Lines of (F)lightThe Visual Apparatus in Foucault and Deleuze

Daniel Q'Connor

This paper explores the relationship between cinema and society by taking the point ofview that cinema is an example of a Foucauldian social apparatus (dispositi.f). To assessthe extent to which the cinema constitutes a social apparatus, it is important to considerwhat components are necessary to take into account in their analysis. I argue that socialapparatuses comprise more than simply regimes of enunciation. They comprise bothdiscursive and non-discursive dimensions (Shields 1991: 43, Patton 1994: 158). AsDeleuze claims, theyare 'machines which make one see and speak' (1~92a: 160). Allsocial apparatuses, from sovereignty to discipline and beyond, feature regimes of light,regimes of enunciation, as well as lines of force that cross between the visible and theutterable and constitute their power dimension (Deleuze 1992a). Each dispositiftherefore comprises, firstly, an optical machine. An optical machine consists of lines orplanes (plans) of light which structure fields of visibility and invisibility, illuminatingsome objects and causing others to disappear. Secondly, each apparatus includes asonorous machine, comprising lines of enunciation, or that which can be enunciated indiscourse or uttered in a system of signs. These 'modes of symbolic expression' (Patton1994: 163) function to authenticate or authorize presences and absences in the visualfield. Each social apparatus is an audio-visual machine whose specificity lies in itsparticular regime of light, its style or form of enunciation (that is to say discursiveregularities) and finally, in the lines of force which forge links between the seeing andthe saying (between situations and responses).

The social apparatus of sovereignty included as its visual apparatus, the scaffold: araised platform designed to be seen while maintaining the integrity of the 'stagedspectacle' by keeping spectators at a safe distance (a mechanism to divide anddifferentiate seeing and scene and to limit participation). At its extreme point ofapplication, the power of the sovereign theatre of force lies in its capacity to segmentand distribute the body it targets (Foucault 1977: 227). This act ultimately ends in death.On one hand, sovereignty has a jurisdictionl which limits it to the power over life and

Space and Culture 1

Daniel O'Connor50

1. See Shields death: 'a body destroyed piece by piece by the infinite power of the(1991:44) for more on . t . ed 1 th .d 1 b h 1 I ..

fthe judicial, sovereign cons ItUt not on ye I ea, ut t e rea ImIt ojurisdictional and punishment' (Foucault 1977: 50). On the other hand, sovereignstrategic aspects of the power has to be seen to be effective. It also has a strategic function :social apparatus. , . th kn be taki 1 b h . h did .

an execution at was own to ng p ace, ut w IC SO ID2. Forex~~ na11e, .secret, would scarcely have any meaning' (Foucault 1977: 57-8). Ittummg CnID1 s mtoheros erased the is by way of the spectacular, public marking of the body that

dividing lines which sovereignty displays its capacity to unite sonorous and visible

Iimi~p~pular d elements. By the act of directly inscribing on the body's surfaceparticIpation an .travestied the sovereignty not only affirmed a dissymetrical and irreversible powerestablished, relation, it also produced meaning -indelibly linking signifier andhierarchical ~der of signified. For while sovereignty acts directly on bodies, as anbodies and things (See f /kn led .. d . 1Bakhtin's [1984] apparatus O power ow ge It ID Irect y targets the

discussion ofpopular- undifferentiated mass of witnesses to its display. Sovereign power isfestive fonns). therefore also indiscriminate in its application, targeting as it does

the social body as a whole. In this aspect, its power is limited tocontaining the meaning of the event, and in preventing the staged-order from flooding its boundaries and becoming ambiguous.Subsequent resistance to sovereignty by carnivalesque plays ofmeaning2 reversed the festival of violence (Foucault 1977: 63). Theinability to maintain the staged boundaries and contain the meaningof the spectacle was also a crisis which hastened the demise of

sovereignty.

Disciplinary dispositives also have optical machines. The schoolhas an optical machine for creating systems of presence and absence,the prison, a dissymetrical 'seeing machine' (Foucault 1977: 207).

The panopticon is a machine for dissociating the see/being seen dyad;in the peripheric ring, one is totally seen, without ever seeing ...It is animportant mechanism, for it automatizes and disindividualizes power.Power has its principle not so much in a person as in a certainconcerted distribution of bodies, surfaces, lights, gazes ...Anyindividual, taken almost at random, can operate the machine (Foucault1977: 201-2).

The prison is the exemplary disciplinary apparatus. Its opticalmachinery reverses the principles of the dungeon: to enclose, depriveof light and hide (Foucault 1977: 200), as well as the principles ofthe palace (designed to be seen) and the fortress (designed to surveyan exterior). Discipline is a strategy of enclosure, programmed to

Flow

Lines of (F)light 51

constitute, illuminate, interrogate and police the smallest movements 3. In other words, toin the interior space it frames. Discipline works by division, and by ththe ldi~ng.e li~posure of

.e SClp nary gazebreaking up wholes (for example 'dangerous mixtures,''contagions,' 'mysterious associations,' and 'intermingling bodies').It 'dissipates the compact grouping of individuals' into discrete andelementary singularities and terminates any mixture that is 'notsupervised by authority or arranged according to [the dissymmetries]of hierarchy' (Foucault 1977: 202 n3, 219, 239). Unlike theindiscriminate application of sovereign power , the discriminatoryapparatus of the prison tailors punishments to the singularitiesconstituted and framed in its spaces. Also different from sovereignpower, the point of application of the disciplinary power is the'image of delinquency' rather than the body of the criminal.Discipline punishes lifestyles rather than crimes (Foucault 1977:

252-255).

