The Future of the Image

by Jacques Rancière, Gregory Elliott (Translator)

Lauded by major contemporary artists and philosophers, Jacques Rancière’s work returns politics to its central place in understanding art. In The Future of the Image,Jacques Rancière develops a fascinating new concept of the image incontemporary art, showing how art and politics have always beenintrinsically intertwined. Covering a range of art movements, filmmakers such as Godard and Bresson, andthinkers such as Foucault, Deleuze, Adorno, Barthes, Lyotard andGreenberg, Rancière shows that contemporary theorists of the image aresuffering from religious tendencies.He argues that there is a starkpolitical choice in it can either reinforce a radical democracy,or create a new reactionary mysticism. For Rancière there is never apure the aesthetic revolution must always embrace egalitarianideals.

Genres: Philosophy, Art, Theory, Nonfiction, Film, Politics, Research

161 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2003

About the author

Jacques Rancière (born Algiers, 1940) is a French philosopher and Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Paris (St. Denis) who came to prominence when he co-authored Reading Capital (1968), with the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser.

Rancière contributed to the influential volume Reading "Capital" (though his contribution is not contained in the partial English translation) before publicly breaking with Althusser over his attitude toward the May 1968 student uprising in Paris.
Since then, Rancière has departed from the path set by his teacher and published a series of works probing the concepts that make up our understanding of political discourse. What is ideology? What is the proletariat? Is there a working class? And how do these masses of workers that thinkers like Althusser referred to continuously enter into a relationship with knowledge? We talk about them but what do we know? An example of this line of thinking is Rancière's book entitled Le philosophe et ses pauvres (The Philosopher and His Poor, 1983), a book about the role of the poor in the intellectual lives of philosophers.

Most recently Rancière has written on the topic of human rights and specifically the role of international human rights organizations in asserting the authority to determine which groups of people — again the problem of masses — justify human rights interventions, and even war.

In 2006, it was reported that Rancière's aesthetic theory had become a point of reference in the visual arts, and Rancière has lectured at such art world events as the Freize Art Fair. Former French presidential candidate Ségolène Royal has cited Rancière as her favourite philosopher.

Reviews

[foteini_dl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Οκ, ήξερα ότι ο Ρανσιέρ είναι ένας από τους πιο σημαντικούς -εν ζωή- φιλοσόφους, δεν περίμενα όμως να έχει τόσο ολοκληρωμένη άποψη για το graphic design.
Σίγουρα είναι ένα από τα βιβλία που δεν διαβάζονται εύκολα, δυσκολεύει τον μέσο αναγνώστη, όπως η γράφουσα, καθώς δεν απευθύνεται για το ευρύ κοινό. Σίγουρα, πάντως, έχει ενδιαφέρον σαν φιλοσοφικός στοχασμός και απαιτεί πολλαπλές αναγνώσεις.

[James F · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, the fourth I have read recently by Rancière, is composed of five essays written separately, "The Future of the Image", "Sentence, Image, History", "Painting in the Text", and "Are Some Things Unrepresentable?". Taken together, they flesh out the theory of the "aesthetic regime of art" discussed in The Politics of Aesthetics. Although I might prefer to explain some details differently and have different emphases, this is one of the best books I have read on the theories of modern art, and full of interesting and provocative ideas.

The title of the first essay seems somewhat misleading; it doesn't really talk about the "future" of the image, but analyzes what images are, classifies them into types, and polemicizes against certain other theories concerning the image. The references here are to Deleuze, Lyotard, Foucault, and so on. The examples are also mostly taken from French literature (especially Balzac, Flaubert, Zola and Mallarmée) and French cinema.

The second essay discusses mainly the technique of montage in painting, photography, and especially cinema; the example that weaves through the entire essay is Godard's film L'Histoire(s) du cinéma.

The third essay deals with modern painting; the fourth with the relationship of art to commercial design and advertising; and the fifth is a polemic mainly with Lyotard on whether certain events (e.g. the Holocaust) are unrepresentable in art.

[Nelson Zagalo]

Typical discourse that talks about anything they can remember without supporting with any evidence or logic why. Mostly pure anecdotical, this shouldn't be in the Philosophy shelfs, but Fiction.
The book doesn't bring anything new to the knowledge we already have on representation laid out by Baudrillard and others.
Worse than that, the discourse on film art is ridiculous. Establishing a difference between film and television according to the origin of light!!! Well this could be an interesting discourse in the 50's. We're living now in 2012, there is no more film in the projection rooms, everything is digital.
Also while discussing Bresson movies Ranciere jumps from Form to Content, and Content to Form, as everything would be the same.
The chapter on Design is even more ridiculous.
This is just a sad book.

