The ethic of the spectator: the citizenry of photography.

THE CONQUEST OF THE WORLD AS A PICTURE

Shortly after photography's appearance, the process of "conquering the world as a picture" (1) commenced. In this era, photography became a prime mediator in the social and political relations among citizens, as well as the relations between citizens and the powers that be. (2) We thus live in an era in which it is difficult to conceive of even a single human activity that does not use photography, or at least provide an opportunity for it to be deployed in the past, present or future. (3) Newspaper reportage, jurisprudence, medicine, education, politics, family, entertainment and recreation--everything is mediated by photography. (4) There are virtually no restrictions on the use of photography in public space. (5) Everyone and everything is liable to become a photograph. However, there are exceptions--military zones, for instance, and other enclosed spaces where rules concerning the use of photography are enforced. (6) In certain domains, the use of photography is a duty (identity photos for official documents) or normative (class photographs). Most often, the encounter with photography does not require explicit consent from its users, whether they are photographers or spectators. That which has yet to be conquered is always susceptible to becoming a goal of conquest: "the conquest of the world as picture" was not hastily undertaken, nor did it emerge out of oppression. Conquering the world as a picture means that every citizen could see--through photographs, and thus through the eyes of others--more than they could see by herself. This process was not directed from "on high" by means of a central body that administered the use of photography, or regulated the infinite output that it produced. Photography functions on a horizontal plane, it is present everywhere--actually or potentially. (7) The conquest of the world as picture is enacted simultaneously by everyone who holds a camera, serves as the object of a photograph or looks at photographs.

The conquest of the world as picture was photography's vision from its very beginning, and is performed anew each and every moment. The dynamic partnership of "everyone" in the fulfillment of this vision makes them citizens in the citizenry of photography. Their participation simultaneously in the conquered world (as picture) and in the powers that conquer (photographer and spectators), actually prevents the completion of the process of turning the world into a mere picture. This partnership makes the conquest of the world through more and more pictures an ongoing and unfinished enterprise. Within a social context, the logic of photography exceeds the singular act of photography and is woven into the net of a plurality of people, where all are photographing at the same time, thus lending their human gaze and their mechanized gaze to others in a way that essentially escapes their control. This is the origin of the ontological difference that marks the status of the image in an era that began with the invention of photography. The civil contract of photography is the agreement that allows the logic of photography to overpower social relations, while at the same time provide a point of resistance against photography's total control, initiating a responsibility to prevent the completion of this very control. (8)

Here is a photograph that exemplifies the civil contract of photography. In 1988, the Israeli newspaper Hadashot sent reporter Zvi Gilat, translator Amira Hassan and photographer Miki Kratzman on assignment to report on a soldier's post built on the roof of the house of the Abu-Zohir family. Mrs. Abu-Zohir demanded that the photographer take a picture of her legs, where she had been shot with rubber bullets by Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers. The photographer--who regularly took pictures of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, had seen rubber bullet injuries before and who was familiar with the habits of his editors and their expectations in regard to photography--dismissed her request, claiming that rubber bullet wounds don't make good pictures. He had not seen her wound but his knowledge was based on past experience, which was abundant. But the woman was insistent--after all, she was a signatory of the civil contract of photography. She knew that her wound was singular, and that her right to be photographed did not oblige anyone to see the photo (nor any editor to publish it). But she acted, nonetheless, as if it was her right to demand her photo be taken, and everyone else's duty to see it. The editor and the spectator are civilly obliged to address her demands. The right or duty does not stem from the law, but from the civil contract of photography. She was seeking to become a citizen by means of, through and with photography. By becoming a citizen she enables others to become citizens. She came face-to-face with one citizen: the photographer. He asked to see the wound before he granted her request. She refused. She would not expose her legs in public, her body was her own. Her participation in the civil contract of photography was an agreement to be photographed--not to be seen--by a photographer.

PHOTOGRAPHER: Show me your legs.

MRS. ABU-ZOHIR: I won't show you my legs. You're not going to see my legs.

PHOTOGRAPHER VIA TRANSLATOR: Explain to her that this photo is going to appear in the newspapers and the entire world is going to see her legs.

MRS. ABU-ZOHIR: A photo's a photo. I don't care if the photo is seen, but you're not going to be in the room with me when I expose my legs.

