RESEARCH PROPOSAL

DYNAMICS OF THE VISIBLE: The role of artistic images in the (non) control of
political bodies

Introduction
It is possible to think that all intersubjective relations are mediated by images. in that
sense, modernists and postmodernists tried to understand how art was capable of
intervening in life by making politics: those most optimistic, created rules and analyzes
indicating how to make and interpret art; the pessimists made the critique of the media
society. This criticism is not new, but it goes back to the Platonic critique of mímesis.
Rancière offers a third way to understand the political (or police) role of images and goes
beyond, giving special relevance to two arts: literature and cinema. When the limits of art
become blurred, or rather do not even make sense as a philosophical concept, it becomes
necessary to investigate images in a new light.
Rancière inserts aesthetics, a political-aesthetics, in a perspective that is neither modernist
nor postmodernist. According to Rancière, both modernism and postmodernism are faces
of the same coin, that is, they deal with the same object, but in opposite ways. Rancière
launches, throughout his works, a series of counter-arguments indicating how modernists
and postmodernists think they are dealing with politics, when in fact they are thinking
according to the police logic of the representative regime.
Applied to images, and more specifically to the cinema, this discussion goes directly to
the theme of works dedicated to the cinema such as La Fable Cinématographique (2001),
where he focuses on demonstrating the power of emancipation of images through their
inherent mutism, capable of promoting equality as a starting point and not as a goal to be
achieved. It is precisely this change of perspective that is capable of generating the
necessary rupture to politics. Thinking about the problem of equality means therefore
thinking of ways of overcoming the ethical regime and above all of the representative
regime, which not only determine the ways in which we deal with the sensible, but also
define the spaces to be occupied.

Research Question
The central objective of this research is to verify whether art really has a political role,
and, if it proves that it has, to explain this mechanism in the light of the main
contemporary theories on the subject. The research, however, will not be limited to
philosophical theory only. For each case studied, I will analyze works of art inserted in
diverse political contexts, especially in places where art is explicitly repressed.
Literature Review
Starting from Rancière's proposal, who presents an alternative way to think the relation
between image and social organization of bodies, I will make a contraposition to
canonical theses such as those of Walter Benjamin, Guy Debord, Adorno and
Horkheimer, Plato, Clement Greenberg, Roland Barthes, André Bazin, Gilles Deleuze in
addition to relating to the notions offered by Jürgen Habermas, Georges Didi-Huberman,
Susan Sontag , Hubert Damisch and others.
It is not new that Rancière walks a different path from these authors, therefore it is
necessary to understand not only the concepts provided by Rancière especially in Le
Maître ignorant : Cinq leçons sur l'émancipation intellectuelle, Fayard (1987), La Parole
muette. Essai sur les contradictions de la littérature, Hachette (1998), La Fable
cinématographique (2001), Le Partage du sensible (2000), Malaise dans l'esthétique
(2004), Le Spectateur émancipé (2008) and Aisthesis, Scènes du régime esthétique de l'art
(2011), but also to confront and put these concepts to the test.

Methodology
All research will be based on bibliographic research and analysis of works of art (inside
and outside their respective contexts). The first six months will be devoted to an
exhaustive bibliographical survey allied to frequent contact with artistic images
(museums, street art, cinema, theaters, performances, etc.). This process may extend until
the penultimate semester, giving more and more place to the writing process, which will
start in the second semester.

Chapters Overview
Introduction - The aesthetic regime and the place of Rancière's work in the contemporary
philosophical aesthetics
Chapter 1 – Dialogues between modernism, post-modernism and the aesthetic regime
Chapter 2 – Scenes of the the representative regime of art as a regime of bodies’ visibility
Chapter 3 – Literature and cinema: scenes of the the aesthetic regime of art
Conclusion – Neither utopian nor post-utopian: a third way offered by Rancièrian
aesthetics

