimilated to the c crc Canon it
hit 111of mouth nc ci i tit i

\lt dct Art’s cc idm-ir hi’ jini ma Illr aup thcorcticahI, called into c uestion, The idea of
1
‘c hcic tiemnOat [5 ttpl iit’ii of tin’ M CO corn iii it

I IlonOi a derti t photographic lint tge has no morc’ status than the
cia ott’ I stiocc cc is )t)11 to pu t-vai if uraIt.i1 1(1 mmii ‘c

hialism arid l Wdo n of r I p ipular documc Iltarm tradition to which it has been
I tur w th the inspccifc rF crone of far
appeai U. ‘1 rp’c ci and cc hh it has rc’grettablr served to re-incite.
11 hc Ooic ‘i\JL. I/Ce 101 ‘li1 o! lit/li atTiC t 3 tdl\ -

C
tl i

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
ost o [a Se In mse cts in i i F thc dnm nan nc pic s ntations cf photographic
about
ci Ia nrc sip ho ais an 1 tic
naunnal euitnre. It scas in F’nitecl Stan’ in the I thetis antI h 9
ni tilt )s is also to say
1
7
spare in’s’ind politics the plipolat. and
of \l derri \r is to or u hint he context in Bnt’rin in which the rcscarcli for
this Irection that 10 pnhcc of the aluseurn t cc -‘

ihsation and ratc o s, was begun. I hcrc too, a variety of residual

S t’c r i iding 1 of rhc tot icai hber
a lid corp
ml’ i’. ill arm prac tices scene posed as the popular, humanistic, or
modernism whni cc as In c hanactm misc a nccc phase in tht ‘t’cliInl ,Ii
c’ he I I ft alternatives to recently imported versions of
( ild \Var’. f ‘i der th< (nra ctrsi ip )1 John Siarkoccski, Walker
in cc huh his work I k o r ahist a( sthr ticism, though both were set against the
Lvais staged a singular rc I iir i to the Mils( n
it t toni c atisrn of the Ror at Photographic Society and
was it ad as. at ccilc c a Pt ttgramnp
. 00 a peculiar pliotoorripilo
i a ii’cc and eIect 10 nil 510 and stercotrpicai exaggerations of commercial
modernism md the 0 nt c I depar nrc