The optical machinery of discipline is micro/telescopic. Itdivides up space and movement, into smaller and smaller fragments,subjecting each to intense and extensive scrutiny.3 It makes thingsthat were not visible before, observable and measurable, by dividingconstellations and assemblages into innumerable points ofillumination. These actions specify surveillance and make itfunctional (Foucault 1977: 174).

More than just a building or institution, discipline is a strategyof'traces' (Foucault, 1977:131). Traces are the visible marks, or thesuccession of marks, inscriptions or imprints left by the passage of abody. They are records of its style of operating or habits of movingand its possible directions -traces are after-images of a body's'way.' Since every body has its own unique modus operandi,ambulatory style and sense of direction, its traces are its signature -

the inscriptions which identify its individuality (Deleuze 1992b: 5).Different from the sovereign line of force, where marks are directlyemblazoned on the body's surface, discipline's 'soft touch'establishes a body-image, rather than a body-sign connection. It doesthis by inscribing (or at least potentially inscribing) an image of abody's motion on a receptive surface. If e-very action or decisivemovement is potentially inscribed and stored somewhere as asignature (objectified trace or memory), and therefore potentially

Space and Culture 1

DanielO'Connor52

4. See also Deleuze's punishable at some point, then it is the possible objective

di(~986: .22-25f )th consequences, or the projections of these in the imagination, whichSCUSSlon o e

'disciplining' or will influence decisions to act in the present. No spectacular display'appropriation' of the of force has to reach the body. Discipline is a form of power thatTemplar's stone- goes beyond the polarities of meaning and violence, a form of power

cuttIng craft by . th d b ..imposition of a 'static that does not act dIrectly on e bo y ut acts on ItS actIons.

modelofforms' ed. ed h bod .d ((stone-cutting by ThscIphnary power IS pr Icat on w at Ies can o not

means of a template). what they are or what they mean), that is, on the expectation andThis resolved the anticipation of what another is capable of doing. If the other were

problem of the 'point . ed . h be . bl f .. of contact' (the tactile predetermm m suc a way as to mcapa e o actIon or reactIon,

'encounter of cone and that is to say inhabiting a closed system lacking a field ofplane') in a different possibilities from which to actualize one or several possibleway, by developing a . th th d..., bl th . I . model for reactIons, en e con Itions lavoura e to IS power-re atIon

reproduction. would not be present. Power is exercised only over individuals orcollective subjects faced with possibilities. In other words, 'there isno relationship of power without the means of escape or possibleflight' (Foucault 1983: 225).

By simply recording these signature-traces, the disciplinaryapparatus affirms the assignment of motion to these figures. It holdsthem accountable for their movements, both past and future, andevaluates their ability to hold these movements, that is, to displayappropriate postures, to hold a pose or maintain their composure.For under discipline, figures are distinguished in terms of their formor composition, that is, comparatively, as a system of rank-ordereddeviations from a pure form or an ideal state (that is to say, a modelor template4), either of body-type (as in early criminologicaltheories) or bodily postures and attitudes which illustrate either goodor bad form (good or bad copies of the model). Good copies arerewarded by changes in rank. Bad copies (simulacra), or thosewhich deviate from the model, are sent back to begin a process oftraining over again. Discontinuous by the very nature of its exercise,each disciplinary internment has its own plan, habits to be acquiredand forms of knowledge. From one system of internment to the next,from one apparatus to the next (from family, to school, to factory,barracks or prison), from one rank in the internal hierarchy to thenext, one begins again, from a zero-point, and ends with anexamination designed to evaluate a body's disposition (for example

Flow

Lines of (F)light 53

its 'taste for work;' see Foucault 1977: 234). 5. As nameless andfaceless as the

So, not only are these spaces of internment 'closed sets,' each surveillance camerafr .. 11 d ... bl .. ti . be f all which also function as

ame IS potentIa y IV1SI e Into an In rote num r o sm er cencral repositories of

subsets (a function of micro/telescopically 'zooming in ') of a larger images of motion.

whole. But the whole is not a closed system. Disciplinary enclosures, 6. Bentham's plan to

as with all closed systems, are only ever 'relatively enclosed' inc~rpor:ate listening(Foucault 1977: 276). As Foucault argues, it was the dungeon that deVjlSes m (th le b . enc osure p urn fig

was premised on a simple schema of enclosure, with thick heavy which would link

walls designed to prevent entering or leaving, as well as to hide and centre and cell) wasconceal. In contrast, Bentham' s original design for backlit cells scrapped s~lceblthere was no av31 a e

shows conversely that disciplinary enclosures are full of 'calculated technology to establish

openings' (1977: 172). These relative openings allow light to pass to telemetry and controlthe interior and to converge on a central point. It is an illusion to the flow ?f .

th th di . 1 . fr b " . th " communIcation.

