The Disobedience of Seeing Steyerl, Foucault, Butler

• Published in: Aesthetic investigations Vol. 5; no. 2; pp. 116 - 128
• Main Author: Bierhanzl, Jan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dutch Association of Aesthetics 31.01.2023
• Subjects: aesthetics; ambiguity; ethics; Hito Steyerl; politics; Roland Barthes
• ISSN: 2352-2704; 2352-2704
• DOI: 10.58519/aesthinv.v5i2.12980

In this paper dedicated to photography and video art, I will offer an interpretation of the tension between the work of art considered as an expression of the dominant power relations and a means of resistance to them making reference to two ethico-political stances. First, we shall focus on the problem of art and truth in Hito Steyerl´s videos from the perspective of the three fundamental axes of Foucault’s thought: knowledge, power and subject. For analytical reasons, we will distinguish between political stances and ethical stances. In the third part we shall then discuss this tension with reference to Butler's ethical and political approach to visual culture. Butler shows that even though a photograph may only be made within certain kinds of frames, there are nevertheless some photographs that can photograph the frame itself and expose the mechanism of restriction itself. In the last part, I will comment on the famous photograph of Lewis Payne (1865) and present it in conclusion as a case of aesthetic ambiguity par excellence.