What Do Pictures Want? 66666 The Lives and Loves of Images W. J.T. Mitchell2 ‘What Do Pictures Want? The dominant questions about pictures in recent literature about visual ccalture and art history have been interpretive and rhetorical. We want to Know what pictures mean and what they do: how they communicate as signs and symbols, what sort of power they have to effect human emotions and bebavior. When the question of desire is raised, itis usually located in the producers or consumers of images, with the picture treated as an ex- pression ofthe artst’s desiré or as 2 mechanism for eliciting the desires of the beholder. In tis chapter, like to shift the location of desire to images themselves, and ask what pictures want, This question certainly does net ‘mean an abandonment of interpretive and rhetorical issues, but it will, 1 hope, make the question of pictorial meaning and power appear somewhat Sifferent. It will aleo help us grasp the fandamtental shift in at history and ‘other disciplines that is sometimes called visual culture or visual studies, and which I have associated witha pictorial turn in both popalar and elite intellectual culture To save time, I want to begin with the assumption that we are capable of| suspending our disbelief in the very premises of the question, what do pic- tures want? Pm well aware that this is bizarre, perhaps even objectionable, ‘question. I'm aware thet it involves a subjectivizing of images, a dubious personification of inanimate objects; that it flrs with a regressive, super- ‘Thischapteris lightly modified nd condensed version ofan esey entitled “What Do Fic tres Want” thet sppeaced in in Vaile Touch: Modernism and Masculinity ed Tey Sith (Sydney Australis: Powe Pblications, 197) A shorter version appeired es "What Do Fk ‘ares Realy Want?” in Outer 7 (Summer 1996): 71-8. 1 would lke to ek Lauren ‘Berlant, Homi Bhabha). Clack, Annette Michelson, Jn Rico, Terry Smit Jel Snyder snd Ander Troelsen for their help in thinking about his knotty question. WHAT DO PICTURES WANT? 29, stitious attitude toward images, on that if taken seriously would return us to practices like toterism, fetishism, idolatry, and animism.’ These are practices that most modem, enlightened people regard with suspicion as primitive psychotic, or childish in their traditional forms (the worship of raterial objects; the treating of inanimate objects lke dolls a if they were ative) and as pathological symptoms in their modern manifestations (fe- tishism either of commodities or of neurotic perversion} Pm also quite aware that the question may seem like a tasteless appro- priation of an inguiry that is properly reserved for other people, particu- larly those classes of people who have been the objects of discrimination, victimized by prejudicial images—"profiled” in stereotype and caricature, ‘The question echoes the whole investigation into the desire ofthe abject or downcast Other, the minority or subaltern that has been so central to the development of modern studies in gender, sexuality, and ethnicity? “What ‘does the black man want?” is the question raised by Franz Fanon, risking the reification of manhood and negritude in a single sentence. “What do ‘women want?” is the question Freud found himself unable to answer.‘ ‘Women and people of color have struggled to speak directly to these ques- tions, to articulate accounts of their ovn desire. It is hard to imagine how pictures might do the same, or how any inquiry of this sort could be more than a kind of disingenuous o (at best) unconscious ventriloguism, as if ‘Rdgar Bergen were to ask Charlie McCarthy, “What do puppets want?” 1 See chapter7 ofthe present text fora deal discussion ofthese concep 2 The wanserablity of minority and sabaliem characeritis to images will feourse bea centralise in what falls. One might begin with relstion an Gayatri Spivak famous quetin, “Can the Subalern Speak in Maruman he Incrpataton of Caate, ‘ed. Cary Nelson aad Lavrence Grossberg (Urbana: University of linois Pres 1988), 27-33 eransweriso an answer that itechoed when images are tested the senor mite gn, tncapable of speech, sound, and negation (in which cave the ancwer to our question might be, pictures wants voce, nd a poetics of enunciation). The “snority” poston ofthe i= ge best soe in Giles Deleue emsarks othe wey the poetic proces introduces “t= ‘ero language