An agreement on photography? "Yes," Abu-Zohir would say, but there would be no wholesale agreement on photographer-photographed relations as the press dictates. Abu-Zohir demanded the picture of her wound. The photographer prepared the camera, directed its' gaze, determined the exposure length, focused the lens, deposited the camera in the journalist's hands and left the room. The journalist shot an entire roll of film in order to obtain a single image, the one in which I am now standing as a spectator. Abu-Zohir's bare feet were planted on the ground, pressed to the floor, supporting the entire weight of her body as she stood staunch and upright. She leveled her gaze at the camera--not the photographer, he was clearly of no concern to her--she rolled up her pant legs, pulled up her skirt, and framed the injury. It's as if she were saying: "I, Mrs. Abu-Zohir, am showing you, the spectator, my wound. I am holding my skirt like a screen so that you will see my wound." Alongside her stood a little girl, perhaps her daughter, who felt comfortable enough to walk barefoot. She was allowed to look. Perhaps she was even required to look, unlike myself, the spectator of the photo. The girl signifies the distance between whoever looks at her and whoever looks at the photo. Abu-Zohir placed the girl beside her as a reminder--so that no one can mistake the photo for that which is photographed in it, but also to insure that no one will forget the continuity between the photo and what has been photographed in it.

Abu-Zohir, when she let her skirt fall back down, sought to put an end to the photographic act. But the photo will not allow photography to end, nor will Abu-Zohir alone dictate its course. This photo, from which her silent gaze looks out at me, will not let go. Nothing has concluded, though the hour of photography has passed.

TRUST IN PHOTOGRAPHY

Abu Zohir's request for a photograph of her injury is based on the assumption that the camera makes it possible to obtain as sharp, clear and lifelike an image as possible of what appears in front of the lens. This is more than an assumption, it is an agreement among the citizens of the citizenry of photography over the status of the photographed, and the possibility of a transition from the photograph to the photographed--that is, access to what is imprinted on the photograph. This agreement is the convention of photography, which can be exemplified by two well-known anecdotes. The first concerns responses Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov received after he presented his films in the 1920s to peasants who had never seen a movie: surprised and embarrassed by the close-ups, they adamantly objected to the cynicism of decapitating people for the sake of cinema. The second anecdote concerns an anthropologist who showed a Bush woman a snapshot of her own son: the woman could not recognize her son's face until those around her pointed to each detail in the photograph and called it by name. These two anecdotes describe peoples' first encounter with the media. In the first anecdote, identification is extreme--to the point of total identification--between the filmed image and its reference, to such an extent that what appears on the screen seems to the peasants to be actual persons who have just been decapitated. For the woman in the second anecdote, the identification is so unfeasible that she does not recognize her son in the reference. The gesture of identification, expressed in pointing out "this is x," characterizes the viewing of a photograph. The absence of this gesture, which reaches the extreme among inexperienced spectators like those described in the anecdotes, indicates that the experience of the narrators of the anecdotes were gathered through practice and socialization.

When various teachers and writers use these anecdotes they wish to critically expose the fact that photography and cinema are practices of representation that are culturally dependent and that their particular mode of representation is not to be taken for granted. Such anecdotes, which are told again and again, enable the narrators to distinguish themselves from other spectators. The narrators' viewing skills in these media have caused them to already forget the inauguration that was demanded of them, which is exemplified through the protagonists of the two anecdotes. The ritualistic dimension of narrating the anecdotes transforms the very act of storytelling into an instrument of socialization, enabling the storytellers to express a seemingly critical position. Although restricted to a general claim about the cultural conditioning of photographic representation, such narrations allow the one who relays them to believe that a deep truth has been exposed, all the while ignoring the obligation she has toward the social agreement in relation to the photographed image, which lies at the heart of the civil contract of photography.