suppose at e SCIp mary gaze emanates om a su ~ect W1 In Consequently, the

the enclosure. The disciplinary gaze is, rather, a centre where lines flow ofof light converge, where the motor-tendencies or signature-traces of communication had to

bod ' . ded Th .. d th be ordered by other,a y S motIon are recor .IS receptIve apparatus stan s as e legislative means (for

central repository of virtual perceptions, observations and example, the rule ofinformation that any body can occupy. It is virtual because it is speaking only when

ed ff fr " ." h Id kn h th .spoken to, andscreen O om InvestIgatIon: one s ou not ow weer one IS isolation for those who

being seen (or recorded) at any given moment. The disciplinary gaze violated this principle

is anonymous.5 It has to be in order to function as it does. For ofhieran:'hic.aIdi " 1. k " h .th be. d h .th t communIcation). SCIp me to wor It as to see W1 out mg seen an ear W1 ou

being heard.6

The disciplinary dream of continuous control or seamlessvisibility remains elusive. At best, discipline produces a carceralarchipelago, a discontinuous series of structured enclosures. And anyseries of enclosures, no matter how close together, will never becontinuous: they will have gaps, intervals, marginal sites, places oflateral and asymmetrical mixtures, in short, places beyond, betweenor outside the horizon of visibility. Between and beyond the 'spacesof places' of disciplinary enclosures, there are 'spaces of flow' (toborrow Arrighi's [1994: 23] dichotomy) that cannot, however, bereduced to inter -apparatus ( or inter-state ) relations or their' foreign

policies.'

Flow constitutes the forth (analytic) dimension of the spacing ofthe social apparatus. Flow is a dimension of movement that passes

Space and Culture 1

Daniel a'Connor54

between interior and exterior spaces, sometimes following the normal pathways andmigration routes, sometimes going beyond the norm and the convention. Disciplinaryapparatuses, as relative enclosures, are full of holes which allow lines of light from theexterior to pass, and at the same time to strategically fall on certain objects, to illuminatesome and hide others. These lines of light are also potential 'lines of flight, ' a means of

escaping the enclosure -the conditions which make the disciplinary exercise of powerpossible. Its calculated openings are designed to structure the flow and distribution ofbodies and light, and its panoptic centre serves as an apparatus for potentially capturingand recording these flows. This double strategy of calculated openings and techniques ofcapture ensured that the movements of bodies, light and information (orcommunication) were directed and channelled, one-way flows.

In many ways, the functioning of the disciplinary apparatus parallels thefunctioning of the early cinematographe machines. Edison's first machines were bulky,immobile and confined to the studio. Consequently, early cinematography, like

contemporary systems of surveillance, comprised fixed, single-point-of-view, spatialshots, which allowed movements to remain the property of the figures in its frame (acentral feature of the disciplinary strategy). In single-point-of-view cinema, charactersand bodies change and exchange their relative positions, while cameras simply recorded

their spatial displacement.

It was the Lumiere brothers' invention, unveiled one hundred years ago, on 22March 1895, that was to change the functioning of the cine-apparatus. Unlike Edison'sstationary camera, the Lumiere's cinematographe machine was lightweight and mobile.It liberated them from the studio. It allowed them to take to the open space of theParisian streets and to follow, rather than capture, its mundane movements and flows.By this movement of deterritorialization, that is, by following a flow or a line of flight,the entire panoptic mechanism was broken and transformed into something else (Pat ton1994: 158). Fixed, spatial shots were soon replaced: first, by setting the camera inmotion, then by panning, zooming and altering the depth of field; second, by stealingmotion from other bodies, by mounting cameras on vehicles or other ambulatoryapparatus; and third, and more significantly, by montage, that is, by selecting andassembling separate shots, most of which could remain fixed and spatial (thus with verylittle camera movement). These motor-mechanisms served to displace motion from thebodies and figures in the frame, and to make motion a property of the apparatus itself.The cinema apparatus does not simply capture images-of-motion which are exterior to

it, it produces movement-images.

Flow

Lines of (F)light 55

While disciplinary strategies are concerned with the mise-en- 7, For example, sound, ( . th h .. d th fr ) d intheout-of-fieldcan scene movement ID e set or w at goes on IDSI e e ame an

tend thex e scenewith exercising power over that which can be interiorized, beyond the visibleinternalized or appropriated locally (Deleuze 1986: 15), cinema frame, The sound ofstrategies are concerned with montage, or controlling what comes traffic ~r sirefr ns

.ernanal1ng omnext, that IS, the osmotic relation between the frame, the shot and beyond the frame canwhat is beyond it (its outside), or what takes place between invoke the feeling of a

successive framings and shots (in-between in the interval or gap), I~ger. ~andise~n~,Th al . f be .. d th fr d ..e ec11ve y sp aCIng,

e an ySIS O montage gIDS OUtSI e e ames an settIngs ID qualifying and

the 'any-space' between structured enclosures, since this is where reterritorializing themovement-images occur .Even if one were to stop the apparatus, and scene, The out-~f-field

al h '11 th . 1 ed Id .. bl has transfOrnJa11vean yse t e Stl US ISO at, one wou ID varIa y come across powers over the visualcertain remarkable instances to contemplate, for example, 'when the field, Consider howhorse has one hoof on the ground then three two one' (Deleuze the haunting musical, ..'. ' score in Jaws changes1991: 5). But these remarkable sIDgularltIeS are not forms the intensity of whatactualizing or embodying an eternal standard, prototype, model or would otherwise betemplate, nor do they await a narrative to order their arrangement or banal scenes,

distribution (cf. Metz 1974). The singularities of the cinema havenothing in common with the order of long-exposure photos in thespace of confinement. They are singular points which belong tomovement and are immanent in it. For no matter how remarkable,unique, interesting or ordinary from the point of view of theimmobilized section, each instant is simply an any-instant-whateverwhose only distinguishing feature is that it is equidistant from all theother instants which comprise the mobile section of the shot. Andevery shot therefore comprises a multiplicity of singularities (any-instants-whatever). When approached as a mobile section, eachframe is transformed from an enclosure that holds motion, into athreshold that allows movements and flows of all kinds to pass.Every enclosure communicates with an outside, just as every closedset refers to an out-of-field, or larger, unseen (virtual) set whichencompasses or modifies it! This is also why 'content' analysis cannever reach completion, nor contain the meaning of the event, as itcan never completely close off lines of flight. Under a boundedsystem such as discipline, parts vary in relation to a ready-made setof fixed coordinates with a fixed centre of determination. Thisprovides a clear cut mechanism for determining the placement,position or location of each part in relation to the whole (as in thenumerical array or matrix and the 'count' which proceeds by a