hat" minorzs” it, producing" language ofimages, resounding and cl- oving images” that “bores holes” in language “by means ofan ordinary sence, when ie ‘oles seem to have dad cut” See Deleun, Essays Cree! and Clinica, tans. Daniel W. Smith and Michal A. Greco (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Pes, 3997),205 4. Frane Fanon, Blac Skin, White Mase (New York: Grove Pes 1967, ‘¢ HrnestJonerepontthat Freud once exaimedto Princess Mare Bonaparte, "Ws wll das Went” (What does woman want! See Pater Gay, The Freud Raader (New York Norton, 198g) 670.30 mages "Nevertheless, I want to proceed as if the question were worth asking partly as a kind of thought experiment, simply to see what happens, and partly out of conviction tha this sa question we are already asking, that we cannot help but ask, and that therefore deserves analysis, Pm encour: ‘gedin this by the precedents of Marx and Freud, who both felt that amod- tem science of the social atd the psychological had to deal withthe issue of fetishism and animism, the subjectivity of objects, the personhood of things/ Pictures are things that have been marked with all the stigmata of personhood and animation: they exhibit both physical and virtual bodies; they speak to us, sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively; or they look back at ussilently across a “gulf unbridged by language” They present not justa surface but fecethat faces the beholder. While Marxand Breud both treat the personified, subjectified, animated object with deep suspicion, subjecting their respective fetishes to iconoclastic critique, much of their energy is spent in detailing the processes by which the le of objects i pro- duced in human experience, And its real question whether, in Freud's ‘case at least, theres any real prospect of “curing” the malady of fetishism’ ‘Myoun position is that the subjectivized, animated object n some form or other isan incurable symptoni, and that Marx.and Freud are better treated as guides to the understanding of his symptom and perhaps to some trans. formation of it into less pathological, damaging forms. In short, we ate stuck with our magical, premodern attitudes toward objects, especially Pictures, and our taskis not to overcome these attitudes but to understand them, to work through their symptomatology. + ns ptr hare am oft tes of pean ota eg ge quson vit pons What anwero te geaion en Ine tome cut of yet it aoa pas thar aka posts erp a Pee tem acl arent tem Fs dceson npouthon te oteoe ser pronn tg) wih oe iuestepenon eed So geen in Grp Feet poms eco i dete hacer eninge lnguimd nee aee {features from persons, eacee ! feces fam quinn Dg ema n he oft aii dase “wy Lect Anat in itr to ashen) Se ees shitter ny "Losigst aia Long" Pas Pesos ‘Chicago Press, 1994), 329-44. i oe ae 7S dain of shan in by tng tht eh wy factory syeaptom, and that his patients rarly come to him with coraplaints about it. “Fetish- ia" un Stardom Compl Pyle oct a don Hegre a water 90 PICTURES WANT! 32 ‘The literary treatment of pictares is, of course, quite unabashed in its nes" of poetic creations and tress the study of poetic forms a if he wet biologi cats [ogoing natural kinds, The question for usnow; obviously is what happensto these concepts ‘of making imitating. end organics inan era of eyboras, aif if, and genetic eng ‘neering. or farther thoughts on his question, se chapter ish 132,For discussion ofthe animation/personifcation of landscape aso, see my “Holy Landscape: Israel, Palestin, and the American Wilderness” in Landscape and Powered ‘WET Mitchel and ed. (Chicago: Univers of Chicago Press, 2002), 261-90, Laan no- WHAT Do picTURES WANT? 47 to any picture, and this chapter is nothing more than a suggestion to try it oat for yourself “What pictures want from us, what we have failed to give them, isan idea ofvisualty adequate to their ontology. Contemporary discussions of visual culture often seem distracted by a thetoric of inmovation and moderniza- tion, They want to update art history by playing catch-up with the text- ‘based disciplines and with the study of film and mass culture. They want to erase the distinctions between high and low culture and transform “the history ofartinto the history of images.” They want to “break” with art his- tory’ssupposed reliance on naive notions of ‘resemblance or mimesis” the superstitious “natural attitudes” toward pictures that seem so difficult