[Julia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I knew that Ranciere was one of the greatest living philosophers, but I didn't expect him to have such a strong statement on the nature of graphic design. The essay "The Surface of Design" is a philosophical account of the kinds of relationships and translations that the flat surface of the page in modernist design "affords." For Ranciere, surface, in its ideal and material forms, is the very essence of design as the generative, potentially emancipatory, interface between art and life. Ranciere grants to graphic design a truly world-building function: "by drawing lines, arranging words or distributing surfaces, one also designs divisions of community."

[thuys]

Cố gắng lết tới trang 50 nhưng không hiểu đã đọc gì, tạm bỏ. Có gì không ổn với bản dịch hay là tư duy của triết gia bao giờ cũng kiểu thế? Hay, nhiều khả năng là, bộ não này không có khả năng tư duy trừu tượng?

[Tristan Burke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ranciere is as ever compelling in Future of the Image. This one has a strong delineation of the representative and aesthetic regimes of art, a remarkable reading of what an image actually is, discussions of the relationship between language and the image, and particularly wonderful - a reading of what it means to represent the unrepresentable, which suggests that horrific events like the Holocaust actually are representable, what form that representation might take, and why making claims about unrepresentability tends to actually play into notions like instrumentality.

[Valentín Serrano García · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simpatizo con algunas de sus tesis centrales, particularmente con como se desmarca de una lectura unidimensional tragica, mediologica e ideologica del arte, lo que lo aleja de Baudrillard o Debray. Ranciere subraya como hay diversos tipos de imagen y como cada una puede abrir el camino del debate y el enriquecimiento en el sentido dialectico hegeliano (socavando la infinita e imposible sublimidad de Lyotard).

Al situar la trascendencia original del arte por encima de las intenciones ideologicas que puedan darle forma, Ranciere tambien se opone a iconoclastias y lecturas parciales. Recuerda, en ciertos aspectos, a "El poder del Arte" de Markus Gabriel, pero sin la claridad, elocuencia y concision del autor aleman.

No obstante, su estilo y metodo me resultan densos y algo opaco. Lo que en un Heidegger, un Lacan o un Deleuze tiene sentido (en su forma de enunciarse esta gran parte del meollo) aqui no es sino un exceso de abstraccion que dice poco en su conclusion. Por otra parte, el ultimo ensayo mereceria mayor desarrollo: ¿Que hay del apofatismo estetico?

[Ivan Labayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

somewhere, loie fuller danced but with her dress not her body; godard defined cinema as mystery, neither art nor technique; mimesis is mimed in order to make it better, not as "resemblance...as the relationship between a copy and a model BUT a way of making resemblances function within a set of relations;" Mallarme was compared to a German engineer pioneering industrialization, of all people, but this is Mallarme, comparable to a flea as well, or a cockroach disguising as the Earth, or the Earth floating in a Paul Auster invention. Also, the late Lyotard was lambasted, for the lousiness that he was. And if one wished to have more Prench, there's Althusser, Barthes and the deliciously complex simplicity of worthwhile theory

[GwenViolet · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting stuff here, but as always the nature of a collection like this kind of forcloses on the possibility of some broader thesis (the second and first essays are prob my favs)

[Saxon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The main crux of these five essays explore the status of art, that which is presupposed as art or any representation that fits within the prominent form of creating images (design). Ranciere’s exploration delves quickly and loosely into the historical development of its theories, various characteristics that make up this period and the social/political implications, associations, and aspects that influence and interact within these “aesthetic regimes.” Once establishing these characteristics, Ranciere notes that one of the prominent characteristics of art today is the attempt to disassemble from prior associations--whether it be with specific images, forms, idea, or connotation to an established interpretation. Unfortunately, in doing so it has created an “aesthetic regime” that is suffering from some all-too structured tendencies. Unable to ever be a wholly autonomous movement, its attempt to work against the art of representation (or even early moments that worked against three-dimensional representation), is making itself into its own regime full of rules/guidelines. Of course, this makes it exactly like the principles it rails against. Ranciere suggests that this is the unfortunate outcome that is driven by capitalists society and erasure of any real distinction between art, images, or any kind of representation utilized in design and advertisements (Although, Ranciere doesn't believe that their should be a clear distinction). Ranciere concludes that the modern aesthetic regimes still contain some sort of boundary, beyond which is viewed as an excess. This is a misstep that makes it an unfortunate by-product of what it originally revolted against.