Instead of serving as a point for critical reflection, the narrator regards photography's cultural dependence simply as a negative feature, overlooking that this fact is what characterizes the political conditions of the visible in the photographic era. In other words, transmitting such anecdotes often absolves the transmitter from actually grappling with their content. As soon as they are told, everyone knows that the storyteller knows that photography is a convention. Through the anecdote, the fact that photography is a convention becomes a secret of photography that must be exposed, thus the narrator becomes the critical agent who conveys this secret. The fact that these anecdotes can be told again and again (and by a vast number of people), and that the narrator or his listeners can reveal the secret every time without ever exhausting the secret, should necessitate a new inquiry into the convention of photography and its status as a secret. The secret that unveils photography as a convention is usually related to the level of representation--what is seen in the picture is identified by members of the same culture because they have been trained to see photographs and identify similarities between such photographs and the photographed object. This convention is the rule of photography, but only rarely is it encountered face to face, with its rough seams so apparent. Even in a society accustomed to photography, in which disputes are made over what is represented by various experts who linger over an image in order to make it speak, the fact that photography is a convention is simultaneously visible and concealed. The image appears as a group of marks with an obscure meaning, accompanied by graphics (arrows indicating who or what is shown in the picture) or lingual signs (words or concepts that organize the scene so that it will not escape the eye of the spectator) in order to assist in the creation of meaning from the group of marks. These signs facilitate the gesture of identification--"this is X." The signs themselves, as well as the disputes over their referent, attest to the fact that the photograph does not speak for itself, that what is seen in the photograph is not immediately given, and that its meaning must be constructed and agreed upon." As demonstrated by the above anecdotes, the inquiry into the convention of photography focuses on the plane of the visible, while leaving in shadow, and maybe even in secret, the convention of photography as it exists on the plane of political relations. Speaking of the convention as "the thing agreed upon"--that is, the object of agreement--undermines the fact that a convention is first and foremost a gathering, as indicated by the Latin root of convening, con-venir, meaning coming together, to an agreement.

Most histories of photography (10) ignore this element of agreement that is involved in photography, along with the social relations shaped by this agreement. These histories are written from a hegemonic viewpoint that accepts the institutionalization of photography as a movement toward progress. In addition, they fail to consider the primary, constitutive link between the State or sovereign power and photography, nor the contentions made by those opposed to photography at its inception. Accepting the motif of progress as the self-evident, central axis for the unfolding of events, (11) these histories overlook the fact that from its very beginning photography has been a mass medium that rudely and violently fixes anyone and anything as an image. Despite this, for almost two centuries, photography has still attempted the realization of the moment of convening that has existed within it from the very beginning.

In order to understand this agreement, it is necessary to interrogate the conditions that brought about its achievement among people who were unfamiliar to one other. The origin of this agreement can be located at the point when a certain type of photography was established, and acquired a monopoly within a very short span of time. The famous, enthusiastic speech of the French physicist Francois Arago, delivered before the French Chamber of Deputies in 1839, allows us to isolate a constituent moment in this establishment. In his speech, Arago hoped to convince his colleagues of the importance of the invention and the necessity of the State to take steps to protect and promote it. Arago pointed to the great potential of photography to assist in various fields of human endeavor, as well in many different fields of knowledge (including philology, astronomy, archeology and art). However, the benefit of photography seems of secondary importance when compared to the truly great project that he implies in his remarks--the conquest of the entire world as a picture.

On one hand, he counted everything that could be turned into an object of photography--which is more or less the entire world; on the other hand, he emphasized the fact that anyone could participate in realizing the capabilities of the invention. According to Arago, the invention does not simply yield "experimental results among the curiosities of physics." (12) If this was the only benefit of the invention, as he clearly states in his speech, "[it] would never have become a subject for the consideration of this chamber." Instead, it is under discussion not only because a much larger community of non-scientists could handle it, but also because it has created a shift in the possibilities of conquering the world as a picture. Much more than single visual representations resulting from a large investment of practice, time and resources, photography is an endless multiplicity of images of which anyone can become the producer and the agent, by simply following a short set of instructions. "When, step by step, a few simple prescribed rules are followed, there is no one who cannot succeed as certainly and as well as can Mr. Daguerre himself." (13) When reading Arago's vision it is difficult to miss the prophetic announcement of the imperialistic power of photography. Arago's enthusiastic arguments were intended to weaken, or perhaps even silence, the voices of those opposed to photography and its institutionalization.