to stamp out. They appeal to “semiotic” or “discursive” models of images that will reveal them as projections of ideology, technologies of domina- tion to be resisted by clear-sighted critique." ItSnot so much that this idea of visual culture is wrong or fruitless. On the contrary, it has produced a remarkable transformation in the sleepy confines of academic art history. But is that all we want? Or (more to the point is that all that pictures want? The most far-reaching sbif signaled by the search for an adequate concept of visual culture is its emphasis on the social field ofthe visual, the everyday processes oflookingat others and be- ing looked at. This complex field of visual reciprocity is not merely a by- product of socal reality but actively constitutive of it. Vision is as impor tant as language in mediating social relations, and itis not reducible to Janguage, to the “sign,” orto discourse. Pictures want equal rights with an- guage, not to be turned into language. They want neither to be leveled into a *history of images” nor elevated into a “history of ar,” but to be seen as ‘complex individuals occupying multiple subject positions and identities* ‘ion ofthe ge se afligrs” in landscape appears in Jacques Lacan, The Four Fandariotal Concept of Paoanalyis New Yore Norton, 2978), 103. the urges ef abstract painting, sce chapter ofthe presente ‘35 See Michal Tousigs critique of commonplace assumptions about naive mimesis" as "mere copying or realistic epresntation in Mimess and Alterity (New York: Routledge, 993) 4-45 ‘Lam summarizing hese the basic claims mace by Bryson, Holly and Moxey in thee siteril introduction to Veual Culture For further discussion of the emergent ld of vi sul cltore co chapter 26 blow 35 Aner wey o put this woul bt say chat pictures do nnk want tobe redacedto the tens ofa syseratic linguistic based ina ntary Cartesian subject, but they might be open48 uacrs ‘They want a hermeneutic that would return to the opening gesture of art historian Erwin Panofsky’s iconology, before Panofsky elaborates his ‘method of interpretation and compares the initial encounter witha picture ‘to a meeting with “an acquaintance” who “greets me on the street by re- ‘moving his hat?** ‘What pictures want, then, isnot to be interpreted, decoded, vrorshipped, smashed, exposed, or demystified by their beholders, ot to enthrall their beholders. They may not even want to be granted subjectivity or person- hood by well-meaning commentators who think that humanness is the greatest compliment they could pay to pictures. The desites of pictures may be inhuman or nonhuman, better modeled by figures of animals, ma- chines, or cyborgs, or by even more basic images—what Erasmus Darwin «called “the loves of plants” What pictures want inthe lst instance, then, is simply to be asked what they want, with the understanding that the answer ‘may well be, nothing at al Coda: Frequently Asked Questions The following questions have been raised by a number of respondents to this chapter T'm especially grateful to Charles Harrison, Lauren Berlant, ‘Teresa de Laurets, Terry Smith, Mary Kelly, Ec Santnes, Arnold David. son, Marina Greinic, Geoffey Harpham, Evonne Levy, Francoise Melzer, «inl Joel Snyder for their generous interventions. 1 [find that when T try to apply the question, what do pictures want? to Specfc works of art and images, I don't know where to start. How does one roceed to ask, msc less answer, tis question? No method is being offered here. This might be thought of more as an invitation to a conversational opening or an improvisation in which the outcome is somewhat indeter- to the “poetics of enunciation” that Julia Kristeva so cogently transferred fom literature to the visual artsin her asic text, Desire in Language [New York: Colambla Univers Prete 1880). Se especially “he Ethic of Linguistics onthe ceatraliyof poetry and poetic, and “Glows Joon the mechanisms of jouisancein the Assi fescoes, 36. Erwin Panofiy, "Tconography and Ionelogy”in Meaning nthe Visual Art(Garden ‘ity, 0% Doableday, 1955) 26. For farther dicaasion ofthis point, se my “eonology and iealogy:Panotky,Althuse, and the Scene of Recngniton? epilogue to Refaming the Renaissance: Viual Culture in Europe and Latin Ameri, 1450-465, Clave Farag (Neve Haven, CT. Yale Univesity Prets,a991), 292-500. wuar po PICTURES WANT! 49 sminate, rather than an ordered series of