Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Pepper spray and Seurat: a Pointillist Event (Pointillist or pointless?)

Pablo K at The Disorder of Things has a long post on "body politics" which reproduces, toward the end, several "meme-ifications" of the "pepper spray policeman" -- in Guernica, in Tienanmen Square, in Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, and so forth.

(Click here for the Seurat image.)

What is the point of this particular juxtaposition? The linked post refers to it and similar images as "jovial and sardonic in the face of callousness, but also now repeated for their own sake." I think the post and comments are worth reading, though written in a style not everyone will take to. The author asks parenthetically in comments: "Does someone want to theorise this in terms of the Event?" Thanks, but I think I'll pass on that. For now, at any rate.

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