Traces of those voices have barely survived in the discourse on photography, and when they do receive a mention here or there, they are generally presented as reactionary and primitive for having ascribed magical properties to photography. Even when Walter Benjamin, who dreamed of writing an alternative general history, and an alternative history of photography in particular, presented such voices through the dichotomy of conservatism and progress, he scornfully described such voices as opponents of the "Black Art from France." (11) Ever since photography's appearance on the stage of history, any possibility of repudiating what has turned into the self-evidence of photography, or photography as being self-evident, has thus been drastically curtailed. If there was, in photography, any measure of otherness--as its opponents at the outset insisted--it has been effectively denied and domesticated, whereby photography has rapidly spread into every corner of life, and assimilated into the modern landscape. (15)

Arago concluded his speech to the Chamber on a patriotic note, depicting France as the bearer of glad tidings: "France has adopted this invention and from the first has been proud to be able to generously present it to the entire world." (16) The State responded to Arago's panegyric to photography and his demand that its inventors be rewarded by purchasing the patent rights and transforming the invention into common property. (17) The object of these glad tidings was no longer a mere technological invention, but a political revolution--a second French Revolution. Like the first, which formulated the rights of man and citizen, this revolution reshaped the status of both man and citizen. (18) The French State purchased the patent rights of the camera as fabricator of images, but it couldn't make the action of photography its own.

Photography, as such, cannot be appropriated. (19) Selecting the daguerreotype, Daguerre's invention, over the competing inventions of William Henry Fox Talbot or Hippolyte Bayard, whose photos appeared less accurate and more pictorial, was a decision in favor of photography as a scientific tool, to be used as an instrument of truth, and to transmit information on what "had been there"--information that could be used for legal, historical or cultural purposes. Distinguishing photography from painting (which does not hold an indexical relation with its object) separated photography from the logic of collections and exhibitions that were presented to the curious eyes of individuals. In the type of photography that was thus established, epistemological criteria set the standard for the relation between the photographic result and its object, so that photography is supposed to enable the identification and recognition of the photographed.

In addition to a few specific operating instructions for each chosen model, the instruction manuals supplied with every camera have given expression to these epistemological criteria: "the instrument you have in your hands is intended to help you obtain an image of reality that is as clear, sharp, exact and reliable as can be, under all visibility conditions, from any distance or angle." These criteria guide any use of photography--including the purchasing of photographic equipment, the ordering of a photo, looking at a photo in the newspaper, learning of an event by means of a photo, photographing a certain person or situation or being photographed in order to provide identity for an official document. Photos have a contractual standing that is presumed to ensure a clear, sharp, legible, decipherable and true image, such that what "was there" in front of the camera lens, was also "there." (20) The subject engaged in photography expects it to serve as a means toward the end for which it was intended. The purpose of photography reproduced in most instruction manuals echoes an "original" purpose, which results, each time, in the renewal of its sanction. The technical language and the phrasing of the instructions refer directly to the instrument and its operation, but the principles of agreement among the users are presupposed, which can be derived from both the technical language and the various uses of photography they attempt to support: generality, accessibility, publicity, transparency, neutrality and impartiality. Although these principles are often violated under varying circumstances, and are typically subject to constraints and restrictions of different kinds, they nevertheless serve as the rules of the game that has been agreed upon by all. But the camera itself does not fulfill these principals--a photographer is required to apply them.

The public trusts the photographer--who incarnates the public right to know--to faithfully perform his work and consistently negotiate with the institutions responsible for regulating the access routes to potential photographic objects. At times this contract is updated to conform to the demands of a newspaper, or the consequences of a particular event, but its essence is stable. Even if a critical study were undertaken of a set of photographs taken by a certain photojournalist, and the pattern of their appearance in a newspaper scrutinized, it might reveal particular interests, but this fact would not weaken the photographer's belief in universal principles that guide his work. Without this belief, he and the society that, in principal, defends his freedom of action would have difficulty granting him the professional title of "press photographer." (21) He acts in accordance with the political motto of "the public's right to know" and the moral "duty to report" as it has been conducted in the international arena. Astonishingly, even visual matters are at stake, demands for the transparency of information do not use verbs from the visual field, such as "the right to see" or "the right to take photos." The conversion of the visual into the verbal exposes the instrumental approach to photography that characterizes various fields of legal, political or moral discourse that constantly make use of photography. Photography is thus perceived as a transparent means of achieving the same general, universal goals.

