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Vie w from above into the exhibition M aking Things Public at the ZK M |

2 3 Center for Art and M edia Karlsruhe 2005, photo: Franz Wamhof
From Realpolitik to Dingpolitik
or How to Make Things Public

From Realpolitik
to Dingpolitik
Bruno Latour *

The aide said that guys like me were in what we call the reality-based community, which
he defined as people who believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of dis-
cernible reality. I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and

Latour
empiricism. He cut me off. Thats not the way the world really works anymore, he con-
tinued. Were an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while
youre studying that reality judiciously, as you will well act again, creating other new
realities, which you can study too, and thats how things will sort out. Were historys
actors [] and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do. Ron Suskind1

Some conjunctions of planets are so ominous, What Is the Res of Res publica? Clintons cat Socks or the degree zero of politics, Little Rock Arkansas, N ove mber 17, 1992, AP Photo / Greg Gibson
astrologers used to say, that it seems safer to stay By the German neologism Dingpolitik, we wish to Chelsea Clintons cat Socks gets the attention of photographers on the side w alk outside the fenced Arkansas Governors
M ansion in Little Rock. Socks strolled about a t w o block area with photographers in tow. President-elect Bill Clinton w as
at home in bed and wait until Heaven sends a designate a risky and tentative set of experiments
w orking on his transition and preparing for a trip to Washington and a m eeting with President George H. W. Bush.
more auspicious message. Its probably the same in probing just what it could mean for political
with political conjunctions. They are presently so thought to turn things around and to become
hopeless that it seems prudent to stay as far away slightly more realistic than has been attempted up the latest beheading by fanatics in Falluja, the last
as possible from anything political and to wait for to now. A few years ago, computer scientists American election. For every one of these objects,
the passing away of all the present leaders, terror- invented the marvelous expression of object-ori- you see spewing out of them a different set of pas-
ists, commentators and buffoons who strut about ented software to describe a new way to program sions, indignations, opinions, as well as a different
the public stage. their computers. We wish to use this metaphor to set of interested parties and different ways of car-
Astrology, however, is as precarious an art as ask the question: What would an object-oriented rying out their partial resolution.
political science; behind the nefarious conjunc- democracy look like? Its clear that each object each issue gener-
tions of hapless stars, other much dimmer align- The general hypothesis is so simple that it ates a different pattern of emotions and disrup-
ments might be worth pondering. With the politi- might sound trivial but being trivial might be tions, of disagreements and agreements. There
cal period triggering such desperation, the time part of what it is to become a realist in politics. might be no continuity, no coherence in our opin-
seems right to shift our attention to other ways of We might be more connected to each other by our ions, but there is a hidden continuity and a hidden
considering public matters. And matters are pre- worries, our matters of concern, the issues we care coherence in what we are attached to. Each object
cisely what might be put center stage. Yes, public for, than by any other set of values, opinions, atti- gathers around itself a different assembly of rele-
matters, but how? tudes or principles. The experiment is certainly vant parties. Each object triggers new occasions to
While the German Reich has given us two easy to make. Just go in your head over any set of passionately differ and dispute. Each object may
world wars, the German language has provided us contemporary issues: the entry of Turkey into the also offer new ways of achieving closure without
with the word Realpolitik to describe a positive, European Union, the Islamic veil in France, the having to agree on much else. In other words,
materialist, no-nonsense, interest only, matter-of- spread of genetically modified organisms in Brazil, objects taken as so many issues bind all of us in
fact way of dealing with naked power relations. the pollution of the river near your home, the ways that map out a public space profoundly dif-
Although this reality, at the time of Bismarck, breaking down of Greenlands glaciers, the dimin- ferent from what is usually recognized under the
might have appeared as a welcome change after ishing return of your pension funds, the closing of label of the political. It is this space, this hidden
the cruel idealisms it aimed to replace, it strikes us your daughters factory, the repairs to be made in geography that we wish to explore through this
now as deeply unr e a l i s t i c . In general, to invoke your apartment, the rise and fall of stock options, catalog and exhibition.
realism when talking about politics is something Presidential hopefuls US Vice President Al Gore and form er Its not unfair to say that political philosophy
US Senator Bill Bradley listen to a question D ece mber 17,
one should not do without trembling and shaking. * Although I cannot thank all the people whose thoughts
has often been the victim of a strong object-avoid-
1999 during an A B C TV Nightline tow n hall m eeting moder-
The beautiful word reality has been damned by have contributed to this paper without listing this entire cat- ated by Ted Koppel at Daniel Webster College in N ashua, N e w ance tendency. From Hobbes to Rawls, from
the too many crimes committed in its name. alog, I owe a very special thanks to Noortje Marres, whose H ampshire. Photo A FP/E-Lance M edia, photo: Luke Frazza Rousseau to Habermas, many procedures have
work on Lippmann and Dewey has been central during the
three years of preparation for this show.
1 Ron Suskind, Without a Doubt, in: New York Times,
4 October 17, 2004. 5
been devised to assemble the relevant parties, to his travels through Europe. 2 A third meaning of
authorize them to contract, to check their degree this ambiguous and ubiquitous word representa-

From Realpolitik
of representativity, to discover the ideal speech tion, the one with which artists are most familiar,

to Dingpolitik
conditions, to detect the legitimate closure, to had to be called for to solve, this time visually, the
write the good constitution. But when it comes problem of the composition of the Body Politik.
down to what is at issue, namely the object of con- Up to now it has remained a puzzle: How to repre-
cern that brings them together, not a word is sent, and through which medium, the sites where
uttered. In a strange way, political science is mute people meet to discuss their matters of concern?
just at the moment when the objects of concern Its precisely what we are tackling here. 3 Shapin
should be brought in and made to speak up loudly. and Schaffer might have renewed Hobbess prob-
Contrary to what the powerful etymology of their lem even more tellingly when they redrew his
most cherished word should imply, their res pub- monster for their frontispiece and equipped his left