There is a whole lot more in here about film and fiction that doesn’t immediately relate to any kind of argument or foundation that Ranciere is trying to lay that are really brilliant at moments. Ranciere hits his stride in clarity and potency in the last two essays where he explores design and the so-called “unrepresentable.” The first three essays get pretty vague in terminology and argument. Ranciere also has this tendency to organize his thoughts it what I can imagine look great in bullet-points on a piece of paper but don’t work so well in the form of an essay. He will often outline A, B and C. Then, of course, each will have a subset, and those subsets will have sub-subsets. Do we ever return to the original A, B or C? Rarely. And if we do, I didn’t catch it. I felt, maybe naively, that Ranciere was saying a whole lot that already seems pretty obvious, only in a really obscure, convoluted way. Thus, the nature of continental philosophy books published by Verso. ;)

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars
So I bought this book because I really liked the cover art, a shot from Au Hasard Balthazar by the great Robert Bresson, but after reading a bit about it I was more interested. It's essentially about the aesthetic theory behind how we perceive images in poetry, literature, painting, and film. I like to think that I know a decent amount about Film theory but my God this guy zooms into the “image” with a 4000x microscope and just continually references works of art that I had to look up while reading in order to understand entire pages. He also uses terms that are in other languages with no translations??? Good book but very very difficult.

“Rancière presents a stark political choice in art: it can either reinforce a radical democracy or create a new reactionary mysticism.”

[Jamie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clearly written and argued, cleanly translated and neatly packaged, this is a book of five essays and lectures that fit together as a discussion of the changing "regimes" of art, the interplay of art and politics and the the ways in which we view different media and forms of art. It takes on everything from the literature of Flaubert, the Futurism of Maiakovskii and the film of Bresson to the design of Behrens. It does so to ultimately argue that there is no such thing as "flat," "pure" or "autonomous" art and that the desire for the autonomous necessitates a split understanding of a work of art where it must not only just be, but also declare itself as doing so. Furthermore, Ranciere argues that art as we know it derives from unique understandings of the "image" as it relates (inseparably) to the word and that our understanding of the image is derived from the literary tradition. Of particular interest to me were his brief discussions of Suprematism, Constructivism and Futurism (likely only because of my thesis work). Perhaps most disappointing was his sometimes cursory (even dismissive) approach to some other philosophers, e.g. Barthes and Lyotard.

[Colin · Rating 1 out of 5]

pretentious and boring

[la poesie a fleur de peau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Raramente faço "batota" mas creio que, neste momento, é justo arrumar o assunto. Estou a poucas páginas de concluir este livro - e é um dado adquirido que o irei terminar entre hoje e amanhã - mas sei, também, que o livro não tem muito mais a oferecer. O contacto com este autor foi sucessivamente alvo de uma reflexão sobre a Estética e sobre os autores dos quais me sinto mais próxima, pensava ter concluído que Rancière é incrivelmente pobre quando comparado com um dos meus autores/pensadores favoritos, Roland Barthes. Inicialmente pensei que era o discurso hermético, o refúgio numa complexidade desnecessária e as frases pouco claras e esclarecedoras - de facto, quando comparado com Barthes, Rancière parece um inapto da Filosofia, escreve e desunha-se a expor conceitos, a tentar forjar conceitos (quase um por parágrafo - forjar e a tentar revitalizar os mesmos) mas nada se fixa realmente. Roland Barthes, por outro lado, é um comunicador nato e por excelência: sem vulgarizar o discurso consegue exprimir-se de forma clara, concisa, significante. Por muito que use conceitos que, à partida, não são comuns no nosso léxico (Punctum e Studium) consegue explicá-los, percebemos que a compreensão daqueles conceitos é importante para o autor, é essencial chegar até ao leitor... ora, em Rancière senti precisamente o contrário, senti uma linguagem fechada, fugidia, cheia de subterfúgios que nos dão a vaga impressão de se passar ali "alguma coisa" mas nunca saberemos precisamente o quê...
Até aqui estava tudo bem, mas, de repente, lembrei-me do meu amor por Deleuze... cuja escrita não é propriamente clara ou com sentidos facilmente inteligíveis. Portanto, o problema de Rancière, para mim, talvez não se situe propriamente ao nível da linguagem hermética (mas, para o bem e para o mal, eu tive formação académica na área da Estética, estes universos são-me demasiado familiares)... talvez seja mesmo um problema de concisão; o livro não é, no entanto, completamente imprestável e seleccionei um par de passagens às quais poderei regressar futuramente...

