Representation—as an anarchist, I agree it’s undesirable at best. In politics, it means one person is invested with power “on behalf of” another, i.e., at the latter’s expense; in art, literature, advertising, and propaganda, it means that an image is invested with meaning “on behalf of” real individual people or situations, to the same effect. Representation is one of the basic aspects of life in our capitalist society—not only in the political sphere, but in every aspect of our social lives as well.

I believe I share my comrade PFM’s desire for a non-representational art—an art in which every being or situation portrayed simply represents itself, as people do in anarchist politics. Such an art would, in theory, emphasize the irreducible qualities of life and the uniqueness of all individuals.

Unfortunately, we live in an era of diet ads in which one computer-modified image of a woman with an already uncommon body type is used explicitly to represent what all women’s bodies could and should look like. Representation is the norm in art as well as politics, and people generally approach portrayals as representational. In the case of the diet ad, this effect is deliberately sought by the advertiser; as a viewer, you can hardly help but compare yourself or your partner to the model, however opposed to representation you are. Simply wanting to experience things differently isn’t always enough.

At the other extreme, I believe it’s possible, even in a society in which most of us are socialized to experience images as necessarily representational, to subvert this. The recontextualization of images from the mass media in Days of War was an attempt to do this—to rework the messages sent by each image while simultaneously undermining the readers’ trust in the image per se. It was especially disappointing to see some traditional leftists evaluate the images in the book as if they were meant to be as representational as the propaganda of some Social Democrat party.

We can locate artists sincerely trying to make non-manipulative art without endeavoring to subvert the viewer’s socialized relationship to images somewhere in the middle of these two examples. [I think that’s a pretty sympathetic view to take of anyone working in Hollywood, but like PFM I hope to be critical, patient, and always to offer the benefit of the doubt.] This artist may not “mean” for his or her work to come across as representational, but this doesn’t mean it won’t play out that way in society. In this case, we can make an effort ourselves not to interpret the dreadlocked character as a representation of all people with dreadlocks, we can trust that the director didn’t intend this, but I believe we also have to acknowledge that, in a society in which many people spend more time watching movies than speaking with their neighbors, the character will be interpreted by many viewers in a representational way.

We can resist this ourselves by working on changing the way we view images, but the essential flows of power won’t change until the process by which images are created and circulated change. In the meantime, I think it’s fair to point out the ways artists’ work will be interpreted in the current social context, even if those interpretations are contrary to their intentions.

PFM once wrote something to the effect that “radicals don’t need to change the images they see, but the way they see them,” and I agree one hundred percent—that is equivalent to not changing our rulers, but changing our willingness to be ruled. At the same time, artists who wish to undermine hierarchy in all its manifestations must not just change the images they use, but change the ways they present them. We can enjoy and be inspired by—and I often do and am—the work of artists who are not focusing on this, but we can’t say that they are doing anything revolutionary in terms of subverting the dominant paradigm of representation in the arts. This is not a judgment on them—it’s just another reason to deface billboards, decentralize the means of production, and overthrow capitalism, so one day this won’t be an issue. In the meantime, unfortunately, I fear that however we radicals relate ourselves to images, the choice to put dreadlocks on the antagonist in a Hollywood movie and a regular-guy hairstyle on the protagonist has representational implications, the same as every movie where the protagonists are white and the antagonists are Black or Asian.

Anyhow, I wrote a novel and in it the main character is a street capitalist in the first chapter.

I think your point is that anyone is susceptible to the truth of the world’s spinning, to revolution, and that we shouldn’t try and foster an image of a revolutionary person.

If you go to certain infoshops in this nation, you will see three or four people who look exactly alike with minor modification. I don’t believe they’re expressing who they really are, but I do believe that to do so, to be completely honest in every moment, is more revolutionary than wearing a t-shirt nobody was exploited in the process of making. The whole curl your feet this way, wear your beanie this way, have this brand of sneaker, and so forth, it all makes for a clique scene I want no part of, and I find it sad.

But anyway, don’t you think that locating so much power in the mind of the viewer is a bit romantic? I guess I’m more interested in the destruction of specialized roles, like audience and artist, rather than thier reform. I would encourage artists to be more fearless only in their willingness to commit class suicide. I would similarly encourage any audience member to refuse their role and quit being passive spectators, especially not patient and critical ones.

“…but in our viewing to remove representation from images.”

i’m with you on the first part of that paragraph, but this last bit doesn’t make sense to me. Are you implying that the presence of representation in an image is up to the viewer?

clearly, you are wrong, as i was concerned and was not the artist in question.

my problem is with representation, in the form i criticized above. our quest as revolutionaries should not be to find the ‘perfect’ representational image (talk about playing their game!), but in our viewing to remove representation from images.

First, how much of your work do you claim under a single name?

Secondly, how is it paralyzing?

Surely there are those who treat Days of War as any normal book, and they seem to have ease doing what I could not–review it. I mean, has anyone written a review of the Koran or the Bible lately? I guess that’s a good way of putting it, because the only people who would are either for or against it. Many other people are indifferent.

My point is that Days of War has parts that can be interpreted very clearly and parts that are vague. The rest of your art as I have seen it is like this as well.

One of the last pages in Rolling Thunder demanded that Rolling Thunder (& CT generally, I would postulate) be outdone. I take a clear meaning from that.

However, from the first three pages of Fighting For Our Lives, one of the bigger messages that came through to me, without being as direct, was that COMMUNICATION IS DANGEROUS, AND WE MUST ALWAYS HAVE A WAY OF COMMUNICATING. Playing in the caves, shouting out songs, and so forth–to throw some praise out: they are still three of the most beautiful pages I have ever read. If anything were sacred, I would have a copy and not have given them away numerous times.

Anyways, I’d like to read your clarification of that particular part of your statement.

And I haven’t seen these movies although I am interested thanks to the reviewer.