steps. The aim iso undermine the ready-made template for interpretative mastery (for example, Panofsky’s four levels of iconological interpretation ora psychoanalytic or materialist model that knows beforehand that every picture is a symptom ofa psychic ‘or social cause), by halting us ata prior moment, when Panofsky compares the encounter with a work of art to encountering an acquaintance on the street.” The point, however, is not to install a personification ofthe work ofertas the master term but to put our elation tothe work into question, ‘to make the rlationality ofimage and beholder the feld of investigation. ‘The idea is to make pictures less serutabl, less transparent; also to turn analysis of pictures toward questions of process, affect, and to putin ques- tion the spectator position: what does the picture want from me or from “as” or from “them” or from whomever?” Who or what isthe target of the demand/desiretneed expressed by the picture? One can also translate the ‘question: what does this picture lack; what doesitleave out? Whatisits area of erasure? Its blind spot Its anamorphic blur? What does the frame or ‘Anansi "og apy and nly Sem cain “eonloy ne dng uty a ee of ginning eh se tom odo eating er nepenion Ws xe of exon, sled Te nd (et mig Decal) eancito/annuncon, am feu bling en ‘Enon noe fimerpeltan rang th petal see fog adr sintjafneg arr omen whenon eps oes te OS Spm enn ty osteo arn Rg ‘ttus kang ret tp Bevan nd Uy Dui xr otal itslef inpresn amiae rar ae {ivy Sr damn i tran te en eng" ith serrossucoceory frou en's sna Coreraton th ao Beni Ot npn ay sing re ih Mn Dasani sepeatcr nang cbou press wepennnof hing ost rngsest Seet neweadrarereonsp bree cured conep tsa eters “Fm se Urey.) Bnet ‘inp soon gee tenn’ edgy See Tie to hymen oe soe intone pf to me piace tne! ion or ha atames arena pee eect butane ae orang oe Tebyaajerenseettstbesen stew rer rr dei 0 eeepc ers carom erie Ts sense geston Jer Thadde pene oor ioral or Soren mesure ond dnt pant om bt en en.50 ances, boundary exclude? What does its angle of representation prevent us from seeing, and prevent i from showing? What does it need or demand from the beholder to complete its work? For instance, the tableau of Diego Velazquez’ Las Meninas (ig 15) in- vokes the fiction of being surprised by the spectator, as if “caught in the act” The picture invites us to participate in this game and to find ourselves ‘ot jst literally in the mirror on the back wall bu in the recognizing gazes ofthe figures—the infanta, her maids, the artist himself. This at any rat, looks like the explicit demand of the picture, what it claims to need as a ‘rinimum for grasping its magic. But of course the “brute facts” are quite the opposite, and are signaled explicitly by a brute—the nearest figure in the picture, the sleepy, oblivious dog in the foreground. The picture only pretends to welcome us, the mirror does not really reflect us or its frst be- holders the king and queen of Spain, but rather (a Joel Snyder has shown) reflects the hidden image on the canwas that Veléequez is working on All these feints and deceptions remind us ofthe most iteral fact aboutthe pic- ture: tha the figures in it do not really “look back’ at us; they only appear todo so. One might want to sa, ofcourse, that thisisjust primordial con- vention of pictures as such, their innate doubleness and duplicity, looking back atus with eyes that cannot see. Las Meninas, however, sages this con- vention in an enhanced, extreme form, posing is tableau vivant for sover- ign beholders whose authority is subtly called into question even as it is complimented. This is a picture that wants nothing from us while pre- fending to be totaly oriented toward us, So itis important o keep in rind that inthe game called What Do Pic- {tures Want? one possible answer to the question is “nothing”: some pictures ‘mightbe capable of wanting (needing lacking, requiring, demanding, seek. ing) nothing at all, which would make them autonomous, slfsufficient, perfect, beyond desire. This may be the condition we atribute to pictures that we think of as great works of art, and we might want to criticize it but first we need to understand it asa logical possibilty entailed in the very no tion ofa living thing beyond desire. 