[raphael ferraire · Rating 4 out of 5]

rancière magnífico, como sempre. aqui, ele se detém no "regime estético" das artes, desmontando uma série de armadilhas conceituais a que se viu submetido o estético: autonomia da arte, estética negativa e coisas mais, todas vinculadas a produções paradigmáticas do regime. me chamou atenção sobretudo o ensaio sobre os paradoxos da petição greenberguiana pela absoluta autonomia do pictural em relação ao figurativo e à discursividade nele implicada. a invertida rancieriana é fascinante: mostra que a autorreferenciação do medium levanta uma série de contradições (a arte se liberta para no fim se tornar refém dos materiais - como?, se os materiais são mobilizados precisamente com fins específicos, guiados por um projeto estético?) e como, no final das contas, a rejeição do texto é apenas uma retomada do texto por outra via - a superfície não figurativa, afinal, é a tela onde todos os sonhos são possíveis.

[Sara Avi · Rating 1 out of 5]

Images, images. We are surrounded and almost controlled by them in our contemporary culture. This abundance of images created what Ranciere calls a "crisis of visibility" where it's difficult to distinguish between the different type of images, moreover determine the meaning and significance of them.

In the age of social media and emerging technologies, anyone can produce and distribute images. Ranciere argues that this democratization of images has blurred the boundaries between high and low culture.

Ranciere believes that images have the potential to challenge dominant narratives and disrupt the status quo...

I think the premise of the book is good but the way it was written was so obscure and difficult to read. I would have appreciated to see example of the images he discussed. I didn't want to finish the book.

[Nicopsetzer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cahiers du cinéma is correct to call this “vertiginously precise.” That’s a nice of way of saying it arrives at its major points in a roundabout fashion. Perhaps this is the most contemporary aspect of the book, as are its thoughts about the different dimensions, or dimension, upon which art rests today. Yet, the form negates the meaning, making for tedious read that buries it insights through a showmanship of intelligence.

[Milo Galiano · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es buen libro. Igual, me sucede lo de siempre con Rancière: ¿por qué se detiene tantas páginas en aspectos circundantes menores, como aspectos descriptivos de obras o hablar sobre el montaje en el cine, cuando está hablando de la representatividad y el carácter vivo de la imagen? Me parece embrolloso e insatisfactorio, además de que, aun sabiendo expresarse a la perfección, posee una prosa sosa y aburrida en la mayoría de ocasiones. Es buen libro.

[Adrian Mendizabal · Rating 3 out of 5]

It seems underwhelming overall as I find it rather focused on the bordering processes and issues of medium specificity, then through this, Ranciere seemingly wants to create a dialectics of the image in an aesthetic sense. Maybe I'm looking for something more practical and less devoted to typical arguments in art. I enjoy Chapters 1 and 2 the most.

[Ricardo Baptista · Rating 2 out of 5]

Atenção, as duas estrelas não são para o livro em si mas para mim próprio.
Os termos e conceitos usados na maioria dos textos não fazem parte do meu vocabulário e pensamento diários.
Parece um livro dirigido a um público distinto de mim mas fico com a sensação de que, se for investigar as referências presentes no texto, e me dedicar um pouco, a leitura será mais inteligível.

[T.R. Ormond · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is no question that his observations are masterful, as one would expect from an emeritus professor writing on a subject he has contemplated his whole life. I did find the language rather obtuse... as one would expect from an emeritus French professor writing theory.

[Owen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ll be reading this again, but I definitely didn’t understand most of it. The last essay was the one that I understood the most, and the sentence image was an interesting concept to the extent that I could understand it

[Alberto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Uno de esos libros fundamentales para todos aquellos con interés por la cultura visual y la imagen como agente y reflejo de la realidad presente.

[Ryan Hume · Rating 3 out of 5]

(Le destin des images)

[Barry Shitpeas · Rating 3 out of 5]

ok

[Caleb Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

last essay is simply unbeleivable

[Lidia]

mi sento allucinata

[Yağmur · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 , i did not understand shit-- truly

[Michael]

I am very tempted to give a spoiler to this book: Two views of images become one!

[Roderick Mcgillis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I confess that this book flummoxed me. No doubt it is better than I understand it to be. I do find the discussion of the intersection of the verbal and the visual provocative, but I know I am missing much of the argument. Here is a passage I find useful when I contemplate work by Don Mabie/Chuck Stake: "signs are endowed with a presence and a familiarity that makes them more than tools at our disposal or a text subject to our decoding; they are inhabitants of our world, characters that make up a world for us. Next, there is the community contained in the concept of sign, such as it functions here. Visual and textual elements are in effect conceived together, interlaced with one another, in this concept. There are signs 'among us'. This means that the visible forms speak and that words possess the weight of visible realities; that signs and forms mutually revive their powers of material presentation and signification (35).

This passage may also serve to demonstrate why I find this book both stimulating and difficult.