The public assumes that photography is an instrument that can be controlled, one that is capable of supplying its demand. But the public cannot trust the photographer unconditionally, since he may be biased by some particular interests. The civil contract of photography is not a specific contract made with a specific photographer, but the expression of an agreement over certain rules among users of photography, and the relation of those users and the camera. If and when the photographer betrays his mission and wishes to divert the visible, the camera--as the impartial emissary of the public--will ensure the immortalization of reality as it stands, so that this reality will one day reveal itself. If the camera betrays, or goes out of control, the photographer (as the public's emissary) will know how to regain control over the instrument and continue to produce what is demanded. Similar to the Lacanian subject one is supposed to know, the contract at hand allows the public to see the camera as that which is supposed to show. The camera, however, is not a subject, and is usually dependent on whoever operates it. But from the moment this operator takes hold of it, he too is no longer sovereign. (22)

Among the users of photography there is a silent agreement over the duality of photography, which is concerned with the way in which the medium of photography links the photographer and his object. The photographer and his object (the photographed) each work on the medium and intentionally and/or unintentionally undermine the other's exclusive control over it. This agreement concerning the act of photography established the convention of the photographic product (the photograph), and assumes this object testifies to what "had been there," while nonetheless claiming that it is culturally dependent. Indeed, someone might sign the agreement over what "was there"--the photographer, for instance--but this signed agreement is only ever a partial version of what appears to the eye of the spectator. Therefore, what was indeed existed, but not necessarily this way, and it has not necessarily ended. The spectator is required to reconstruct what has been there from out of the visible, as well as to reconstruct what is not immediately manifest, but which can--in principal--become visible in the exact same photograph. One's responsibility toward the historical agreement on the status of the visible in photography requires this reconstruction, and to do this she should become a spectator.

BECOMING SPECTATOR, BECOMING CITIZEN

Becoming a citizen of the citizenry of photography means rehabilitating the relation between photograph and photography, between the printed image and the photographic event--that is, the event that took place in front of the camera, constituted by the meeting of photographer and photographed object that leaves traces on a roll of film. There is a gap between the photo and the photographic event that both those who take an aesthetic position, as well as those who take an entertaining position, seek to eliminate. Becoming a citizen means replacing these impartial positions with a position that is partial to the civil contract on photography, a contract without which modern citizenship is invalid, as it is the contract that made the conquest of the world as picture possible. Citizens have been bound together in an agreement on photography, through the convention of photography, according to which, what appears in the photo "was there." But the conquest of the world as picture means that what appears in the photo is not all that was there--this has been agreed upon by the civil contract of photography--but was, however, photographed from out of what "was there"--and this, as well, has been agreed upon through the same civil contract. In an era that witnesses the conquest of the world as picture, in which social relations are mediated through photography, to be satisfied with citizenship as merely a legal status means agreeing to close the gap between the photograph and photography, agreeing to the absolute conquest of the world as picture while eliminating the social relations that hold the power--merely by existing--to prevent this absolute conquest. Becoming a citizen in the citizenry of photography means giving renewed sanction to the gap between the photograph and photography, between the world and the picture. Becoming a citizen means opposing the absolute conquest of the world as picture, on account of the same civil contract in which the conquest of the world as picture was agreed upon, when political relations had been the guarantee against its absolute conquest as picture.

Beginning in the 1990s, the conditions of visibility for photography have been altered within museum space. Subsequently, the massive introduction of horror images into that space transformed the museum into an alternative site vis-a-vis the media and its particular logic. Within the museum space, which began to host images of horror from various zones of war and conflicts, a new spectator position emerged from which responsibility for the sense of the image coalesces with the responsibility toward the photographed. Not only have present images of horror been gazed upon in this space, but also a widespread review of photographs from the past, in which early moments of the civil contract of photography can be restored. The contemplative act, which previously characterized the museum subject, has thus been replaced by the subject as civil spectator, who watches the image in order to see within it the conditions of its fabrication and eventual possibilities for intervention in what it frames.