Latour
lica does not seem to be loaded with too many arm not with the Bishops crosier but with Boyles
things. Procedures to authorize and legitimize are air-pump.4 From now on, the powers of science
important, but its only half of what is needed to are just as important to consider: How do they
assemble. The other half lies in the issues them- assemble, and around which matters of concern?
selves, in the matters that matter, in the res that But in addition to the visual puzzle of assem-
creates a public around it. They need to be repre- bling composite bodies, another puzzle should
sented, authorized, legitimated and brought to strike us in those engravings. A simple look at
bear inside the relevant assembly. them clearly proves that the Body Politik is not
What we call an object-oriented democracy only made of people! They are thick with things:
tries to redress this bias in much of political philos- clothes, a huge sword, immense castles, large
ophy, that is, to bring together two different cultivated fields, crowns, ships, cities and an
meanings of the word r e pr e s e n t a t i o n that have immensely complex technology of gathering, A mbrogio Lorenzetti, The Effects of the Good Government , 1338-1339, fresco (detail), Palazzo Pubblico, Siena, Sala dei N ove,
Comune di Siena, photo: Foto Lensini Siena
been kept separate in theory although they have meeting, cohabiting, enlarging, reducing and
remained always mixed in practice. The first one, focusing. In addition to the throng of little people
so well known in schools of law and political sci- summed up in the crowned head of the Leviathan,
ence, designates the ways to gather the legitimate there are objects everywhere.
people around some issue. In this case, a represen- To be crowded with objects that nonetheless Good and the Bad Government, and have traced to include in their definition of politics a whole
tation is said to be faithful if the right procedures are not really integrated into our definition of pol- their complex genealogy. But what is most strik- new ecology loaded with things. 6 Where has
have been followed. The second one, well known itics is even more tellingly visible in the famous ing for a contemporary eye is the massive presence political philosophy turned its distracted gaze
in science and in technology, presents or rather fresco painted by Lorenzetti in Sienas city hall. 5 of cities, landscapes, animals, merchants, dancers, while so many objects were drawn under its very
represents what is the object of concern to the eyes Many scholars have deciphered for us the com- and the ubiquitous rendering of light and space. nose?
and ears of those who have been assembled plex meaning of the emblems representing the The Bad Government is not simply illustrated by
around it. In this case, a representation is said to be the devilish figure of Discordia but also through A New Eloquence
2 Horst Bredekamp, Thomas Hobbes Visuelle Strategien . Der
good if the matters at hand have been accurately Leviathan: Urbild des modernen Staates. Werkillustrationen
the dark light, the destroyed city, the ravaged In this show, we simply want to pack loads of
portrayed. Realism implies that the same degree of und Portraits, Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 1999; Simon Schaf- landscape and the suffocating people. The Good stuff into the empty arenas where naked people
attention be given to the two aspects of what it is fer, this volume, chapter 3; about Nicrons machine: Government is not simply personified by the vari- were supposed to assemble simply to talk. Two vi-
Jean-Franois Nicron, La perspective curieuse Paris chez
to represent an issue. The first question draws a ous emblems of Virtue and Concordia but also gnettes will help us focus on those newly crowded
Pierre Billaine Chez Jean Du Puis rue Saint Jacques la
sort of place, sometimes a circle, which might be Couronne dOr avec lOptique et la Catoptrique du R P through the transparency of light, its well-kept sites.
called an assembly, a gathering, a meeting, a coun- Mersenne du mesme ordre Oeuvre trs utile aux Peintres, architecture, its well-tended landscape, its diver- The first one is a fable proposed by Peter Sloter-
cil; the second question brings into this newly cre- Architectes, Sculpteurs, Graveures et tous autres qui se sity of animals, the ease of its commercial rela- dijk.7 He imagined that the US Air Force should
meslent du Dessein, 1663.
ated locus a topic, a concern, an issue, a topos. But 3 Dario Gamboni, this volume, chapter 3.
tions, its thriving arts. Far from being simply a have added to its military paraphernalia a pneu-
the two have to be taken together: Who is to be 4 Steven Shapin, Simon Schaffer, Leviathan and the Air-Pump . dcor for the emblems, the fresco requests us to matic parliament that could be parachuted at the
concerned; What is to be considered? Hobbes, Boyle and the Experimental Life, Princeton Univer- become attentive to a subtle ecology of Good and rear of the front, just after the liberating forces of
When Thomas Hobbes instructed his engraver sity Press, Princeton, 1985. Bad Government. And modern visitors, attuned to the Good had defeated the forces of Evil. On hit-
5 Quentin Skinner, Ambrogio Lorenzetti: the Artist as Political
on how to sketch the famous frontispiece for Philosopher, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986; the new issues of bad air, hazy lights, destroyed ting the ground, this parliament would unfold and
L e v i a t h a n , he had his mind full of optical Anne-Marie Brenot, Sienne au X I V sicle dans les fresques de ecosystems, ruined architecture, abandoned be inflated just like your rescue dingy is supposed
metaphors and illusion machines he had seen in Lorenzetti: la Cit parfaite, LHarmattan, Paris, 1999; Gio- industry and delocalized trades are certainly ready to do when you fall in the water. Ready to enter
vanni Pavanello, Il Buono et il Cattivo Governo. Rappresen-
tazioni nelle Arti dal Medioevo al Novecento, exhib. cat., 6 Peter Sloterdijk, Sphren III Schume. Plurale Sphrologie,
Fondazione Cini, Marsilio, Venice, 2004, and his paper in Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 2004.
6 this volume, chapter 2. 7 7 Peter Sloterdijk, this volume, chapter 15.
labels that we might need to rescue from the dust-
bin of history.9 Mr. Powell tried to distinguish the

From Realpolitik
rhetoric of assertions from the undisputable power

to Dingpolitik
of facts. He failed miserably. Having no truth, he
had no eloquence either. Can we do better? Can
we trace again the frail conduits through which
truths and proofs are allowed to enter the sphere
of politics?
Unwittingly, the secretary of state put us on a
track where the abyss between assertions and facts
might be a nice rhetorical ploy, but it has lost
its relevance. It would imply, on the one hand,