Issairs In I rank, Arbus a p1 dc rticing ann photojournalism, fhr institutional,

documenuau r ft adition h mnded dc ccii from ,

o c. I, It11 ,mfsct thc’oretmcal means to challenge this continual re

F nii’dlandem and I lie rest -

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

1 hr histo inst duc non of complex practice to stvhstic strc ams,
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 policy
Before 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
n’iu ur base or, perhaps more accurately, the production
o na
of ,. new consumer body for photography did not represent a
ihailerige to the existing power relations of cultural practice. In
ía ‘t, mas have furthered their solidification. Why?
A5P, photography rly pased ui
tt pupulai hands in
ct
t cud scnse of the term The development of popular amateur
ph” toeraphv was entirely dependent on the large-scale production
ouipmene and materials, mechanised sers icing, anti a highly
c nise marketing structure, which together made possible a
i i e of ndustrialisation of photography and the emergence
of initir tional, monopolistic corporations such as that pioneered
by C (rge Eastman. For the new class of amateurs and even for
cit ui i.mtrssionals. large parts of the photographic process were
t ely rin on ard in the control of this photographic industry
s e atel or corporately owned means of production were
entcntrated and necessitated elaborate divisions of labour
orid koss ledge — both developments opposed to democratic
ci 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 and
srai,dardisation The instrument that was handed over was, of this
rio siev ccv limited, and the kinds of images it could produce
v th r r senerely restricted on the technical plane alone.
Ott cnifl antly perhaps, if a piece of equipment was made
ailahh-. then the necessary knowiedges were not. Technical
knowledge about the camera was not dispersed hut remained in the
h of of prs ialis& technicians, themselves dependent on means of
p e tics did not own or control. Knowledge of the
in .icm a fpieture-making was equally specialised and constituted
an nctracingIv professionalised skill, usually calling for much more
elabijn training and equipment than that available to the
art ca d i tailing a difference so marked that, for photography
w pt n r to a higher status, the explicit connotators of Art
characteristic of late nineteenth-centuri Pictorialism proved entirely
dispcn..,able. By contrast, popular photography operated within a
tecgiueal’ i ut strained field of signit’ing possibilities atid a
a icted range of codes and in modes such as the
ci —
lie on rtra t pose already onnoting cultural subordination,
—
.\ccordt-cI a lessem legal status than either commercial or so-called
art’stn photography and. hs definition, positioned as inferior in an
 The Burden of Representation
18
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
19
g ii’ ta ii cc ‘asir glv sustained by post-ma ket institutions,
lI ‘r sh c rriddle gror nd ranges from commercial art
whose lower registers arc designated ‘kitsch’,
to “iatt’
‘
cr9 s ilcr ‘ans:rteur’ or popular culture’.’ These arc distinctions
w n Tariicur hictri’I c” aral i’o_r atmi an
t
fis nec ti c particular historiographic s it sustains. Their
tiirrais iscal ordering is a function ot die tensions and conflicts of
rlr 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 the
t’r du ii o social salues, that necessitate a stratified culture in
Is a an I selectively supported ‘High Art’ more
i u
Nib Jtalning riorma,avc social mores is articulated in and
rt-irouh a nninsailv defining difference both from ‘commercial’ and
rca ‘p ula cul urc The diflerenc then, is one that is
ist tin Is idi c d and internal to the syst ‘m, not one founded
ssential opposition, as conservative cultural critics from
M,ndva rir ld to Clement Greenberg have claimed,
ic g ‘r ral ultural sphere, the hierarchisation of
her trap w acticts rested on the historical development of
djstjr r cC Ois ‘rules, institutional bases and secondars supportive
sir en ore’s But it also needed to he secured at the legal and
I I ‘I s we have seeti, popular amateur photography
.
is oak is s, has beer, possible is itliout the development of a large
(U1f uh,tnuarhic industry, fostering the emergence and domination
hr miatonal cor p rations such as Fastman Kodak The corporate
j dcc on w s both the condition of existence of popular
nhor’,’ srhi and its limit. It is as Hew technical, organisatronal and
niariwr( niethods shic’h laid the basis first for the enormously
nsf bit nass production of photographic images, and thcn in
e or pi’ a e of capitalisation, for the cvi n more lucrative
‘n(t’itri Ied production both of’ photo-mechanical reproductions
arid ‘1 eqUipment and materials, Unscrupulous competition and
t c P yes r ent costs of such developments inevitably rai ed
or atutors protection and controls, registered iii
ietrtsari,n and tegal disputes on censorship and copsright through
‘uhich in part the contradictions between cultural privilege and
c n is U potentiality tithe new means of cultural production
5P got, atedl
 .me I%w+• ‘.1 ktp niaiinn
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rngitati’,r; ‘I .lt’tniition t4 nctz’irnu inal aid ni,n—:ibirum t 11141
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dunjitatiten and ‘njh inlanatiutta islin Is pricisnis a • hut iltitse in is inch I’ • ‘lt”i, .i’b i%thl” ‘a a rnf’uenn.ui as tnu’ct’ in liii,, ihti’n. in
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d”. ipinuars oss’i be u ntr iictnts n tint ill f pilot) r iphic i it’ it r no i. unntd t zitual p Inns ai’ his it
dc clcpm’ t i. 1 samcpc c d cia hcraichsatxr A
s
t
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of C itruil. ax a pot i i cc on Ii) of cbs ursn’e pr duu.uc n slik h.
‘ 1’ ul’ 1101% 1 P t’. itj’t 4i (liii ,)1 pouiti ‘if i’ss.
sit (a titfin teimj an •‘pr”siu’ tapirs - Iuati’ in tic .d ot i on”ntt’ilt’s !t’
t
4 i 4’ 1 It “i”’ t’’ uS • oflint .t’aI ‘wg I saul .i C ark
‘