Bibliography
AGAMBEN, Giorgio. Homo sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford University
Press, 1998.
AGAMBEN, Giorgio. State of exception. University of Chicago Press, 2005.
ARTAUD, Antonin. Theatre and its Double. Alma Books, 2018.
BADIOU, Alain. Du cinéma comme emblème démocratique. Critique, n. 1, p. 4-13, 2005.
BADIOU, Alain. The adventure of French philosophy. New Left Review, v. 35, n.
September/October, p. 67-77, 2005.
BENJAMIN, Walter. The work of art in the age of its technological reproducibility, and
other writings on media. Harvard University Press, 2008.
BOWMAN, Paul (Ed.). Rancière and film. Edinburgh University Press, 2013.
BRECHT, Bertolt. Brecht on theatre. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014.
COMPAGNON, Antoine. Les cinq paradoxes de la modernité. Le Seuil, 2014.
DAVIS, Oliver (Ed.). Rancière Now. Polity, 2013.
DELEUZE, Gilles. Cinéma 1-L'image-mouvement. Minuit, 2014.
DELEUZE, Gilles. Cinéma 2-L'image-temps. Minuit, 2014.
DERANTY, Jean-Philippe. Rancière and contemporary political ontology. Theory &
Event, v. 6, n. 4, 2003.
DIDI-HUBERMAN, Georges. Ce que nous voyons, ce qui nous regarde. 1993.
DIDI-HUBERMAN, Georges. Devant l'image: question posée aux fins d'une histoire de
l'art. Minuit, 2016.
DIDI-HUBERMAN, Georges. L'image Survivante Histoire de l'Art Et Temps des
Fantômes Selon Aby Warburg. 2002.
FOUCAULT, Michel. Les mots et les choses. Une archéologie des sciences humaines.
Editions Gallimard, 2014.
FOUCAULT, Michel. Naissance de la biopolitique: cours au colláege de France (1978-
1979). Seuil, 2004.
FOUCAULT, Michel. Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison. Editions Gallimard,
2014.
GARCÍA, Antonio Rivera. La distancia estética. Potencia y límites de la relación entre
arte y democracia. In: GARCÍA, Antonio Rivera (Org.). Schiller, arte y política. Múrcia:
GREENBERG, Clement. Avantgarde und Kitsch. na, 1939.
HABERMAS, Jürgen. The theory of communicative action. Beacon press, 1984.
HORKHEIMER, Max et al. Critical theory. New York, NY: Continuum, 1982.
HORKHEIMER, Max et al. Critical theory. New York, NY: Continuum, 1982.
KANT, Immanuel. Critique of pure reason. Cambridge university press, 1999.
KANT, Immanuel. Critique of the Power of Judgment. Cambridge University Press,
2001.
LANE, Jeremy. Rancière’s anti-Platonism: equality, the ‘orphan letter’and the
problematic of the social sciences. Rancière Now, p. 28-46, 2013.
MARX, Karl. Capital: A critique of political economy. Vol. II. 1945.
MARX, Karl; ENGELS, Friedrich. The communist manifesto. Penguin, 2002.
MERLEAU-PONTY, Maurice. L'oeil et l'esprit. éditions Gallimard, 2016.
MERLEAU-PONTY, Maurice. Phénoménologie de la perception. Éditions Gallimard,
2013.
PANIZO, Javier González. Escenografías del secreto: ideología y estética en la escena
contemporánea. Editorial Manuscritos, 2016.
PANIZO, Javier González; IMÁGENES (PSICOLOGÍA). Jacques Rancière: estética y
política. Eutelequia, 2013.
PELLEJERO, Eduardo. A ideia de cultura na filosofia de Gilles Deleuze. Diacrítica,
Braga, v. 12, p. 241-252, 2008.
PELLEJERO, Eduardo. A lição do aluno: uma introdução à obra de Jacques Rancière.
Saberes: Revista interdisciplinar de Filosofia e Educação, v. 2, n. 3, 2010.
PELLEJERO, Eduardo. Literatura e fabulação: Deleuze e a política da expressão.
Polymatheia–Revista de filosofia, v. 4, n. 5, p. 61-79, 2008.
PLATÃO, A. República, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. 1987.
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Aisthesis, Scènes du régime esthétique de l'art, Galilée, 2011
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Aux bords du politique, Osiris (collection Impatience de la
politique), 1990 (réédition augmentée et avec une nouvelle préface, La Fabrique, 1998,
puis nouvelle réédition poche, Folio, 2003)
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Béla Tarr, le temps d'après, Capricci éditions, coll. « Actualité
critique », 29 novembre 2011, 1re éd., 96 p. (ISBN 9782918040378)
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. La Chair des mots. Politique de l'écriture, Galilée, 1998