Latour
that there would be matters-of-fact which some
enlightened people would have unmediated Althing in Thingvellir (fiingvellir), Iceland, photo: Sabine Him-
access to. On the other hand, disputable assertions m elsbach In 930 A.D. chieftains in Iceland gathered in a nat-
ural amphitheater and form ed the w orlds first parliam ent, the
would be practically worthless, useful only insofar
Althing. The m eeting place w as called Thingvellir (parliam ent
as they could feed the subjective passions of inter- plains), and over the next 300 years representatives jour-
ested crowds. On one side would be the truth and neyed here once a year to elect leaders, argue cases, and set-
no mediation, no room for discussion; on the tle disputes.

other side would be opinions, many obscure inter-


mediaries, perhaps some hecklings. Through the we would much prefer you to leave them aside
The U nited N ations Security Council m eets at the U N headquarters to hear evidence of Iraqs w eapons program presented by use of this indefatigable clich, the Pneumatic Par- and let us instead compare mere assertions with
US Secretary of State Colin Po w ell Wednesday, February 5, 2003, AP Photo / Richard Dre w liam ent is now equipped with a huge screen on one another. Dont worry, even with such an infe-
which thoroughly transparent facts are displayed. rior type of proof we might nonetheless come to a
Those who remain unconvinced prove by their conclusion, and this one will not be arbitrarily cut
resistance how irrational they are; they have short? 11 Either we should despair of politics and
and take your seat, your finger still red from the there. But the same cant be said of the second unfortunately fallen prey to subjective passions. abandon the hope of providing public proofs alto-
indelible ink that proves you have exercised your half, namely the representation of the facts of the And sure enough, having aligned so many indis- gether, or we should abandon the worn-out clich
voting duty, instant democracy would thus be matter presented by the Secretary of State. Every putable facts behind his position, since the dis- of incontrovertible matters of fact. Could we do
delivered! The lesson of this simile is easy to draw. one of the slides was a blatant lie and the more pute was s t i ll going on, Powell had to close it better and manage to really conclude a dispute
To imagine a parliament without its material set of that time has passed, the more blatant it has arbitrarily by a show of unilateral force. Facts and with disputable assertions? After all, when Aris-
complex instruments, air-conditioning pumps, become. And yet their showing was prefaced by forces, in spite of so many vibrant declarations, totle surely not a cultural relativist! introduced
local ecological requirements, material infrastruc- these words: My colleagues, every statement I always walk in tandem. the word rhetoric it was precisely to mean
ture, and long-held habits is as ludicrous as to try make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. The problem is that transparent, unmediated, proofs, incomplete to be sure but proofs nonethe-
to parachute such an inflatable parliament into the These are not assertions . What we are giving you undisputable facts have recently become rarer and less.12
middle of Iraq. By contrast, probing an object-ori- are f a c t s and conclusions based on solid intelli- rarer. To provide complete undisputable proof has This is what we wish to attempt: Where mat-
ented democracy is to research what are the mate- gence (my emphasis). Never has the difference become a rather messy, pesky, risky business. And ters-of-fact have failed, lets try what I have called
rial conditions that may render the air breatheable between facts and assertions been more abused to offer a p u b l i c proof, big enough and certain matters-of-concern. What we are trying to regis-
again. than on this day. enough to convince the whole world of the pres- ter here in this catalog is a huge sea change in our
The second vignette is the terrifying one To assemble is one thing; to represent to the ence of a phenomenon or of a looming danger, conceptions of science, our grasps of facts, our
offered by the now infamous talk former Secretary eyes and ears of those assembled what is at stake is seems now almost beyond reach and always understanding of objectivity. For too long, objects
of State Colin Powell gave to the United Nations another. An object-oriented democracy should be was. 10 The same American administration that have been wrongly portrayed as matters-of-fact.
on February 5, 2003, about the unambiguous and concerned as much by the procedure to detect the was content with a few blurry slides proving the This is unfair to them, unfair to science, unfair to
undisputable fact of the presence of weapons of relevant parties as to the methods to bring into the presence of non-existing weapons in Iraq is happy objectivity, unfair to experience. They are much
mass destructions in Iraq.8 No doubt, the first half center of the debate the proof of what it is to be to put scare quotes around the proof of much
of the representation namely the assembly of debated. This second set of procedures to bring in vaster, better validated, more imminent threats,
9 Barbara Cassin, Leffet sophistique, Gallimard, Paris, 1995,
legitimate speakers and listeners was well taken the object of worry has several old names: e l o - such as global climate change, diminishing oil and her contribution to this volume, chapter 14.
care of. All of those sitting around the UN Secu- quence, or more pejorative, rhetoric, or, even more reserves, increasing inequality. Is it not time to say: 10 Simon Schaffer, this volume, chapter 5.
rity Council horseshoe table had a right to be derogatory, sophistry. And yet these are just the Mr. Powell, given what you have done with facts, 11 See the complex set of assertions offered by Hans Blix,
Disarming Iraq, Pantheon Books, New York, 2004.
12 Enthymem is the name given to this type of incomplete
8 Full text is available at: proof: Aristotle, Treatise on Rhetorics, Prometheus Books,
8 http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/17300.htm 9 New York, 1995.
more interesting, variegated, uncertain, com-
plicated, far reaching, heterogeneous, risky, his-

From Realpolitik
torical, local, material and networky than the

to Dingpolitik
pathetic version offered for too long by philo-
sophers. Rocks are not simply there to be kicked
at, desks to be thumped at. Facts are facts are
facts? Yes, but they are also a lot of other things in
addition . 13
For those like Mr. Powell, who have long been
accustomed to getting rid of all opposition by
claiming the superior power of facts, such a sea
change might be met with cries of derision: rela-