hut arc inpi ‘mis it, su’.iain their eRic us its hi ott bc-sn iting a • •• ‘as-i at” nipt to 5111111 ‘.14t I,”.tc’j,t .ti •ir,alu Sf1 a tilt hi’.
 I, 74, b7’ ;1 if SI, R’p’a ‘l?•bjf I.’

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lit :tnt1 clOd it’s Ip’ ‘I sit i’j)’ ti
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It ‘•t si’at is s h i cttinix It Is i c, 1 semiotic ‘if ian u
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rise. I 1)1.1) SSi’l ttt!i, t jI5 !rnii4..i!vt.ig — it I clii 14 U’t’a • t iic.’ti tilt , tnttsing ssste ins ishith js ‘trot. cd. oi
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1 1 ul ‘lIe li’ ltic.k t bttv re at’ r al it St ate it i th c , ur’ise qiruc t and
IC 51k 1011 ) C I tw 0’ S t iiigu’ •t t itt’ UIPIC ci iii
ji 1 c liftI a C IS r I rstplac.
C pic’s( r cItt 1 1 mit t.. 1 r i icttt’upi C Ciii t’plaiation ith
Is p )JIL It I Jflflft U udcn atiaissis bu rat tier IC) tra t i iciatoni bctss en tl C
turn i sucial adn ii jo. bitt tie. i on ss is at •
map out Ic pi duc us its an I eRr c tisits of sit c ss C 1
j’.it y’l I, the I lenti tilt ot a .“ ten. in rite 5, ft r4 ,r.is th it theM at. ccunradic tnt’ • ii c’nnIiic road iançuages: to plot ihi limits
lent. ne— c’,nM lit • tl’’ t,. ts t. .ini 11(11 tic’ that titi’s ((11)111 w g is hat thes t in articulate anti how fjy thcs can reniaiii
s., tjj’cl nit,. i ssst. itia’tc r irthod. Far 3alispl tie £ tritest “4S •it itt teet ‘alOne the identification cut’ their epeakert and
I be ( uti. r’ t ot use Ph it wrapli. se t out tc, bñng .i sennod • h ‘t ttmu iii’ Cons ictions of those tites addiess. discursa e
.iitl5 4’ ‘Ci aiIi1t C’ .i,” into’ i lIt,Unt tw’il ‘sith an .ithuss.’rian -¾ ,‘zi ft as this does not pretend t.i hr fiitai 1)1 nhaustisr.
.1cc•’ w’r ‘it ‘1cm ‘Ii u at ‘% :te .ppai atus. s glut t’t hotel th,’n, us I) - ‘‘is’s. base- cnndinor,s of ucistenci is hich thr do not den rmme
pIn 1 • F ete. ajldias r 1 Itasis tin th. p..’ ci c ties ts ‘it disc ‘1’ Ii • i aas “ast compuse molt than lax wages alone Mon r a.
pta 1 he put pa si to as old tI I.i (is C. &spr 551 its scs of th r elk is cannot 1 t C tIC! thati a cot ditional
it d 1 htclpre in 1 socialist 1 ntai
art tror i llama n tIC mint, pCispCCtl and form f pta ticc
iciS 1 tIlts’s LIIMU’ll fot’)a i tl5’’t ft a snf inadi
i c o r bccurc ilcnt tI it thu cultural FJCtiCC6 and S%StCirS A mcanmt,
* Ic’tci cfrCpr cntuion dctCrminCd m Its mnnitig aid
some mc r basic material realits is not. therefore to pos t
inomous discutsisc realm. EquaU what is not di COUFSC
2-I The Burden oj Representatior
cannot be held to constitute a unified, distinct and counterposed
domain an ontologically prior unity of being to which discourse
ma be referred 1 The argument is crucial here for cultural theory
as it isa earhet for grasping the rature of photographic
f.resIntatlnr i/that L dfped is not th nnn discu’si’i but the
coneepti 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, is
driers ly constituted in different discourses and practices and
cannot I e ‘magined as a universal, common r necessary refc rent
existIng autonomously, ret somehcm available through a non—
discursive representatIon to serve as a measure of truth. just as
there i- no object of knoss ledge or process of knowledge in general.
outside specific discurstve systems. so there can be no general test
Particular bodies of discourse and practice can and do develop
their onn appoprian criteiia of adequacs and -ffectivitr. specific
to their uhjcctives and to the technologies they deploy, but not
valid beyond their domains, ,\s bases fhr disputes and tests. such