Space and Culture 1

Daniel a'Connor56

8. One could include'desire' among thecategories of absence,since desire istypically defmed as'lack,' by a lack ofbeing or a lack ofpresence whichimplies distance.

binary logic of presence/absence). Since there are always breaks inthe presumed continuity of the enclosure, the outside will penetrateand the inside will escape through its porous openings in a processof continuous exchange and transformation.

In the cinema apparatus, as an example of an 'open system'(Virilio 1995: 125), the whole is never fixed, neither given norgiveable, but is itself variable. This means that a part can belong tovarious relative sets simultaneously. And by refusing to settle in anyone place (set, setting, or situation) such nomadic singularitiesalways transform places into milieu, into in-belween or thresholdspaces (Grossberg 1996: 180). By subjecting each place or locale to arelentless process of opening or deterritorialization, space no longerfunctions as a fixed system of coordinates to define, position ordelimit movements. Instead, space itself becomes a variable ofmovement: 'boundaries are only produced and set in the process of

passage' (Massumi in Grosz 1995: 131).

The old dualities of space, or inside/outside, close/distant,present/absence, and the related categories of past and future (that is,'categories of absence;'8 see Shields 1992: 187) are all derived fromthe relative safety of the enclosure, the point of view of confinement,and the 'voice of command' (Bhabha 1994: 116). Mobility changesall that. As Virilio argues, mobility has the effect of changing oldnotions of proximity and distance rather than simply restoring theidea that proximity is identical with being face-to-face (1995: 106).For Baudril1ard (1987: 42-43), this change is seen as a function ofthe elimination of the stage and its corollary 'staged distance,' whichhas brought everything 'close-up' in an immediate proximity. Yetthis notion of the absence of distance (a double negation) defines afield of pornographic visibility where everything appears to be givenall at once. This logic always leads back to enclosure and theanalysis of the phenomena that inhabit it, that is, fetishized partial

objects.

Far from being simply an apparatus for staging the visible, thecinema apparatus keeps open the possibility of deterritorializing andreterritorializing the seen. It is montage that operates these potentialmovements which threaten to leave the territorial principle behind.The cinema is, after all, a moving scene/seen, not just a surveillance

Flow

Lines of (F)light 57

apparatus for capturing movements in a pre-defined scene or ready-made whole.

The optical machinery of the cinema functions differently from both sovereignty anddiscipline. Sovereignty defined a spectacular regime of power that had to be seen to beeffective. Discipline structured light to fall on an interior and illuminate its details, likea searchlight, or an intensional, nonsubjective (Foucault 1980: 94) consciousness,summoning objects out of their essential darkness (Boundas 1993: 35). It constituted asystem of hierarchical (non-reciprocal) one-way gazes which see without being seen.The cinema, by way of contrast, operates by introducing signs of the unseen to the seen.Without reducing scene to seen, it makes us grasp what we do not see but what isperceptible to another (Deleuze in Boundas 1993: 36). The other, in this sense, is notsimply an empirical other populating our field of visibility, as is the case in the face toface encounter of gazes doing reciprocal perspectives (interactionism) or engaging in asubject/object dialectic (existentialism). This Other is not necessarily actualized ormaterialized in one's perceptual field, nor does it have to be in order to make its affectsfelt. The disciplinary apparatus already established the fact that the other was mostpowerful when it .was not seen. Moreover, the empirical other must be 'foreclosed'(Boundas 1993) or displaced for this Otherness to make its affects felt. This Other doesmore than reflect back a self (cf. Denzin 1995: 112). It is a structure (of alterity)constituting the margin or horizon of visibility beyond the frame, like a spectre hauntingthe seen. So the question is not what this Other is, but what it can do. Nor is theproblem one of trying to contain or locate its source, but, rather one of assessing itsaffects .

Put simply, in a world were the structure of alterity ceased to function, that is, in aworld of isolation without others, we would be constantly bumping into the unseen andthe unknown, which would strike us with the force of projectiles. 'The absence of theother is felt when we bang against things, and when the stupefying swiftness of ouractions is revealed to us' (Deleuze 1990: 306). The entire structure of anticipation andexpectation of what comes next, what is beyond, what we do not see and do not know(the horizon of possibilities) is a function of this structure.

The part of the object that I do not see I posit as visible to Others, so that when Iwill have walked around the object to reach this hidden part, I will have joined theOthers [already there] behind the object, and will have totalized it in the way that Ialready anticipated. As for objects behind my back, I sense them coming together andforming a world, precisely because they are visible to, and are seen by, Others (Deleuze1990: 305).