The term "spectator," much like the verbs "to observe" or "to watch," is not typically employed in regard to still pictures. It is customary to use such terms with reference to phenomena and, within the sphere of art, in reference to movie screenings or other modes of entertainment. With the photograph, the tendency is to "look at" or "contemplate," and that which is photographed is customarily "seen." The distinction refers to the object--the stationary object is accessible to immediate and exhaustive viewing (that is, seen in its entirety), which gives rise to such cliches as "a picture is worth a thousand words." A moving image, however, eludes the stable gaze, but only through its constant replacement by successive images: "It" has to be watched continuously, as long as there is something to see before one's eyes. A photograph, being a fragment taken from a flow or a sequence, is supposedly a stationary object. What's seen in the photograph is not given, and the gaze upon it can never immediately exhaust it. The gesture of identification--"this is x"--frequently used in reference to photographs, homogenizes the plurality out of which a photograph is made and unifies it into a stable image, giving the illusion that we are facing a closed unit of visual information. This gesture, frequent in so many domains, is part of an ongoing effort to suspend the civil power of being a spectator and neutralize the power of the civil contract of photography.

The dictionary defines "spectator" as a person who watches an event, which takes place before their eyes, without them taking any part. But this language refers not only to the placement of the spectator in regard to the event, but also to the way in which the action unfolds in time. The spectator's work is one of prolonged observation, performed at the margins of a particular activity or event. The spectator observes a certain space and has the capacity to report on what their eyes see. From their position, the spectator can occasionally foresee, or predict the future. The secrets of the future could be revealed to them, but so too could the atrocities of the present, thus they are able, through skilled observation, to identify and forewarn others of the dangers that lie ahead. The act of prolonged observation has the power to turn a still photograph into a theater stage, upon which what has been frozen in the photograph comes to life. The spectator is called to take part, to move from the addressee position into the addresser's position and to demonstrate responsibility toward the sense of the photograph by addressing it even further, turning it into the beacon of an emergency, a signal of danger or warning--transforming it into an emergency enonce. (23)

ARIELLA AZOULAY is a professor in the Program for Cultural Studies at Bar Ilan University, Tel Aviv, Israel. Azoulay is also a documentary filmmaker and curator and the author of Once Upon A Time: Photography after Walter Benjamin (Bar Ilan University Press, 2005) and Death's Showcase (MIT Press, 2001), among other publications.

NOTES

1. On this Heideggerian expression, see Ariella Azoulay, Death's Showcase (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).

2. The omnipresence of photography differs from that of merchandise which is part of the world of labor and production and its contractual form is mainly defined by employer-worker relations.

3. Heidegger described the modern era as the "conquest of the world as picture" (Martin Heidegger, "The Age of the World Picture," Electronic Culture, ed. Timothy Druckrey (New York: Aperture, 1996). Guy Debord described this era as "the society of spectacle." See Guy Debord, The Society of Spectacle (New York: Zone Books, 1995). These two discussions, which speak of the omnipresence of the image in the modern era, do not explicitly address photography and the particular ramifications of the conquest of the world by means of it, although they both undoubtedly relate to the photographed image.

4. Even law, which once avoided the use of photography in actual court hearings, introduced it into the evidentiary hearing, see Tal Golan, "Learning to see: the beginning of visual technologies in medicine and law," Law, Society and Culture (Tel Aviv, The Buchman Faculty of Law Series, Tel Aviv University, 2003).

5. The ban on photography is still exceptional in the western world. Hiroshima and Nagasaki are famous examples--where, during the first years of the American occupation, films were confiscated.

6. Since the middle of the 1990s, following the terrorist attacks in Israel and 9/11 in the United States, newspapers occasionally report on photographers or citizens who have been asked to stop taking photos in different public areas. The fact that prior to these attacks terrorist gathered photographic information in the open public space has led to attempts by a few policemen to limit photographic activity, but as of yet, no law has been legislated.

7. This is similar to power as described by Michel Foucault; see Foucault, Histoire de la sexualite (Paris: Gallimard, 1976).

8. On photography as omnipresent, and in the use of "everyone" see Pierre Bourdieu, Un Art Moyen (Paris: Minuit, 1965).

9. See Stefano Boeri, Boeri "Eclectic Atlases," Documenta X Documents, No. 3 (Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Cantz, 1996). A distinct example is the controversy among various institutions over the number of participants in demonstrations seen from air photos, spawning various methods to interpret the visible, See Farouk El Baz, "Crowd Space--Bodies Count" Wired (June 2003).

10. Including the critical ones, which attempt to depict the invention as the product of a period, rather than of a unique inventor.

