INVESTIGATE 18.06.

16

THIS, NOT THAT; HERE, NOT THERE

Substantive Reading: Anderson, B. (2006) Census, Map, Museum, in Imagined Communities.

London, England: Verso, pp.163-185
Other Media and Resources: Trevor Paglen Limit Telephotography (2012)
Theme: Knowledge

Foucault describes Knowledge as ordered information. (Foucault, 1989) Anderson uses this as a
premise to elaborate upon the forces acting behind the creation of a nation. He introduces the idea
of a nation as an Imagined Community, since it is a socially constructed community imagined by
people who perceive themselves as part of a group that shares imagined things like culture and
religious beliefs. (Anderson, 2006)
According to Anderson, print-capitalism plays a major role in creation of this imagined national
identity. His ideas, based in the 1980s, are still relevant today where mass media is owned by
political parties and used for their individual political agendas, rather than being used as a tool for
creating a more aware public. The colonial state, back then, had the capability to control everything
and used this power to create their own version of the nations history.
This tyrannical approach to governance was used to reinforce colonial authority which believed in
the assumption that the world should be made up of replicable plurals. (Anderson, 2006)
The colonial state used tools of census, maps and museums as means of re-writing history in an
attempt to label and define their colony. Census was used as a means to categorise and normalise
human populace (Foucault, 1989) in an attempt to producing order among them. People were
reduced to digits and forced into arbitrary definitions based on European standards of race and
ethnicity. This was necessary as the end result needed to coincide with the states idea of the image
they wanted to portray to the masses.
Maps, by definition are tools for gathering information; however, the colonial state used them for
manufacturing data.
The map was a model for, rather than a model of, what it is supposed to represent. (Anderson, 2006)
These were real instruments to concretise visions of conquests on the earths surface. New maps
were created, either with a historical agenda or a map-as-logo avatar for easy representation,
replicability and memorable-ness. Foucault has expressed this use of scientific authority to
classify and order knowledge about human population as a display of the states power.
Once the maps had been mass replicated, the colonial governance used museums as an instrument
for constructing history by emphasising the manufactured role of colonisers in preserving as well
as participating in local history. Each ruin becomes available for surveillance and infinite
replication. The state usually has no particular interest in the ruin, just the replicability and image
creation of the colony (Anderson, 2006). Today museums have become sources of cultural
objectification and political propagation. Reproducing certain patterns within a given society by
training the masses to engage in mindless routines and practises is prevalent governance tactic
(Foucault, 1989).
Thus the State uses the tools of scientific knowledge gathering as a faade for its own political
gains. However, Trevor Paglen uses his skills a photographer for knowledge collection of classified
military bases by documenting American surveillance of the 21st century. He uses this to trace the
way in which convergence of aesthetic, industrial design and politics influence how we see and
understand the current world (Paglen, nd). Over the years Paglen has collaborated with scientists
and human right activists in order to give voice to the shifting ideas of the landscape of the
American West, humankinds place in the cosmos, and the surveillance state (Paglen, nd).
It is ironical that we live in a time when documenting the surveillance put in place to supposedly
keep us safe is an act of defiance of the governance laws. With the government collecting data in an
attempt to create a knowledge bank of the assumed profiles of its citizens, it would be interesting to
see them use Foucaults The order of Things as a reference in the search for order, when it is the
exact opposite of what Foucault intended.

Bibliography

Anderson, B., 2006. Census, Map, Museum. In: Imagining Communities. London: Verso, pp. 163-185.
Foucault, M., 1989. Preface. In: The Order of Things: An Archaeology of Human Sciences. London:
Routledge, pp. xvi-xxvi.
Paglen, T., nd. Trevor Paglen/ ART 21. [Online]
Available at: http://www.art21.org/artists/trevor-paglen
[Accessed 17 10 2016].