Space and Culture 1

58 Daniel a'Connor

9. In Peirce, indicespossess threechalaCteristics: (I)they have no

significantresemblance to theirobject; (2) they referto individuals, singleunits, singlecollections of units, orsingle continua, and;(3) they direct theattention to theirobjects by blind

compulsion (1955:108).

Similarly, the depth of our perception is a possible width forOthers, thus enabling us to relativize proximities, to distinguishforeground and background and to know when objects are hiddenbehind others. This Other illuminates the margins of the world thatwe do not see, warning of assaults from behind or the side,smoothing transitions from one perception to another, and filling theworld with benevolent murmuring (see Deleuze 1990: 305). For asDeleuze argues, '[w]hen one complains about the meanness ofOthers, one forgets this other and even more frightening meanness-namely, the meanness of things were there no Other' (1990: 307).

Contemporaneous with all that is seen there is a 'virtual' unseenset, a beyond or out-of-field, that wards off (en)closure, prevents theset from closing in on itself, and precludes the identification of thescene with the seen. Like a line of (t)light, this virtual othernesspasses through the porous membranes of the seen, and at the sametime is that which allows the seen to pass into the beyond or whatcomes next. Interpretation, typically undertaken from a fixedstandpoint (that is to say from point of view of confinement or the'standpoint of civil society'), is made all the more difficult when itssubject-matter is porous (Grosz 1995: 131) and actively resistscapture by constantly changing its shape or form, or refusing tosettle or be pinned down. Perhaps nowhere is the difference betweenthe regimes of enclosure and the open system more apparent than inthe place the face occupies therein.

The face can be individuating (Deleuze 1991: 99). It can serveas a means of distinguishing or characterizing a person.Synonymous with the signature, 'mug shot' (photo de pose) orfingerprint, the face serves as of means of identifying individuals.The face can be socializing, in the sense that it manifests a socialrole or a social location. Taken as a reflection of the settings inwhich people normally act and perceive, the face becomes habitus(Bourdieu 1993) where looks become indices,9 distinguishing theplace one belongs or the group one belongs to. The face can also becommunicating, not only between characters or between roles, butalso as an expression of the internal consistency (auto-communication between a character and its role or when one looksthe part), or its lack (as in the automaton or the face that fails to~

Flow

Lines of (F)light 59

reflect the other, or simply fails to respond appropriately to its scene).

The face is verbose. It emits and receives, releases and captures, gathers andexpresses many signifying signs. As Deleuze and Guattari argue, signifiers alwaysreterritorialize on the surface of the face such that signifiers are always facified (1987:115). Signatures (a means of individual identification), habitus/indices (a means ofgroup identification) and signs of communication (identification or the failure to identifywith an individual or a group) are examples of the face inscribed by a particular regimeof enunciation. It is made to bear these 'traces' and inscriptions though no actualphysical force ever touches or 'marks' its surface. These signs should be understood interms of the particular disciplinary apparatuses, the regimes of enunciation and the linesof force which make it signify or 'induce it to speak' (so to speak). In the cinemaapparatus the face takes on a different complexion. As Bergman (in Deleuze 1991: 99)defines it, 'the possibility of drawing near to the human face is the primary originalityand the distinctive quality of the cinema.'

It is typically the face which populates the cinematic close-up. Eisenstein (1942)goes further. By arguing that 'the close-up is the face,' he suggests that any c1ose-upcalls forth either a face or a facial equivalent. Therefore, in close-up virtually any thingcan be facified. To illustrate such a 'facified object', we can turn to the example of aclock striking midnight (Eisenstein in Deleuze 1991: 87). The clock, shown in severalclose-ups which gradually draw near to its face, is on one hand, a receptive surfacewhich merely reflects light back. On the other, and because its hands form a series ofmicro-movements (even virtual, imperceptible ones), it marks an accent toward a criticalinstant, to the point where midnight becomes a 'fateful hour.' The face/close-up istypically employed to stake out such critical instants, turning points or to prefigureparoxysms (Deleuze 1991: 89). It is preparatory, either of the progress toward a limit orof crossing a threshold. Moreover, it gathers and expresses these imperceptible qualitieswithout ever actualizing them in a percept~al field.

While the close-up may appear as an act of enclosure par excellence, it is not amatter of cramming and arranging so many elements inside pre-existing boundaries (forexample, the staged production), but is a special case of 'cutting out' or extracting acomposition unit from the set (Aumont 1987: 36-7). Similarly in Eisenstein, framing isa matter of 'hewing out a piece of actuality with the ax of the lens' (1949: 41). Becausethe close-up involves a cut, or the cutting out of an image from the materiality of its set,some argue that they have discovered a cinematic equivalent of a psychoanalyticstructure of the unconscious (for example, a castration complex; see Kaite 1991: 176),and, as in Baudrillard, associate this with the fetishization of the partial-objects, whichin turn correspond with poses of the commodity (in other words, when it is immobilized)

Space and Culture 1

Daniel a'Connor60

(see also Kroker and Levin [1991] and Debord's [1994: 12,43] discussion of the partial-object/image). Others, Barthes (1977: 66-67) for example, understand the cinematicfiagment (still) as an 'act of quotation' forming the basis of cinematic parody (ananalysis which is extended into Fiske's [1989: 95] treatment of the media as 'semiotic

democracy').