criteria may be radicallr diflerent but their effiacr is sufficientli
established in the context of the determinate purposes and
circumstances of’ the discourses and pra twes to which they relate
Fhere is no necessity to posit a beneral measure and certainly no
basr to tIc ide a of measuring their relative degrees of ope mess to
an iirag’ned authentic experience far original realits
Fh’ difficultie’ tiis pu s in the way of he kind of analysis which
simply wants t view signifyine vstems as ncoding and decoding
pratics nd to locate them within what Aithusser called
Ideological State Apparatuses’ cannot now be avoided 20
.ltbus cr s decisive ads ance as to treat ‘ideology’ as social
telations displacihg notions of ideas or consciousness which had
hitherto reduced ideology to a snusrcpresentation of the social rn
thought ‘Ideology’ now appeared as the effect of definite institutions.
practices and forms of subjection. as an indispensable mode of
organisation and conduct of social relations. What Althusser
continued to insist on. however, was the general and unified
character of these relations and of the institutional processes by
which they isere produced and held in place. By subsuming all
‘ideological social relations under the mechanism of the ‘Ideological
State Apparatuses’, Althusscr elided diffIrences between the
institutions he named, inflated the concept of the state to a point of
an edu ida icr, and condemned his m idel to a circularity
e Ide )logical State \pparatuses were bound to perform
r a funet on procured for them in ads anec hr the power
cf 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 State
s 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 is
s’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 unified
r instances pcrliirniing functions set foi them hr their
,,rnons in a structured totality returned his theory to the same
eparanion and functionalist reduction of social practices and
‘.nre herarchr of causality that characterised the base
s,,,’Tsiructare model.” When the concepts of pre-given unities and
th trar sjj tencv of epresentation art rejected, this model is
decor’ m ed, and with it goes the function of repioduction: the idea
tha cultural institutions and practices of particular society
r’r Ii ut a necessary unity of character and ideological effect
diti ns of capitalist production are for example, complex
d compatible with a wide range of fa rilial tnanagerial,
) , administrative and cultural forms and even these may
r 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 otality
Rt-g’cti g the architectural model of floors or levels does not,
is sec. mean asserting that cultural ‘nstitutions. practices and
h n,,zrsons are either autonomous or inconsequential. Nor is it to
cler.s that cultural practices and relations can he changed,
challenged or reformed through institutional interventions. political
pracrices err state actions, or that such interventions will have
on wider social relations. It is rather to insist that these
cheers arc not given in advance and that change in one cultural
r’isi’ution will not set off an inexorable chain of echoing
is rv’rcussions in all the others. It is also to acknowledge that the
t ,mnlex conditions of cultural institutions cannot be specified in a
r
26 ‘Fe Bc’rde J Rep merentatiotl
general c i ‘p tot F idc o cp lcn id C n ‘quc nces a ci dentctos c ra
p edictcd rca a I e c ti t re i sea aralstic-sI d cc cdbotkrosab t
aante u o gird i r e s f 1 o stt etlo t a halt, v ri oicu u Fcc
t nf a few it orati arc F e n t t bev r nc t f r
here
I a
ltraI ii ,li r foire -