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. La Fable cinématographique, Seuil (collection Librairie du xxie
siècle), 2001
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. La Haine de la démocratie, La Fabrique, 2005
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. La Mésentente, Galilée, 1995
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. La Méthode de la scène, conversations avec Adnen Jdey, Paris,
éditions Lignes, 2018
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. La méthode de l'égalité. Entretien avec Laurent Jeanpierre et Dork
Zabunyan, Bayard (Essais Documents), 2012
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. La Nuit des prolétaires. Archives du rêve ouvrier, Fayard, 1981
(réédition poche, Hachette Pluriel, 1997 et 2012)
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. La Parole muette. Essai sur les contradictions de la littérature,
Hachette, 1998 (réédition poche, Hachette Pluriel, 2005)
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. La Parole ouvrière, avec Alain Faure, 10/18, 1976 (réédition, La
Fabrique, 2007, avec une postface inédite de Jacques Rancière daté de juillet 2007)
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Le Destin des images, La Fabrique, 2003
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Le fil perdu, La Fabrique, 2014, 128 p. (ISBN 978-2358720588)
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Le Maître ignorant : Cinq leçons sur l'émancipation intellectuelle,
Fayard 1987 (réédition poche, 10/18, 2004)
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Le Partage du sensible, La Fabrique, 2000
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Le Philosophe et ses pauvres, Fayard, 1983 (réédition poche,
Flammarion Champs, 2007 et 2010)
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Le Spectateur émancipé, La Fabrique, 2008
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Les Bords de la fiction, Le Seuil, 2017
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Les Écarts du cinéma, La Fabrique, 2011
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Les Noms de l'histoire. Essai de poétique du savoir, Le Seuil
(collection Librairie du xxe siècle), 1992 (réédition poche sous le titre Les mots de
l'histoire: Essai de poétique du savoir, Points essais, 2014)
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Les Temps modernes. Art, temps, politique, La Fabrique, 2018
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. L'Inconscient esthétique, Galilée, 2001
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Malaise dans l'esthétique, Galilée, 2004
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Mallarmé, la politique de la sirène, Hachette, 1996 (réédition
poche, Hachette Pluriel, 2006 et, Fayard, 2012)
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Moments politiques — Interventions 1977-2009, La fabrique (pour
l'édition française) et Lux (pour l'édition canadienne), 2009
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Politique de la littérature, Galilée, 2007
RANCIÈRE, Jacques. Préface et contribution Les voix et les corps, in Le Millénaire
Rimbaud, avec Alain Badiou, Michel Deguy, Denis Hollier, Patrice Loraux et François
Regnault, Belin (collection L'Extrême contemporain), 1993
ROCKHILL, Gabriel; WATTS, Philip. Jacques Rancière: History, Politics, Aesthetics.
2009.
SAFATLE, Vladimir. O circuito dos afetos: corpos políticos, desamparo e o fim do
indivíduo. Autêntica, 2016.
SCHILLER, Friedrich; SNELL, Reginald. On the aesthetic education of man. Courier
Corporation, 2004..
TANKE, Joseph J. Why Rancière Now?. The Journal of Aesthetic Education, v. 44, n. 2,
p. 1-17, 2010.
Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones, 2010. p. 223-269.
VOIGT, André Fabiano. História, arte, política: o conceito de regime estético da arte na
obra de Jacques Rancière. Oficina do Historiador, Porto Alegre, EDIPUCRS, vol. 6, n. 2,
jul. - dez. 2013, p. 91-105.
WOLFE, Katharine. From Aesthetics to Politics: Rancière, Kant and Deleuze. 2006.