The Disobedience of Seeing. Steyerl, Foucault, Butler

0576383 - FLÚ 2024 RIV NL eng J - Journal Article
Bierhanzl, Jan
The Disobedience of Seeing. Steyerl, Foucault, Butler.
Aesthetic Investigations. Roč. 5, č. 2 (2022), s. 116-128. E-ISSN 2352-2704
Institutional support: RVO:67985955
Keywords : ambiguity * aesthetics * ethics * politics * Hito Steyerl * Roland Barthes
OECD category: Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology
Method of publishing: Open access
https://doi.org/10.58519/aesthinv.v5i2.12980

This paper addresses the subject’s relationship to visual culture and its norms. I start from the fact that contemporary visual culture presents itself as a constant circulation of images that always bring with them a certain ‘politics of truth’, which includes a normative framing of what is and is not considered human. I propose the possibility of an ethico-political resistance to this framing on the part of the perceiving subject, who is simultaneously shaped by this framing. First, I focus on the problem of the disobedience of seeing as an ethico-political stance towards the ‘politics of truth’ in the framework of Foucault’s thought as it applies to several of Hito Steyerl’s artworks (‘Politics of Truth’ and ‘The Courage of Truth’). I next discuss the tension between the circulation of images and the agency of the seeing subject with reference to Judith Butler’s ethical and political approach to visual culture, arguing for an ethics of photography that transcends the Foucauldian framework.
Permanent Link: https://hdl.handle.net/11104/0346035