11. Starting in the 1980s many studies that address the institutional uses of photography have appeared. However, these studies do not linger over the State's relation to photography. See Allan Sekula, "The Body and The Archive," The Contest of Meaning (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989); Vincent Lavoie, L'Instant-Monument (Montreal: Dazibao, 2001); Carol Squiers, Overexposed (New York: The New Press, 1999); Andre Gunthert, "Daguerre ou la promptitude," Etudes Photographiques, No. 5 (1998).

12. The enthusiastic speech of the French physicist Francois Arago, delivered before the French Chamber of Deputies in 1839, allows us to isolate a constituent moment in this establishment. In his speech, Arago hoped to convince his colleagues of the importance of the invention and the necessity of the State to take steps to protect and promote it. See Dominique Francois Arago, "Report," Classic Essays on Photography, ed. Alan Trachtenberg (New Haven, CT: Leete's Island Books, 1980).

13. Ibid.

14. Walter Benjamin briefly discusses this in his essay "A Small History of Photography," Selected Writings Volume 1: 1913-1926 (Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996).

15. For a discussion of the denial of the logic of photography see my discussion of Aim deuelle Luski's cameras, The Civil Contract of Photography (forthcoming).

16. Arago, p. 24.

17. The invention is usually attributed to Daguerre, thus forgetting the contribution of Nicephore Niepce and his son Isidore, who contributed to its invention. To purchase the invention, the State paid both Daguerre and the younger Niepce.

18. The State paid for the invention but did not take possession of it, thus renouncing both the monopoly it might have had by virtue of its purchase, as well as the possibility of having the government play an explicit role in the processes of institutionalizing the invention. Although the State relinquished its rights to the invention, one must not underestimate its role in regard to photography and its functions. The purchase of the invention and the concurrent renouncement of any rights obtaining to this purchase entailed that both a national (French) and universal stamp were at once imprinted upon the invention. Thus France sought to retain the spiritual monopoly, but also hoped to turn photography itself into a symbol of democratization. From its very beginning, photography had been presented as a gift to the nation, a blessing bestowed upon it, and a right granted it; to this day it has been conceived as an instrument with positive attributes of assistance and support.

19. Despite the decision to confer the invention on the entire world, a patent was taken in England on the invention of the daguerreotype, and for several years it was not accessible to everyone. See Elizabeth Eastlike, "Photography," Classic Essays on Photography.

20. On the "it was there" of photography see Roland Barthes, La chamber Claire (Paris: Seuil, 1980).

21. I base my argument here on an ongoing analysis of press photos as well as many conversations I have held with journalistic photographers, some of which are published. See Azoulay, Death's Showcase.

22. For more on this subject see my discussion of Roni Kempler, who shot the video footage of Yitzhak Rabin's assassination. See Azoulay, Death's Showcase.

23. Relying on Deleuze's notion of the sense, I would contend that the sense of a photo should always be enunciated in another enonce, be it a photograph or a text. See Gilles Deleuze, Logique du sense (Paris: Minuit, 1969).

RELATED ARTICLE

The Palestinian man pictured here was ordered by Israeli soldiers to undress and run naked. Exposed to their armed gaze, he was photographed without being asked for his consent. His photo was published in the newspaper Ha'aretz on December 6, 2001. He is party to the "civil contract of photography," as each of us has been since the invention of photography. The harm done to him imposes a duty upon a civil spectator--who is also a party to "the civil contract of photography"--to restore the position of the photograph's addressor as well as its meaning. Such is artist Michal Heiman's gesture of juxtaposing this photo, printed without the photographer's name, next to Goya's famous painting of an execution (May 3, 1814). She labeled the image "PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN" and imposed the covering of the Palestinian man as a prerequisite for the viewing of this image. His naked body is thus transformed from a direct object of our gaze into a scar on the surface of the photograph. The yellow pants make him a reflection of the man executed in Goya's painting. Showing one next to the other shifts the connotation of the Palestinian man's image from that of a humiliated person whose disparagement was eternalized by a photograph into an executed man trying to articulate his grievance a moment before it will be too late. From a scene of humiliation in which the spectator takes part, the photograph becomes a warning and a protest against the frequent use of field justice in which the accused are deprived of rights and are susceptible to execution at any moment.

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