Latour
tivism, subjectivism, irrationalism, mere
rhetoric, sophistry! They might see the new life
of facts as so much subtraction. Quite right! It sub-
tracts a lot of their power because it renders their
lives more difficult. Think of that: They might
have to enter into the new arenas for good and
finally make their point to the bitter end. They
might actually have to publicly prove their asser-
tions against other assertions and come to a closure
without thumping and kicking, without alternat-
ing wildly between indisputable facts and indis-
putable shows of terror. We wish to explore in
this catalog many realist gestures other than just
thumping and kicking. We want to imagine a new
eloquence. Is it asking too much of our public con-
versation? Its great to be convinced, but it would
be even better to be convinced b y s o m e e v i -
dence.14
Our notions of politics have been thwarted for
too long by an absurdly unrealistic epistemology.
Accurate facts are hard to come by, and the harder
they are, the more they entail some costly equip-
ment, a longer set of mediations, more delicate
proofs. Transparency and immediacy are bad for
science as well as for politics; they would make
both suffocate.15 What we need is to be able to
bring inside the assemblies d i v i s i v e issues with
their long retinue of complicated pr oo f - g i v i n g
H angar at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, M arch 7, 2003, photo N ASA/Getty Images N ASA crash investi-
gators place debris from the Space Shuttle Columbia onto a grid on t he floor of a hangar. N ASA is atte mpting to reasse mble 13 Hans-Jrg Rheinberger, Toward a History of Epistemic
debris from the shuttle to learn w hat caused Columbia to break-up during reentry. N ASA M ission Control lost contact with the Thing . Synthesizing Proteins in the Test Tube, Stanford Uni-
Space Shuttle Columbia during the reentry phase of mission STS-107 on February 1, 2003 and later learned that the shuttle had versity Press, Stanford, CA, 1997; Hans-Jrg Rheinberger,
broken up over Texas. D ebris from the wreckage drifted hundreds of miles from central Texas to Louisiana. All seven astronauts Henning Schmidgen, this volume, chapter 5.
onboard the shuttle died in the crash. 14 Its a striking feature of the 2004 American election to have
witnessed the drift of the meaning of the word convinced
from an objective to a subjective status: one now designates
by it the inner wholesomeness of an interior soul and no
longer the effect on ones mind of some indirect and risky
evidence: the convinced Bush won over the flip-flopper
to-be-convinced Kerry.
15 Hanna Rose Shell about Mareys instrumentarium, this vol-
ume, chapter 5. Peter Galison about the Wall of Science, this
10 11 volume, chapter 5.
Nordic and Saxon nations still activate the old should go back to. They no longer have the clarity,
root of this etymology: Norwegian congressmen transparency, obviousness of matters-of-fact; they

From Realpolitik
assemble in the Storting; Icelandic deputies called are not made of clearly delineated, discrete objects

to Dingpolitik
the equivalent of thingmen gather in the that would be bathing in some translucent space
Al t h i n g ; 17 Isle of Man seniors used to gather like the beautiful anatomical drawings of
around the Ting;18 the German landscape is dot- Leonardo, or the marvelous wash drawings of
ted with Th i ng s t tt e n and you can see in many Gaspard Monge, or the clear-cut isotypes
places the circles of stones where the Thing used devised by Otto Neurath. 22 Matters-of-fact now
to stand. 19 Thus, long before designating an appear to our eyes as depending on a delicate aes-
object thrown out of the political sphere and thetic of painting, drawing, lighting, gazing, con-
standing there objectively and independently, the vening, something that has been elaborated over
Ding or Thing has for many centuries meant the four centuries and that might be changing now