While one certainly grants the fact that the close-up involves a change of dimensionvis-li-vis the set, it does not follow that the image is therefore immobilized. In fact thischange of dimension can be understood in two ways. On one hand, this change could berelative, consisting in the microscopic/telescopic magnification of the smallest detail -

a form of cutting which produces partial or fetish objects. On the other , this change ofdimension could be absolute -a form of cutting which opens up another dimension,and which produces an image of the whole as an interval or threshold of qualitativetransformation or 'act of change.' It is my contention that, instead of (or in addition to)simply magnifying the 'small details' of the ready-made set, or enlarging the seen(pornographically), the close-up is an act of 'deframing' par excellence, since it cuts theimage out of its moorings in a system of spatiotemporal coordinates and displays micro-

movements of its own.

In a world of complete enclosure (dungeons or 'total institutions') where walls arewithout doorways or windows, the only way out is over the wall, an act akin to Barthes(1974) notion of transgression. But in a world of relative enclosures, there are all kindsof openings (calculated or not) and marginal sites through which movements and flowsof all kinds pass. Very much unlike the surface of the mirror, the photo de pose, or thepassive gaze of the other which simply reflects back or records movements that areexternal to it, the face (close up) is a mobile surface of micro-movements (as is thetranslucent film surface mobilized by the Lumiere's claws). It interrupts the flow ofreflection and therefore the light which would otherwise reflect back or pass in onedirection. The face is a reflective interval, an opening between that which is reflectedand its reflection. In close-up it constitutes an interval-space, or the space in-betweenwhere suspense and expectation are both inscribed and suspended. As Bhabha (1994: 4)

argues:'Beyond' signifies spatial distance, marks progress, promises the future; but our intimationsof exceeding the barrier or boundary -the very act of going beyond -are unknowable,unrepresentable, without a return to the 'present' which, in the process of repetition,becomes disjunct and displaced. The imaginary of spatial distance -to live somehowbeyond the border of our time -throws into relief the temporal, social differences that

interrupt our collusive sense of cultural contemporaneity.

Flow

lines of (F)light 61

It is only by dissolving (deframing) its spatiotemporal 10. As in Hitchcock's

coordinates that the 'identity' functions of the face disappear. Thus, (1958) film of the

same name.the facial close-up is also its individualizing, socializing and 11. Hitchcock'scommunicating effacement, for it aims at nothing beyond its own Vertigo is exemplaryproliferation and expansion ( cfo Grosz 1994: 195 on desire). In in its use of the close-

normal (or normalized) perception people are assumed to have ~p~~v~ filmindividual characters or social roles, and objects have real uses, ;ere are ~~: wo:lds,which stand in real connections to people, who stand in real one of affection andrelations with one another in a whole actual state of affairs. But dizzying desire,theth . aI ' ed ' f ~~ . S d ...other, an actual world

ere IS SO an express state o culaIrs. tan mg on a precIpIce, bound by rules and

for example, may be the cause of vertigo,10 but it does not explain roles. Repeated inserts

the expression it produces on a face. Vertiginousness is only one (close-ups) show the

I .0 ., f I .. h ' f th 0 .II difference between the

qua ItatIve expressIOn, or wayo IVlng t e scene o e precIpICe. actual world and how

Even though its expression might anticipate an action or event to characlers live it.

take place in, or modify, an actual state of things (for example, 12. The truth-value of

actually falling over the edge) it is nonetheless a pure potentiality ~y statement.(~ywhich gathers and expresses a virtual relation with the actual state of vl lrtual1.al P) roPO ts Sluo thnal re on res on e

things, lacking the necessary correspondence rules required to premise that it

embody a situation of truth or logos .12 This image does not live in indicates a state of

the rule or role bound enclosure of the scene but in the 'virtual affairs that ~es it., true (see WlttgenstelD,

world:' either a past or future which is beyond the reach of normal 1958: 33). Statements

communication or judgement, and therefore beyond the laws or of truth require a

codes of normal interactionol3 What emerges in the close-up is a structural homologue

d .. aI . ed ... I (common code) to

etemton IZ Image occupYIng a Vlrtua any-space-whatever insure that the

grasped as the pure locus of the possible (Deleuze 1991: 96, 109). representative sign-order (propositional

This close-up/face effaces all other functions of the face which relation) and the order

either belong to, are derived from, or indicate its place in a relative of the ~orld shan: a

I L . k d .0 I . th fu ti ( be syntactlcalfonn ID

enc osure. I e a noma IC smgu anty at re ses to set e or common.

captured) its significance cannot be secured in advance. As Balazs 13. Like the close-up,

(in Deleuze 1989: 96) states: '... the expression of a face and the flashbacks are

signification of this expression have no relation or connection to attempts toOur 0 f 0 bol . hed A d .0 f th concenlrate the power

space. sensatIon o space IS a IS 0 Imenslon o ano er of the virtual in theorder is open to us. ' By occupying the openings or margins, rather scene. However, the

than inhabiting the enclosure, the signs which scribe its surface do conventional. I h ... d 0 ( . d o °d aI flashback-insert not sImp y c aractenze or secure ItS I entity an m IVl u

all .. th .tusu y cames Wl 1

representation). Nor are they just cliche or stereotypical responses signs which warn us of

(good habits) that would identify the place, location or group that it the difference between

belongs to (a group representation)ol4 The displaced face sheds all its the actual perception