gcrieralifcv I ii w ui i a eF needsa i F at rcprescm at if 1 1

gem rat nt a i n I r di id al it c rp rat e hcr in the cF F s t 2 rneasorcd No a 1 p
Pam of a the of al atic it a t ) v if th i j citation of arid sol Ii
ti t- 0 tiori
n

the subject hi collaps a tices

[lie same cotip d to h d i also he made F m mptc s articulations t 1 d ou i

against iecent atti t s p t a tF e its of ideologi hr a a hist i leat Inuments in p it d

psi t hoanats tical act f th o dt C 10 1 of thc snhject in g sation and ficctis itt of i cm a i ‘

which, as in Aithus am un he ahstrat tnt ss and thin a is idc r plas of powt i Ac io c d .

universalits of the theott neat rat eh t i m ins oked are in constant di ss 5 muggld tan only dr note a dispersed. a gmc 1

tension with the historic ilness of the apparatuses in ii hit h this •o’d it , )utc omc, cut across hi other forms c4 conflict. ai
mechanism js supposedli mac ad. L is oUt of thc putposts of the Ii r. Fl
1 . oh lila \ su’ ii ,st hom’ ‘gene i 2 aod
essas s a tiich foiloss to suggc st that the histont al relations of ,$ar ich otitces ea led into ix ing at roomc- fntcdanc, t’ ‘

representation and suhjeetic n ae much more complex anrl a attccii ts ti gaugc soeh ar ooreomc- rlai ens
overdetermined than thea appear ui generalsed and htstorieallr -
so nor santage Far n moved item chc absc,lic-y
—-

unspeefic accounts such as Laura sIulver ‘s seminal anali sis of ,,.scd hstorieist uarmatic,ci, they must rather be seen a
.

‘2
spectatorial relarions of poster in ciassieal Holls stood cinema or osc nc uceific limiced forms ‘it politic at i aleolari’ ni. dependen’
-

Eli7aherh Cost ics equally influcnual essay AN oman As Sign. a a ‘lliat, historical Tm-a ns and pat rieolat. clatleogcahie
Operating as the latter does in a timeless space between p ‘:ii’a erspecos rs who 11 lots c To he constructed and are riot
.

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 VIII
l he problems clearly go beyond solution hr supplement. What
has heeome vulnerable is the very concept of ideulogy which a dcci mcam circunispc ct than the ambtioos of tmaditonat

aeqmuretl a novel eetitrality in Marxist theorising only in the 1 960s, I . mccc at them r i even as thes ate refit ted in the earlier ot
as the struggles and problems of modern capitalist societies ha 5 sa s a hc h toltciss uircunispeetion of this sort. however.
.

compelled the recognition of complex fields of social relations not dor u imopis pohticai disengagement. and if tile relation that is
adequatelt grasped hr classical .\Iarxist models. As a means to pc a’ ° tn Cli ‘her mv and practice is hanged. it is not ahard Ined

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
cottotal anals as asaconditional calculation fi tF
[22 t of specific forms cii practice under detemmi iate
k inc glamotir of a ntaster knowledge. nut it r ia
o ptot oting departures in cultural prae i e by
r t c haracterise specific sit oatic r s of aetiom
m g hc edt cts of pme-erriptive theo y at d wF e
i c the to the continual adjustments necessary tc
 8 i Bard r JR fir ;entation 0