Latour
issue that brings people together because it divides before our very eyes. 23 There has been an aes-
them. The same etymology lies dormant in the thetic of matters-of-fact, of objects, of G e g e n -
Latin res, the Greek aitia and the French or Italian stnde. Can we devise an aesthetic of matters-of-
c a u s e . Even the Russian s o v i e t still dreams of concern, of Things? This is one of the (too many!)
bridges and churches.20 topics we wish to explore. 24
Of all the eroded meanings left by the slow G a t h e r i n g s is the translation that Heidegger
crawling of political geology, none is stranger to used, to talk about those Things, those sites able
consider than the Icelandic Al t h i n g , since the to assemble mortals and gods, humans and non-
ancient thingmen what we would call con- humans. There is more than a little irony in
gressmen or MPs had the amazing idea of extending this meaning to what Heidegger and his
meeting in a desolate and sublime site that hap- followers loved to hate, namely science, technol-
pens to sit smack in the middle of the fault line that ogy, commerce, industry and popular culture. 25
marks the meeting place of the Atlantic and Euro- And yet this is just what we intend to do in this
pean tectonic plates. Not only do Icelanders man- book: the objects of science and technology, the
age to remind us of the old sense of Ding, but they aisles of supermarkets, financial institutions, med-
also dramatize to the utmost how much these ical establishments, computer networks even the
political questions have also become questions of catwalks of fashion shows! 26 offer paramount
N ASA Crash Investigator, Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, M arch 11, 2003, photo: AP nature. Are not all parliaments now divided by the examples of hybrid forums and agoras, of the
Photo/N ASA, Kim Shiflett A m e mber of the space shuttle reconstruction project team holds a piece of nature of things as well as by the din of the gatherings that have been eating away at the older
wreckage and tries to locate it on pictures of Columbia taken w hile the orbiter w as in the vehicle asse mbly
building. crowded Ding? Has the time not come to bring realm of pure objects bathing in the clear light of
the res back to the res publica? 21 This is why we
have tried to build the provisional and fragile 17 Gsli Plsson, this volume, chapter 4.
equipment. No unmediated access to agreement; latter lacks realism when it talks about power rela- assembly of our show on as many fault lines from 18 Elizabeth Edwards and Peter James on Benjamin Stones
photographs, this volume, chapter 2.
no unmediated access to the facts of the matter. tions as well as when it talks about mere facts. It as many tectonic plates as possible. 19 Barbara Dlemeyer, this volume, chapter 4.
After all, we are used to rather arcane procedures does not know how to deal with indisputability. The point of reviving this old etymology is that 20 Oleg Kharkhordin, this volume, chapter 4.
for voting and electing. Why should we suddenly To discover ones own real naked interest requires we dont assemble because we agree, look alike, 21 When [the res] appears in this function, it is not as a seat
imagine an eloquence so devoid of means, tools, probably the most convoluted and farfetched feel good, are socially compatible or wish to fuse where the unilateral mastery of a subject is exercised [] If
the res is an object, it has this function above all in a debate
tropes, tricks and knacks that it would bring the inquiry there is. To be brutal is not enough to turn together but because we are brought by divisive or an argument, a common object that opposes and unites
facts into the arenas through some uniquely magi- you into a hard-headed realist. matters of concern into some neutral, isolated two protagonists within a single relation. And, further on:
cal transparent idiom? If politics is earthly, so is As every reader of Heidegger knows, or as place in order to come to some sort of provisional Its objectivity is ensured by the common agreement whose
place of origin is controversy and judicial debate. Yan
science. every glance at an English dictionary under the makeshift (dis)agreement. If the Ding designates
Thomas, Res, chose et patrimoine (note sur le rapport
heading Thing will certify, the old word both those who assemble because they are con- sujet-objet en droit romain), in: Archives de philosophie du
From Objects to Things Thing or Ding designated originally a certain cerned as well as what causes their concerns and droit, 25, 1980, pp. 413-426, here pp. 417f.
Its to underline this shift from a cheapened notion type of archaic assembly.16 Many parliaments in divisions, it should become the center of our 22 Frank Hartmann, this volume, chapter 12.
23 Lorraine Daston, Peter Galison, The Image of Objectivity,
of objectivity to costly proofs that we want to attention: B a c k t o Th i n g s ! Is this not a more in: Representation, 40, 1992, pp. 81-128; Lorraine Daston,
resurrect the word Ding and use the neologism 16 See the Oxford Dictionary: ORIGIN: Old English, of engaging political slogan? this volume, chapter 12. Jessica Riskin, this volume,
D i n g p o l i t i k as a substitute for R e a l p o l i t i k . The Germanic origin: related to German Ding. Early senses But how strange is the shape of the things we chapter 12.
included meeting and matter, concern as well as inani- 24 Peter Weibel, this volume, conclusion.
mate objects. Martin Heidegger, What is a thing?, trans. 25 Richard Rorty, this volume, chapter 4. Graham Harman,
W. B. Barton, Jr., Vera Deutsch, Regnery, Chicago, 1968; this volume, chapter 4.
12 Graham Harman, this volume, chapter 4. 13 26 Pauline Terreehorst, Gerard de Vries, this volume, chapter 11.
designed commission are trying to discover what
happened to the shuttle. They are now provided
with an exploded view of a highly complex
technical object. But what has exploded is our
capacity to understand what objects are when
they have become Ding . How sad that we need
catastrophes to remind us that when Columbia
was shown on its launching pad in its complete,
autonomous, objective form that such a view was
even more of a lie than Mr. Powells presentation
of the facts of WMD. Its only after the explosion
that everyone realized the shuttles complex tech-
nology should have been drawn with the NASA
bureaucracy inside of it in which they, too, would
have to fly. 30
The object, the Gegenstand, may remain out-
side of all assemblies but not the Ding. Hence the
question we wish to raise: What are the various
shapes of the assemblies that can make sense of all
those assem blages? Questions we address are to
the three types of representation brought together
Saint George, San Giorgio M aggiore, Venice, photo: Fonda-
zione Cini
in this show: political, scientific and artistic.
Through some amazing quirk of etymology, it
Right page: M oyens expditifs du peuple franais pour d- just happens that the same root has given birth to
m eubler un aristocrate [The French peoples quick m easure those twin brothers: the Demon and the Demos
of re moving an aristocracy], Rvolutions de France et de
Brabant , engraving, illustration 52, the H ougton Library, and those two are more at war with each other
H arvard U niversity W hile sacking a nobles house, the mob than Eteocles and Polynices ever were.31 The
is taking a careful look at w hat they thro w out of the windo ws, word demos that makes half of the much
creating, involuntarily, a Thing around w hich they asse mble.
vaunted word demo-cracy is haunted by the
demon, yes, the devil, because they share the same
the modernist gaze. Who could dream of a better Indo-European root da- to divide.32 If the demon
example of hybrid forums than the scale models is such a terrible threat, its because it divides in
used by architects all over the world to assemble two. If the demos is such a welcome solution,
those able to build them at scale 1? 27 Or the thin its because it also divides in two. A paradox? No,
felt pen used by draughtsmen to imagine new its because we ourselves are so divided by so
landscapes? 28 When we say Public matters! or many contradictory attachments that we have to
Back to Things! we are not trying to go back to assemble.
the old materialism of Realpolitik, because matter We might be familiar with Jesus admonition
itself is up for grabs as well. To be materialist now against Satans power, 33 but the same power of
implies that one enters a labyrinth more intricate division is also what provides the division/divide,
than that built by Daedalus. namely the sharing of the same territory. Hence
In the same fatal month of February 2003,
27 Albena Yaneva, this volume, chapter 9.
another stunning example of this shift from object
28 Emilie Gomart, this volume, chapter 12.
to things was demonstrated by the explosion of 29 Wolfang Lefvre, Picturing Machines 1400-1700, The MIT
the shuttle Columbia. Assembly drawing is how Press, Cambridge, MA, 2004.
engineers call the invention of the blueprint.29 But 30 Wiebe E. Bijker, this volume, chapter 9.
31 Marcel Detienne (ed.), Qui veut prendre la parole?, Le Seuil,
the word assembly sounds odd once the shuttle Paris, 2003.
has exploded and its debris has been gathered in 32 Pierre Lvque, Repartition et dmocratie propos de la
a huge hall where inquirers from a specially racine da-, in: Esprit, 12, 1993, pp. 34-39.
33 Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no
city or house divided against itself will stand; and if Satan
casts out Satan, he is divided against himself; how then will
14 his kingdom stand? (Matthew 12: 25-26).
the people, the demos, are made up of those who But it might also be the case that half of such a
share the same space and are divided by the same crisis is due to what has been sold to the general

From Realpolitik
contradictory worries. How could an object-ori- public under the name of a faithful, transparent

to Dingpolitik
ented democracy ignore such a vertiginous uncer- and accurate representation.35 We are asking from
tainty? When the knife hovers around the cake of representation something it cannot possibly give,
common wealth to be divided in shares, it may namely representation wi thout any re -presenta-
divide and let loose the demon of civil strife, or it tion, without any provisional assertions, without
may cut equal shares and let the demos be happily any imperfect proof, without any opaque layers of
apportioned. Strangely enough, we are divided translations, transmissions, betrayals, without any
and yet might have to divide, that is to share, even complicated machinery of assembly, delegation,
more. The demos is haunted by the demon of proof, argumentation, negotiation and con-
division! No wonder that this show offers, I am clusion.