Space and Culture 1

DanielO'Connor62

and the virtual image 'traces.' It is no longer a functionary, deputy or subject of theThit has ~alled thforth. enclosure. Instead it has become a seer of that which we do not see,

ere,ore, eflashback is typically and the visible presence or embodiment of the power of the out-of-

marked by a dissolve- field. Like a subservient, averted gaze, it turns towards-turning awayli~, by clouding the (toumement-detoumment,15 see Deleuze 1991: 104) to illuminate thehonzons of the frame, h f ... b.l . W " h th ." h Id bechanging from colour orizon o mVlsI I Ity. It out IS lace, t ere wou no

to black-and-white, transitions, no intervals, no warnings, only the shock of successiveprefiguring the change enclosures.with an insert(closeup) of a face in The face or its equivalent expresses something which does notREM sleep (as in .. d d ti f th .. al . h " hWeir's 1993 exIst m epen en yo at actIve sensuous materl Ity w IC

Fearless), or by expresses it, yet is at the same time distinct from that expression.superimposing the This something is the structure of the possible. The signs this facevirtual and the actual od ... di P . (1955) ... W "lde ' S p r uces are Icomc, smce, accor ng to eIrce , an Icon IS aImage. I r s evenYear Itch (1955) is kind of sign which refers to an object by virtue of a quality which itexemplary in the latter possesses, and which it possesses independent of whether any suchuse ~fthe flashback. object actually exists or not. Similarly, qualities cannot act as signsIn this case the th bod .ed h ' I .., .I " . flashback returns from unless ey are em I: suc qua l-slgns are necessarl y Icomc

beyond the frame to (Peirce 1955: 115).reterritorialize thedisplacing effect of the The face/close-up is a type of movement-image and a form oficonic figure pl~yed signifying substance that does not simply allow external movementsby Monroe. This .flashback is either the and flows to pass, nor does It simply deflect, reflect or turn them

voice ofnonnality back. As an interval of reflection the face distortsl6 lines of (t)light(from out-of-field) or by turning them into affects and expressions. Movements never leave

afigureofnonnality, th .th . h h th . affi .. 1which, while on or enter e scene Wl out passmg t roug IS ective mterva .

holiday, returns The close-up (both 'cut out' and 'inserted') controls the flow byoccasionally ~o .carrying out 'virtual conjunctions' in the gaps, intervals or openingsreframe the sltuaUon b th . al .. B .and restore its nonnal etween e scenes, pnor to any actu Izatlon. y structunnghabitus. expectations, the close-up smooths the transitions from scene to14. While Bourdieu scene, and constitutes a continuity that discipline lacked. Rather(1993) counters the than simply making the gaps and intervals of the system of montagehtendency~o ul..'~ 'invisible' so that events flow (cf. Trinh 1991: 164-65), signs of theomogemze c ~~

with a conception of invisible or the unseen are inserted in these gaps to direct and

the habitus as a means channel the powers out -of- field and to make events flow.of entrenching culturaldistinctions between The face in closeup, the sound-out-of-field and the flashback aredifferent groups in . ed . th fl f th .

. th ..surface structures msert mto e ow o e movement-Image tosoCIety, ese vaneUesof 'taste' and qualify the scene and motivate responses to it, that is, to variously'manner' reallyonly link situations and the actions which modify them. These affective-

Flo\1

Lines of (F)light 63

inserts smooth transitions and lateral connections that would serve as metaphors forotherwise remain a discontinous series of presents. The power to objective social

anangementsVlrtuallze an actual Image, to surround or encompass what IS 10 the including social classscene with affections, anticipations, qualities and memory, is to -that is to say thatintroduce elements which belong to the past or future into present 'habits' are simply

. d . I ..'codes' which serve toperceptIons an so potentia Ize ItS movement, change and 'naturalize' ready-

transformation. For the present would not pass if it were a closed made hierarchicalsystem and did not already contain an immanent potential for differences. The

...habitus is alwaysbecommg-other. What montage does IS to release the potentIals of positively situated in a

the image so that they do move (pass on) and at the same time given space (seeauthorize their passage by structuring the virtual openings through Maffes?li 1993: 10).

.BelongIng canWhICh they pass. therefore be assessed

.in temlS of whether ofConclusIon not one has acquired

S. bo ded . 1 1 . 1 1 ed ..the appropriate 'knowmce every un system IS on y ever re atIve y c 08 ,It IS how,' that is, whether

under constant threat of spillage across its boundaries. This is true or not one displays theboth of the staged spectacles of sovereignty and the hier-architecture appropriate badges,of the disciplinary enclosure. The power of these apparatuses is both labels or other visual

cues.defined and limited by the way they structure the field of visibility, 15. As Debord definesthe kinds of surfaces caught in this regime of light, and the kinds of it, detoummentinscriptions left on these surfaces which make them signify 'occurs within a typeparticular regimes of enunciation. Power, understood as a relation, ofcomm

f ~ni~o.n.

aware o Its mabllity

always mhabIts the space between sIgns and thmgs (Images). To go to enshrine any

beyond the enclosure, to control events outside the boundaries of the inherent and definitivefactory, prison, school, or barracks, or to control events in the certainty' (1994:. al be . 1 d .ffi d... f .146). mterv tween successIve enc osures, a I erent ISpOSltI IS

. ed M b ...al db 1 .16.Sirnilartothe

requlr .ontage, y constitutIng an mterv -space, an y re ating Lacanian objet petit a,

all movements to this interval, produces a form of 'moving' image which as ZiZek (1989:that sees into the beyond, either the past or the future, to the side or 34) argues 'is always1 h d th f by definition,e sew ere, an structures e expectatIon or antiCI patIon O events to . ed . percelV m a

come. The face close-up, or its equivalent (the sound-out-of-field or distorted way,the flashback), does not structure the seen, nor delimit its meaning, because, outside this

distortion "in itself "but rather suggests ways one should live the scene. It structures the . d ' .,

It oes not exist,possible. This is the face of the otherwise other, a benevolent face hence, because it iswith a distinctive 'cinema gaze' (in other words, distinct from the nothing but themore objective 'eye of the camera'). Inscribed by signs which are em~ a1i..ent, the

fthi... II tal h . h h h -maten zaI1on o sIcomc, It te s es w IC ave not appened, which could happen, distortion ...an object

or which have happened in the past and could happen again. It does that does not exist forthe "objective" look.'