I ctise ottr o 1 o ra’ .f a h pu d nbilising d Ic r icalr aints, Foucao su ropticr g n

ueottr o lMrxsn inpl F i rid rsro oherr roteqtanof&lhssesn- ‘i r of
tfticis pt fr b tc s ‘
p ha or a’ t h o ss misfic darkce ft cc
r c )ftrn d i Ice r t t a Ic s fl i ithc o to at gltoftl ther lik a Idwa
a
1 tiofl
0 A hoi ‘‘v cc ha a ur
‘so”c liii d ° vlU -.
,

prosed d c c t’i tI de i s of Itural t ia is d repressio 1 e socicta of rv illa c cr c

oractid and a ms c i p b it cs r r r a o ‘conflict e a F dco og a 1 sclf’suhjct tior I c prospec of
in prescnt-daa ci cr qu r i F onth and c y d y strugghs a d successful specifc nt r entior
dispersal of new k d c at ‘ t c u t onal and d rg is ch o alising sistems, whic arc opcs
cultural institutioi s d i 1 f r nodalith 5 of a Ily 1 angc. Faced with a ta k t 11
pots ci - r xi r g apabilities. arousal to action g c c
ft stas precisels I if i I ba 1 1 a.- er’s theors of t a ieprcss on
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 Ix
and crc inhibited or mat ginaisc b
sc th’ ss oi kerisru. r ro000nsnl
arid essi ntialtsm of existing yiaisr and serialist theore Hence. ft t’O ,1 tic a’-gomcnts developed hcioss seer too far, at times, in
to’). its popularits en the lctt as a basis list tiistering eultui al iv’ von ,a these tutalising t ndctico’s. the general tack on
actis sm and legitimising 1
culture sti uggla struggle ii’ a iil -’ s :1 as are set is headed the opposite was, This, as I have
1
v,
rhiough, hui in and n the institutiun of phi’tographv, for example. srrr ,tc, is oot a course ss loch means abandoning cultural polttical
5

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

- ace -s’s or suggesting that cultural practices arc autonomous,
disarm die very struggles it seemed to have validated. Bs Incating
such struggles. as ste have seen. in sshar he defined as state
apparatuscc 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 of .
sock 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 activist
But Althusserianism was not alo ie i ding this process. While
Foucautt’s work si emeo 11 a mu n r ore etiecrive conception
ui’’ n’ hronal or tnsial. What des elops across the articles, read in
roe’ -roec in ss bids they were written, is rather an attempt to hrcak
fr’’ii absto it al modes of textual anals sis without falling into a
’Jrris aaount of the relation of cultural practices to economic
4
re’
and p,iiiica’ social relations and the state, The issue of the state
rena’rs entral to the themes of this book, ‘Fri reject Althussefs
th,or’l Ideologit State Apparatuses is riot to dens the histoncal
imt.,er,rncc 01 significant rhanges in flu rature of the state in
ties faced industrial societies, to underestimate this states capacity
li’rgrriit rating intcrvcntions, or tci question its strategic importance
fm st’”,ggte as the institutional concentration arid condensation of
p’-mtc 1 pi seer and rrprtscntation. It is equally crucial, hots eset
rid 1 t into reading evers plas ol posser relatirins as the
pr d1 f F crt or covert actions or structure of the state any
r tnt rt dcx of some immanent disciplinary will W c havc
- -

of a ‘mi’ rophysics’ r F o c ant o o 1 struggles against its to dcvelop an -tccount of social relations, the state and
‘capillars fbrms’!’ thr r m s nt n f I in. utional histories tahty in which, theoretically and lustorically, it makes
into a gent ral metal ho for w discin na tipclago’ had the a k f ultural politics and cultural interventions and vet it
same clchilitatir g f t or action R if bed of i historical 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 rho efo e. that an be )ndemned in ads ance as necessarils a site of
since, without it. such aria1sis uould have no status at all. ‘‘rporationi or prvdeged as the proper site of cultural action -