Latour
afraid, such a pandemonium. Politics is a branch of In 2002 in the course of another exhibition
teratology: from Leviathan to devils, from Discor- called Iconoclash, many of the same authors tried
dia to Behemoth, and soon a whole array of to explore the roots of a specific form of Western
ghosts and phantoms. Tricks and treats all the way fanaticism. If only there was no image that is, no
down. mediation the better our grasp of Beauty, Truth
and Piety would be. We visited the famous icono-
No Representation without Re-presen- clastic periods from the Byzantine to the Reforma-
tations tion, from Lenins Red Square to Malevichs Black
Michael Frayns play Democracy begins with the S q uar e to which we added the less well-known
grating noise of a worm, a little annelid that at the struggles among iconoclasts in mathematics,
onset is supposed to make the whole decadent physics and the other sciences.36 We wanted to
West crumble like a wooden house eaten up by compare with one another the various interfer-
termites while the sturdy and united DDR emerges ence patterns created by all those forms of contra-
from chaos. 34 The same noisy worm is heard dictory attitudes toward images. Scientists, artists
again at the end of the play, but this time its the and clerks have been multiplying imageries, inter-
whole Soviet Bloc that, unexpectedly, lies in dust mediaries, mediations, representations while tear-
while democracy the worst form of govern- ing them down and resurrecting them with even
ment, e x c e p t for all the others, as Churchill more forceful, beautiful, inspired, objective forms.
famously said keeps on munching and worming We reckoned that it was not absurd to explore the
along. whole Western tradition by following up such a
A demon haunts politics but it might not be so ubiquitous double bind. Hence the neologism
much the demon of division this is what is so Iconoclash to point at this ambivalence, this other
devilish about it but the demon of unity, totality, demonic division: Alas, we cannot do anything
transparency and immediacy. Down with inter- without image! Fortunately, we cannot do any-
mediaries! Enough spin! We are lied to! We have thing without image! 37
been betrayed. Those cries resonate everywhere, Iconoclash was not an iconoclastic show but a
and everyone seems to sigh: Why are we being so show about iconoclasm; not a critical show but a
badly represented? Columnists, educators, mili- show about critique. The urge to debunk was no
tants never tire of complaining of a crisis of repre- longer a resource to feed from, we hoped, but a
sentation. They claim that the masses seem no topic to be carefully examined. Like the slave who
longer to feel at ease with what its elites are telling was asked to remind emperors during their tri-
them. Politicians, they say, have become aloof, umphs that they were mere mortals, we had asked
unreal, surrealistic, virtual and alien. An abysmal
gap has opened between the political sphere and
34 Michael Frayn, Democracy, Methuen Drama, London, 2003.
the reality that people have to put up with. If this 35 Noortje Marres, this volume, chapter 3.
gap is yawning under our feet much like the Ice- 36 Bruno Latour, Peter Weibel (eds), Iconoclash . Beyond the The M ercator Atlas, 1609, 2nd edition republication by Jodocus H ondius, frontispiece, engraving by Gerard M ercator hand-
landic fault line, surely no Dingpolitik can ignore it. Image Wars in Science, Religion, and Art, The MIT Press, colored, 45 x 75 cm, private collection, photo Bruno Latour
Cambridge, MA, 2002.
37 The illustration on page 25 has been kindly provided by
Erica Naginski, The Object of Contempt, in: Yale French
16 Studies, No. 101, Fragments of Revolution, 2001, pp. 32-53.
17
an angel to come down and suspend in mid-air the politicians; no sphere more inviting for irony,
arm that held the hammer, an angel that could satire, debunking, derision than the political

From Realpolitik
mutter in the ear of the triumphant idol-breakers: sphere; no idols more inviting for destruction than

to Dingpolitik
Beware! Consider what you strike at with so the Idols of the Forum; no discourse easier to
much glee. Look first at what you might risk deconstruct. On political rhetoric, critique has a
destroying instead ! Once the destructive gesture field day. By kindergarten, toddlers have already
was suspended, we discovered that no iconoclast grown cynical on all political matters. In a show
had ever struck at the right target. Their blows that was a b o u t critique, adding politics would
always drifted sideways. For this reason, even St. have skewed the whole project, and visitors would
George, we thought, looked more interesting have left even more iconoclasts than when they
without his spear. 38 had entered.
Our aim was to move the collective attention, But once we have moved b e y o nd the image