2. The whole effort 10 portray pictures as animated beings raises a set of 40 Joel Saye, "Las Meninasandthe Micro ofthe rince? Chitcalguiry tno. ane vsishisi9-72 4-The position beyond desires to my mind what Michal Pride erating tarda ‘is notions of absorption presence, grace, and the “coaviction” elicited by the euthentic aserpece, Sethe discussion of “Ar and Objethood” in chapter ofthe present tex and fn Pict Theory, hap. war po vrcruREs WANT? 5 90 Neco dl adi, snot Diego Vengo, Lat Mena, 696 Museo Neciona el Prado Made prin questions tha re ot fully anevered here. What consis “ninae ton or tay? Wha dines alving organi adn oman inanimate bj n't hms ofthe living age a mee on at as gate ot of control? biology textbook by Helena Curtis gives the following, qed in Michael 4 Hee Cat Boley oe Yrs Wort 979 ce The = “The Representation of Life” in Virtwes and Reasons, ed, Rosalind Hursthe vinta an Wen Quin (Onforlareden Fe 959-54 Ne cme ser aso Donna Harvey, ade Wien ens New York: Routledge, 1997) 852 races ‘ia forthe living organism: living things are highly organized, homeostatic (ey the sane) groan dep ae adapt te eer ree ronmentandehange itm ace orm encore Co reproduce themselves, The first thing that rust strike us about this iat + isntenalcontadiionsand fuente Homans eee ee ible with growth and development. “Highly organized” could character anautomobile or: ‘a bureaucracy as well asan: organism. Taking energy fae the environment and changing it to another form isa common feature of tacos as el a opanins Repent sisalv ge a {0 cover photographic emulsions, weather vanes, and billiard balls, And organs donot sc speaking reprace omar hee offspring—they produce new specimens which are usually of the same vee as themselves; only clones can come close to being identical repro- hci of temic Te hopes Nidal Tan Tnonstrated, no “real definition” of life, no set of unambiguous empiri- al ertera wo iferenateivng fom novig ate ae ‘it must be said, the presence of DNA, which’ ‘Thompson correctly ‘dents 8th eh concept fou tine). Lieisater what Hegel she poe ofthe pine cop gece sc sinless nog nae oo sin i eg es gt ‘The question remains, however: how do pictures resemble lif 2 Aster Can ny Canty oat So fen ca, ont pictures in ay obvious way tnd ene cline anddewlopmen might chareceriebe poe poteher ee slzedine concrete picture or wskofat rene ron ney normally homeostatic (unless we think its aging and reception history con. sits ind of evlpment ke hat eee ee ‘Walter Benjamin thought that history and tradition were : oo oat hate fired “aua'—ttraly,“bren”—on the work oft) A sen sane might be made about the taking ofenergy fom the environment, unles we think of the mental energy required ofthe beholder as coming from the cavironment and returning transformed in the act of reception, ‘The re. 4 Thompson, "The Representation of Life” 44 Se the discussion of the “ies of bugs” 2 in Ne a, Bln Le en ‘Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990), and in chapter abit above waar Do PICTURES WANTT 53 sponse to stimuli is realized literally in certain “interactive” artworks, figu ratively in more traditional works. As fr “reproducing themselves” what els is implied when the proliferation of images is discussed in biological fguresas akind of epidemic, as implied in the itl of theorist SlavojZiek’s ‘The Plague of Fantasies? How do fantasies ome tobe like an infectious dis- ease, an out-of-control virus or bacteria? Dismissing these as “merely fgu- tative” forms oflife or animation begs the question that is at issue: the life of images, pictures, and figures, inchuding, obviously, their figurative life. The uncontrollabilty of the conceit ofthe living imageis itself an example ofthe problem: why does this metaphor seem to have aif ofits own? Why isitso routine that we cll ita “dead” metaphor, implying that it was once alive and might come alive again? But rater than allow the biology textbooks to dictate what it means to think ofa picture aa living thing, we might be beter advised to start from ‘oar own ordinary ways of talking about pictures as ifthey were animated, ‘The praise ofthe “lifelike” imagers, ofcourse, as old as image-making, and the iveiness ofan image may be quite independent ofitsaccuracy as arep- resentation, The uncanny ability of pictured faces to “look back’ andin the technique of omnivoyance to seem to follow us with their eyes is well s- tablished, Digitized and virtual imaging now make it possible to simulate the turning ofthe face or the