Space and Culture 1

Daniel O'Connor64

not speak for the visible, nor is it a deputy of the seen. It circulates rumours, fabricateslegends and makes 'small-talk' (Simmel1950: 45). Like the language of myth, its modeof presence is memorial yet has pretensions to become actual (Barthes 1973: 122, 133-

4). It is this structure of alterity that controls flows in the open.

Carleton UniversityOttawa, Canada

ReferencesAnnstrong, T. ed. 1992. Michel Foucault, Philosopher, New York: Routledge

Arrighi, G. 1994. The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origin of Our

Times, London: VersoAumont, I. 1987. Montage Eisenstein, Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Bakhtin, M.M. 1984. Rabelais and His World, Bloomington: Indiana University Press

Barthes, R. 1977. Image, Music, Text, New York: Noonday Press

-1973. Mythologies, St. Albans: Paladin

Baudrillard, I. 1987. The Ecstasy of Communication, New York: Semiotext(e)

Bhabha, H. 1994. The Location of Culture, London: Routledge

Boundas, C.V. 1993. 'Foreclosure of the Other: From Sartre to Deleuze' JournaloftheBritish Society for Studies in Phenomenology 24: 1. 32-43

Boundas, C. and D. Olkowski eds. 1994. Gilles Deleuze and the Theatre of Philosophy,

New York: RoutledgeBourdieu, P. 1993. The Field of Cultural Production, New York: Columbia University

PressChambers, I. and L. Curti eds. 1996. The Post-Colonial Question, London: Routledge

Debord, G. 1994. The Society of the Spectacle, New York: Zone Books

Deleuze, G. 1992a. 'What is a dispositif?' Armstrong 1992: 159-167

-1992b. 'Postscript on the Societies of Control,' October 59.3-9

-1991. Cinema 1: The Movement-Image, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

-1990. The Logic of Sense, c. Boundas ed. trans. M. Lester, New York: Columbia

Press

-1986. Nomadology, New York: Semiotext(e)

Deleuze, G. and F. Guattari 1987. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia,Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

Flow

Lines of (F)light 65

Denzin, N.K. 1995. 'The Birth of the Cinematic, Surveillance Society,' CurrentPerspectives in Social Theory 15.99-127

Eisenstein, S. 1949. The Film Form, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company

-1942. The Film Sense, New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company

Fiske, J. 1989. Television Culture, London: Routledge

Foucault, M. 1977. Discipline and Punish; The Birth of the Prison, New York: VintageBooks

-1980. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1, New York: Vintage Books

Grossberg, L. 1996. 'The Space of Culture, the Power of Space' Chambers and Curti1996: 169-188

Grosz, E. 1994. 'A Thousand Tiny Sexes: Feminism and Rhizomatics' Boundas andOlkowski 1994: 187-210

-1995. Space, Time and Perversion; Essays on the Politics of Bodies, New York:

RoutledgeHitchcock, A. 1958. Vertigo

Jameson, F. 1990. Signatures of the Visible, New York: Routledge

Kaite, B. 1991. 'The Fetish in Sex Lies & Videotape,' Kroker and Kroker 1991: 170-186

Kroker, A. and M. Kroker eds. 1991. The Hysterical Male, New York: St. Martin'sPress

Kroker, A. and C. Levin 1991. 'Cynical Power: The Fetishism of the Sign,' CanadianJournal of Political and Social Theory 15:2. 123-187

Maffesoli"M.1993. 'The Social Ambiance,' Current Sociology 41:2. 1-15

Metz, C. 1974. Language and Cinema, The Hague: Mouton

Trinh T. Minh-ha 1991. When the Moon Waxes Red, New York: Routledge

Pat ton, P. 1994 'Metamorpho-Logic: Bodies and Powers in A Thousand Plateaus,'Journal of the British Society for Studies in Phenomenology 25:2. 157-159

Peirce, C.S. 1955. Philosophical Writings of Peirce, Justin Buchler ed. New York:Dover

Shields, R. 1992. ' A Truant Proximity: Presence and Absence in the Space of

Modernity,' Society and Space 10. 181-198

-1991. Places on the Margin; Alternative Geographies of Modernity, London:

Routledge

Space and Culture 1

66 Daniel a'Connor

Simmel, G. 1950. The Sociology of Georg Simmel, trans. K.H. Wolff, New York: TheFree Press

Spielberg, S. 1975. Jaws

Virilio, P. 1995. The Art of the Motor, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press

Weir, P. 1993. Fearless

Wittgenstein, L. 1958. Philosophical Investigations, New York: Knopf

Wilder, B. 1955. The Seven Year Itch

Zizek, S. 1989. 'Looking Awry,' October 50 Fa11. 30-55

Flow