Latour
as the subtitle of the show, b e y o nd the image wars, once we have regained a good grasp of the
wars in science, religion, and art, clearly indi- masses of intermediaries necessary to represent
Etienne-Louis Boulle, Palais N ational, plenary hall in section, c. 1792, w ater-colored pen dra wing, 54 x 138 cm, Bibliothque cated. This beyond was drawn, very simply, by anything, once we have moved back to things,
N ationale de France, Paris, Cabinet des estampes, H a. 56, pl. 12, B N F taking into consideration the other half of what could we extend the same attention for mediators
they were all doing: Those we were following to the most despised activity, namely political
were never simply tearing down idols, burning spin? Is it possible now to tackle the question of
fetishes, debunking ideologies, exposing scandals, political representation with care and respect?
breaking down old forms but al s o were putting Even more extravagant: Is it possible to tackle it
ideas onto pedestals, invoking deities, proving uncritically? Just try to imagine a show about poli-
facts, establishing theories, building institutions, tics that would not be about debunking, exposing,
creating new forms and also destroying unexpect- revealing or smashing the idols down. Do you
edly and unwittingly other things they had not really want to take politics positively? Indeed.
known that they cherished so much. By bringing
destruction, blunder, plunder and construction Disabled Persons of All Countries,
together we hoped to foster a new respect for Unite!
mediators. What makes it so difficult to stare straight at the
Obviously, there is something in the way flows Gorgonian face of politics is that we seem to
of images create access to Beauty, Truth and Piety delight in adding to it some even more distorting
that has been missed by idol-breakers over the traits. Not happy with Frankenstein, we want to
ages. To summarize our attempt in one simile, I hybridize it with Quasimodo. Monstrous it is, yet
proposed to say that Moses, in addition to being this is not a reason to transform it into a painting
tongue-twisted, might have also been a little hard by Hieronymus Bosch. Or rather, Bosch is paint-
of hearing and thats why he had understood ing our own internal Hell, which might not bear
Thou shall not make unto thee any graven that much of a relation with the specific monsters
image when he had been told: Thou shall not of politics.40 What frightens us so much in collec-
freeze frame. If you stick to them, images are dan- tive action, the reason why we delight so much in
gerous, blasphemous, idolatrous, but they are safe, despising it, is that we might see reflected in its
innocent, indispensable if you learn how to jump distorted mirror our own grimacing faces. Are we
from one image to the next. Truth is image, but not asking from the assembly something it cannot
M e mbers of the International M edical Congress, London, 1881, photoprint, February, 25, 1882, 47.6 x 72 cm, Wellcom e Library, there is no image of Truth. 39 This solution might possibly deliver, so that talking positively of poli-
London, photo Wellcom e Library, London offer, we thought, a possible cure against funda- tics horrifies us because its our limitations that we
mentalism, that is, the belief that without any rep- are not prepared to accept? If its true that repre-
resentation you would be represented even better. sentations are so indispensable and yet so opaque,
Iconoclash , however, carefully excluded poli- how well prepared are we to handle them? When
tics. This was done on purpose. There is no activ-
ity where it is more difficult to pay due respect to 38 Jerry Brotton, Saints Alive. The Iconography of Saint
mediators; no calling more despised than that of George, in: Latour, Weibel (eds), op. cit., p. 155.
39 Marie Jos Mondzain, The Holy Shroud. How Invisible
Hands Weave the Undecidable, ibid., pp. 324-335.
40 Joseph Leo Koerner, Impossible Objects: Bosch Realism,
18 19 in: Res, 46, 2004, pp. 73-98.
hearing the call for assembling at the Thing, are we pose the body, the procedures were modified, erated past.48 But you might need more than imi- From an Assembly of Assemblies ...
able to accept that we are radically and basically they arrayed much vaster masses, but it was still tation to build the new political assemblies. Cover- An exhibition cannot do much, but it can explore

From Realpolitik
unfit to take a seat in it? Do we have the cognitive under a dome that they marched and chanted. ing the Reichstag with a transparent dome in new possibilities with a much greater degree of

to Dingpolitik
equipment required for this? Are we not, on the From Boulle to Speer, from Pierre-Charles effect, fully opaque as Foster did, doesnt seem freedom because it is so good at thought-experi-
whole, totally disabled? L Enfant to the new Scottish Parliament, from nearly enough to absorb the new masses that are ments, or rather G e d a n k e n a u s t e ll un g . One of
Instead of the radiant citizen standing up and John Soane to Norman Foster, it seemed possible entering political arenas. If its true that a parlia- those attempts is to design not one assembly but
speaking his mind by using his solid common for architects to provide a literal rendition of what ment is a complex machinery of speech, of hear- rather an assembly of assemblies, so that, much
sense, as in Rockwells famous painting Freedom it means to assemble in order to produce the com- ing, of voting, of dealing, what should be the like at a fair, visitors or readers can compare the
of Speech, should we not look for an eloquence mon will.46 Individuals might be corrupted, feeble shapes adjusted to a Dingpolitik? What would a different types of representation. This is what we
much more indirect, distorted, inconclusive? In or deficient, but above their weak heads there was political space be that would not be neo? What have attempted here.
this show, we want to tackle the question of poli- a heaven, a sphere, a globe under which they all would a truly contemporary style of assembly Scientific laboratories, technical institutions,
tics from the point of view of our own weaknesses sat. Just before the French Revolution, Emmanuel- look like? marketplaces, churches and temples, financial