body to follow the movement ofthe specta- tor. Indeed, the whole distinction between the still and moving image (or, for that matter, the silent and talking image) has routinely ben articulated asa question oflif, Why isthe moving image invariably characterized with vitalit metaphors such as “animation” and “lve action"? Why is it not enough to say that the images move, that actions ae depicted? Familiarity binds ust the strange life of tose figure; it makes them dead metaphors atthe same timeit asserts their vitality. To make an image isto mortfy and resurrect in the same gesture Film animation begins as is well known, not vith ust any old image material bt with the fossil, and the reanimation of extinct life, Winsor McCay, the father of animation, films himself in “live action” sequences viewing the skeleton of dinosaur in a natural history museum, and wagering his fellow artists that he can bring this creature back o life in three months, a magica feat he pulls off with one ofthe ear- liest examples of film animation." 45, Fora more detailed discussion, se W. JT Mitchel The ast Dinosaur Books The Life an Times ofa Caller (Chicago: University of Chien go Pres, 1998), 25 6254 images Cinema theorist André Bazin opens his discussion of “The On the Photog ge by ennatng nd posonipingimarele a a single gestae: “ifthe plastic arts were put under psychoanalysis, the prac- tice of embalming the dead might turn out to be a fundamental factor in {heir eration Bazin assures us, however, that medemn critical conscious, ness has overcome archaic superttions about images, corpses, and mum ification, and his invocation of psychoanalysis is meant to reassace us of that: "No one believes any longer inthe ontological identity of model and image’; nv the image simply “helps us to emember the subject ano pre- serve him from a second spiritual desth (ao). But within afew pages Bazin ‘is directly contradicting himsel,and asserting a greater magic for photog, zephy than was ever posible for painting: “The photographie image isthe object tule. shares by vite ofthe very proces ef is becontng the being ofthe model of which it isthe reproduction it the mode™ (1). 1F ‘Winsor McCay’s animation brought the fossilized creature back to lif Bazin’ images do just the opposite: photography “preserve the object, as the bodies of insects are preserved intact... in amber and the cinematic Jmage is “change mummified, as it were” (14-5). One wonders if director Seren Spee emenbing isp hen be eon wt servation of dinosaur blood and DNA in the bodies of mosquitoes the So thee is no us dismissing the notion of the living image as a mere ‘metaphor or an archaism, It is better seen as an incoriible, unavoidable ‘metaphor that deserves analysis, One might begin by thinking trough the category of life itself in terms of the square of opposition that it ses a »pposition that governs its ving ead inanimate undead ‘The living organism has two logical opposites or contraries: the dead ob- ject (the corpse, mummy, or fossil), which was once alive, and the inani ‘mate object (inert, inorganic), which never was alive. The third opposition is, then, the negation of the negation, the return (or arrival) of ife in the 46. And Bain What Ciera ans. Hugh Gray (Be onic he igh Gray (ereley and Los Angles Univer 4. ol hee Pred Famaon se ofthe “sera the “semantic rectangle ogc srr pio- eget ingist ined tpdina ay fms bynes lcqes Lacan Se Jameson The Prion Howe of Language (Prineon, Pion ‘University Press, 1972), 161-67. i waar po prcTURES WANT? 55 nonliving substance, or the mortification of life in the image (as in a tableau vivant, where living human beings impersonate the inanimate figures of painting or sculpture). The figure ofthe “undead!” is perhaps the ‘obvious place where the uncanniness of the image comes into play in ordi nary language and popular narrative, especialy the tale of horeor, when that which should be dead, or should never have lived, is suddenly per- ceived as alive, (Think here ofthe exultant mock hostor and delight ex- pressed by actor Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein when he declares, “Its alivel” Think again of Bazin’ mummy and the endless fascination of Hol- Iywood with myths of the return ofthe runny.) No wonder that images hhave a spectral/coxporeal as well as spectacular presence. They are ghostly semblances that materialize before our eyes orin our imaginations. 