rhe eallerm or the streets: pris ileging one space os er another,

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 bus’ e e iriay be a funetior of a particular discourse and/or
01 turge presep as of rei p n latnocuitas si, utioi al o uci I ne potcutialitic. of action depend on at
(a’ plex 0 ocia prac ti nd t ms I prc en Mat w i ch do eo latior of conditions, ti e natu e of the site, the mea is of
ue;t “epa’ ‘s, but construct, inflect, maintain or snh cert the relations ‘Rural production ims ols ed, the means of intces’ention, the mode
of domination and subordinatio n in which hetcrngeneou s socia’ ur calculation deplos ed. and so on. But the sites and the discursive
identities art produced. Such practices belong therelbre, ti a held airietice s they support are never isolated, ‘l’heir interrelations and
of- owa fleets sO ci they ‘re a t ulated sich onoiTiC lit rat ies fit’, ‘craft ‘iriass conimunicatic ns ‘pop lar culture’,
— ‘

epr it’ ti rs a d el o w’tfou i t sub ultur’d tvles’ also eonsti ute les els of it ter enti an
a d fOi seal pta ti’es
r supp It g an nifled )utco r e They also de end o specifi m ding tie r assr 1 eeifie forms of practice
historii ails devel, ‘ped tneans and modes -if prudot tion and other 1 ia consequences all this has for cultural practice and for
conditions of existence sshich them do not determine: hut ihes n’ ippirig out the grounds lot coltoral struggles are clear, though
ann”t h& c’s aluared hs reterener’ to these eonrii i’’ns as to a source rt.r’st .“inseqoruees cur against is hat traditional aesthetics and
or orig fbi r bleri f r at’ I sis i c eale ate ts’ sped i n assor e can b taker at gi at t d The dramat uniti ‘s arc
c urc ral I Ct 0 ultural [ta’ ic s in rela ion t dcii u her a b eoone pat at ag oraeo ssieche
cot ditionalitm, B thest ‘fleets Cannot he stablished outs Ic such ‘i if in i stirtit ral tcr is or Fe abs act, m tholog’cal
historical cali. olations, There are no necessary and binding rules of t’ the avait-gaed.’ and certain riperatie s erstons of art histor
connection between conditions of existence and modes of production a r lass struggle. Ihen, ion, no one strategs’ can be adeqoate for
and efTbt at the Ic’s el of signification rio inceintros ertib e laws 0 ‘H I”’isitm of sit’s and onfranrations: there are no recipes für
elatior for exampl”. [etwe”n r sas media eo porate owe ership. to ocial cot uia ds, or tists’ -nandates I c e. n prospect of
and tr alisatior and lepoliticisation of swaning Or, to put t i r in or sok cf art o eai )nly nc ageit r kind cf
eother v as, the ommodits status of tertain cultural products in mc e thc o it to c ins of d. The pecialness of tf e artist and
capitalist societies cannot be equated svith their sign status, as in cr”nlr’o nal oicetl”etoal can no longer serve even as a mohilising
the theorm of Ibtishism and, on a more facile level, as in so mant no th Cultural institutions require a svhole range of functionaries
a tacks on the prodoetior of saleable art objects in ‘left’ cultural a t a’ tinicians who contribute their skills to or sers ice cultmal

r icisr i of the b”Os. ad on at a ‘ehole series of points in a whole variety of way

[‘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
is cqoa c cuhora ii ihili ation raust thereforc be as highly
tiatifled and alleetis’’ as the dominant mode of prodoetion a
rh, r tive ,rs the film industry, television, architecture or, indeed,
nc” srtist—clealer-’-erinic_-moseom circuit: as collective and complex
as iiit kills, pta nices, codes, technical rules, procedures, protocols.
a ges, habits, dIsosions of about arid distinctions of rank
lid x ke op the institutional base.
hut in this, practice is stripped of universalint and rohhed of
.,

forms ‘[here is no meaning outside these formations, hut the are eLa’antees, the argument also turns on critical theory, Theoes can
not meinolithie. The institutions, practices arid relations si hieb -li, argued calculations cif the effects of particular practices in
compose them offer multiple points of entry and spaces for p ‘cif ‘onditiotis. or provide criteria for characterising situations
)ntestat or and not just or their m rgins There is ni space, 1 od s of action but it cannot lay down the lines of an