3. Youslide back and forth between verbal and visual notions of the image, between graphic, pictorial symbols on theonehand and metaphors, analogies, and figurative language on the other. Does the question, what do pictures want? apply to verbal images and piceures as well as to visual ones? Yes, with qualifications. I've discussed the nature of the verbal image and textual representation at ength in Tconology and Picture Theory. All the tropes of vitality and desire we apply to visual works of art are transferred and trans- erable to the domain of textuaity. That doesn’t mean they are transferable without modification or translation, I'm not saying a picture is just a text, or vice versa, There are deep and fundamental differences between the ver- bal and visual arts. But there are also inescapable zones of transaction between them, especially when it comes to questions such as the “life of the image’ and the “desire of the picture.” Hence the secondary figure ormetapictute of the “dead metaphor” or the of-noted authorial observa tion that a text is beginning to “come to life” when it “wants to go on” ina certain way, regardless ofthe wishes of the writer. The figure ofthe cliché is an onomatopoetic trope that links the worn-out idea or phrase toa process ofpicture-making thet, paradoxically, isequated with the moment of fresh coinage, the “cic” that accompenies the birth ofan image in the process ofstriking. die to make a proof or cast. Itisasif the bicth of an image ean- not be separated from its deadness. As Roland Barthes observed, “what I am seeking in the photograph taken of me. .. is Death.” But this cliché or “dick” ofthe camera is “the very thing to which my desire clings, their abrupt click breaking through the mortiferous ayer ofthe Pose’ 4 Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, rans. Richard Howard (New Yorks Mill c Wang. 298)35.58 meaces 4. You ask us to believe that pictures have desires, but you do not explain what desire is. What theory of desir are you working from? How is desire to be pictured? What model, theory, or image of desire is operating inthe desire of pictures I this human desire, and if so, what is that? Why do you plunge into the topic of “what pictures want” without first establishing a theoretical framework, suchas the psychoanalytic account of desire (Freud, Lacan, Ziek; {questions of Hibido, eros, the drives, fantasy, symptoms, object choice, e.)? This question deserves an esy al titel, whichis proved by the nex chapter. 3 Drawing Desire et usa, “This palotng has no draving” as we used to say of eran forms, “They have oie ‘wet nowsEror, “Ouerare The Narrow Path ward she Whole” (go) The question of what pictures wantleads inevitably toa reflection on what picture we have of desice itself. Some might argue, of course, that desire is invisible and unzepresentable, a dimension of the Real that remains inac cessbleto depiction, Wemightbe ableto talk about, orat least talk arownd, desire with the technical languages of psychoanalysis or biology, but we can never see, mac less show, desire in itself. Art refuses to accept this probi- bition, and insists on depicting desire—not just the desirable object, the ‘eautifel, shapely attractive form, but the force field and face of desire self its scenes and figures, its forms and flows. Desire as eros is given the f- rniliar personification of the infantile cupid, the baby archer drawing back his bow and unleashing what Blake called “the arrows of desir.” Desire is doubly represented in this allegory, personified asa baby boy and figured asan arrow. Itisboth the body and the weapon that wounds the body, both an agent (the archer) and the instrument (the bow and arrow.)." And the very act of image-making itselfis often depicted asa symptom of desire— ors it the other way around? Is desire a symptom (or atleast a result) of image-making,and the tendency of images, once made, to acquire desices oftheir own, and provoke them in others? God makes man in his own im- age, according to Milton, out of a desire not to be alone, Man, as image of ‘God, has desires of hs own, and asks for a mate to love him in turn, Nar- 1. Cupid was orginally a comely youth, aot «baby: The fanning of desc in Greek nis perhapa an iconic foreshadowing of Frew rn to “infanle desire” as acetal con- ‘ep: My than to Richard Nees for pointing his ut