I
a
 lhr Btndr’n of R’pri’4en fe/ion
s, \either can i
oi)Jecrivc process r presc rihe ncr essary ci rection
per speetive. a
opt rate from any thing Fut an irnplicat d internal
a basis in it wn
politn a) posit on that has t ) be construc ted
cut 01 romp! tion td tic a ra proc s ‘s of pc vcr anc
ma! struggle with w fitch it wanted in deal are ritten on it
oistituti
ion d epis pr r h ps tI ui the a s ott n in it If this was to Ic ad
‘

opens the was for 10 sen. to tie nror titan a deft ttist si w t she theoretical pmoject
ndi ionalits as tself a cultui al proc ti If this
tuac riticisi r w It h t’li book is part tli c w uld hr or pot it ir fir ishing th
a spec if practu c is Pecus els c xpiodes ht pi isileire
for itself since the ‘-mutcrO e Btmt die argum’ or retom us crmtd,il S5iiting this hoot
s the jioliti al spe ii urn has lairned iii t N arooc a as the a nd’tjc Os which fram
or It pr ‘ ts
Enlightenment
debate which was. rem r’titton hut nemrhct is it e\lioustecf hs them. IVhar it ran do ft
It aft suggests the lrnits of a methodological
iii sit isc orsis 5 ructuru S in ssInr h ti sc c udiric> t can he
tim os t di-eadc the dc rntnant focus for oppcsilic it t ) traditional
,

raphic theors [he mspu d and mmrie of resisranuc’ draw it out. I hat is not cml ego and
appi oar hes in a r Fustc rs a in fi n and photog
the the r neal ours it is not art e it) to it But ti point s II ‘ithc r to thi o s awas ht
pr hlexr s of ucF a lous pi oxed to b n t only ak, mum iaagimie it u’s er congl cc. 1 li’ problem no lit s iii
ysical essenti alism of the
1 it edo is ism. c cit etetsrn and metaph
finaliti es ‘I ht loping rio St t tr gt s, pr letter iiscou sc s, iristi ott Iii, ancf
s a iimus s rsiotis of the ix lief in methodologi cal
histori cal practic es hmlmsatmnmts hmt h might he aNc to harge hess artd s’ ftc re it cati
gr ‘at st dangc es la iii the way ni w riot al arid
am) to 0 rae ‘1 gajti to solo r fir c
their nwfl institu te nial
ft mi st p irr irick,’red mit 9 u(’ctifltts (ii ‘

advocates
lirsits, p w i elatir ns, and fields of iimtt rs ntion fri this,
abstrac t structu talists.
of social histons were as tj1t5 as the most
ant r presr ntation s ri a)
For all the concern w itli ‘domin
and engage ment were
opportunities fi)r anials ‘us, orgaitisation
ant art
titissed: if the niijorits for xample, cot ountered domin
,

consum ption, the strateg mu.

listens through o ortsm arid lt’ture
museu ms was nes er
irriportanec of wot k in thc se areas, outside
eflectis ely equip studen ts
seriously grasped. nor did new curricula
of onfron to non nes en so
o i inter s t ne in these fields ‘1 he arena
was
inanti
diversified Concentrated in certain limited spaces, predom
t if not sec ur in its all
iii higher clucation, and seerningir conten
rn thodol ogical challen ge was
but complete ar ademicisation, the
. But the s ers tei ms of
staged arid signifh ant ground was gained
utc to tts serious vulner ability
this at ademit success were to contnih
in the fact of catastrophic political change, state
interc ssiotis,
unernp lomcnt . Ironically.
economic c uthacL. redundancies and
to the fore in theory now
thc ens issucS that had begtin to come
‘.

l ems nt which had begun in

threatened to overtake a thc oretica mm
rducati onal expans ion and
st ry ddE rent conditions, in thc
uphcas als of th I 969s
it has to be said that I am
,\t this polio, left till last of course,
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