Latour
instead of projecting them first onto the politicians Joseph Sieys imagined a parliament so big and Its impossible to answer this question without trading rooms, Internet forums, ecological dis-
themselves. We could say that the blind lead the so virtual that it extended to the whole of gathering techniques of representation in different putes without forgetting the very shape of the
blind, the deaf speak eloquently to the deaf, the France, tiers after tiers, all the way to the farthest types of assemblies. The effect we wish to obtain is museum inside which we gather all those membra
crippled are leading marches of dwarfs, or, rather, provinces.47 to show that parliaments are only a few of the disjecta are just some of the forums and agoras in
to avoid those biased words, lets say that we are Unfortunately, much like the Tower of Babel, machineries of representations among many oth- which we speak, vote, decide, are decided upon,
all politically-challenged. How would it look if we those palaces of reason to use the name of ers and not necessarily the most relevant or the prove, are being convinced. Each has its own
were chanting this more radical and surely more many city halls in northern Italy are no longer best equipped. architecture, its own technology of speech, its
realistic slogan: Disabled persons of all countries, able to house the issues they were supposed to Its likely that fundamentalists will not like our complex set of procedures, its definition of free-
unite!? 41 After all, was not Demosthenes, as gather. Commentators on the events of May show: They think they are safer without represen- dom and domination, its ways of bringing
much as Moses and many other legislators, 1968 in France were amused to see that the turbu- tation. They really believe that outside of any together those who are concerned and even
speech-impaired? 42 Are we not all, when our time lent demonstrating crowds passed by the National assembly, freed from all those cumbersome, tortu- more important, those who are not concerned
comes to speak up? Assembly without even looking at it, as if its irrele- ous and opaque techniques, they will see better, and what concerns them, its expedient way to
The cognitive deficiency of participants has vance was so great that it could not even invite farther, faster and act more decisively. Inspired obtain closure and come to a decision. Why not
been hidden for a long time because of the mental abuses. How irrelevant they might seem now that directly by the Good, often by their God, they render them comparable to one another?
architecture of the dome in which the Body Politik the global has become the new name of the Body despise the indirectness of representations. But After all, they have never stopped exchanging
was supposed to assemble. We were told that all of Politik. Wh e r e would you assemble the global? realists might appreciate it because if we are all their properties: churches became temples before
us on entering this dome, this public sphere Certainly not under golden domes and kitsch fres- politically-challenged, if there is no direct access becoming city halls; 49 heads of state learned from
had to leave aside in the cloakroom our own coes where heroic senators and half-naked to the general will, if no transparent dome gives artists how to create through publicity a public
attachments, passions and weaknesses. Taking Republics are crowned by laurels descending from any global visibility, if, at best, the blind lead the space; 50 it is deep inside monasteries that the
our seat under the transparent crystal of the clouds. Why are politics always about imitation? blind, then any small, even infinitesimal innovation complex voting procedures have been prepared
common good, through the action of some mys- There is Robespierre imitating Cicero, Lenin mim- in the practical ways of representing an issue will and constitutions been written; 51 while labo-
terious machinery, we would then be collectively icking Robespierre. In the name of the common make a small that is, huge difference. Not for ratories are migrating to forums, the tasting of
endowed with more acute vision and higher good, forests of Greek columns have been erected the fundamentalist but for the realists. products borrows heavily from the laboratory; 52
virtue. At least that was the idea, no matter if across the Western world while the mother of Ask the blind what difference it makes to have a supermarkets are taking more and more features
the machinery was the social contract or some parliaments in Westminster remained faithful to white cane or not. Ask the deaf what difference it that make them look like contested voting
other metamorphosis: The selfish narrow-minded the dark, cramped, uncomfortable cave of stalls, makes to be instrumented with a hearing-aid or booths;53 but even the most abstruse models of
worm will re-emerge as a brightly colored collec- spires and gargoyles. Neo-gothic, neo-classic, not. Ask the crippled, the advantage they see in physics have to borrow heavily from social theo-
tive butterfly.43 neo-modern or neo-postmodern, those spaces having a slightly better-adjusted wheelchair. If we ries. 54 On the other hand, financial institutions
During the Enlightenment, architects took this were all neo, that is, trying to imitate some ven- are all handicapped, or rather politically-chal- seem to gather more information technologies
virtual reality so literally that they actually drew lenged, we need many different prostheses. Each
41 Michel Callon, this volume, chapter 5.
and sometimes built those domes, globes and 42 How then should Pharaoh heed me, a man of impeded
object exhibited in the show and commented on in 48 Christine Riding, Jacqueline Riding, The Houses of Parlia-
palaces.44 Later, during the time of revolutions, speech. (Exodus 6: 12) According to Marc Shell (personal the catalog is such a crutch. We promise nothing ment . History, Art, Architecture, Merrell, London, 2000;
other builders gave a shape to this public sphere communication) all great statesmen had some speech more grandiose than a store of aids for the invalids James A. Leith, Space and Revolution: Projects for Monu-
that was no longer limited to deputies and con- defect. who have been repatriated from the political front- ments, Squares, and Public Buildings in France, 1789-1799,
43 Chantal Mouffe, this volume, chapter 13. McGill-Queens University Press, Montreal, 1991.
gressmen but included the whole people or the 44 Jean-Philippe Heurtin, Lespace public parlementaire. Essais lines and havent we all been badly mauled in 49 Joseph Leo Koerner, this volume, chapter 7.
proletariat or the Volk.45 They distributed speech sur les raisons du lgislateur, PUF, Paris, 1999, and this vol- recent years? Politics might be better taken as a 50 Lisa Pon, this volume, chapter 12.
differently, they imagined another way to com- ume, chapter 13. Ludger Schwarte, this volume, chapter 13. branch of disability studies. 51 Christophe Boureux, this volume, chapter 7.
45 Ana Miljacki, this volume, chapter 3. 52 A. Hennion, G. Teil, F. Vergnaud, this volume, chapter 11.
46 Deyan Sudjic, Architecture and Democracy, Lawrence King 53 Franck Cochoy, Catherine Grandclment Chaffy, this
Publishing, Glasgow, 2001. volume, chapter 11.
20 47 See excerpt, this volume, chapter 13. 21 54 Pablo Jensen, this volume, chapter 5.
Katherine Blouin and Vincent D e m ers, Arbre
palabre (Palaver Tree), Kab, M ali, 1998,
Katherine Blouin and Vincent D e m ers
than parliaments. 55 The quietest sites of nature detecting dark forces hidden beneath all the other ments were not the sort of issues that divide peo- by the link between their cosmic and social
have become some of the most contested and dis- assemblages, we wish on the contrary to locate ple in the normal state of things but were bearing orders.70 And even among those, the idea of poli-

From Realpolitik
puted battlegrounds. 56 As for the World Wide the tiny procedures of parliamentary assent and instead on the very way to assemble at all? What if tics as speaking ones mind in the middle of an

to Dingpolitik
Web, it begins by being a mess and slowly imports dissent, in order to see on what practical terms we had to imagine not an assembly of assemblies, assembly seems to be a rather provincial notion.
all sorts of virtual architectures, but only very few and through which added labor they could, one not even an assembly of ways of assembling but an According to Franois Jullien, the Chinese tradi-
reproduce the even more virtual space of the orig- day, become pertinent. In this show, we hope visi- assembly of ways of dissembling? Would not that tion seems to ignore it entirely. 71 The Chinese, at
inal parliaments; 57 artistic installations borrow tors will shop for the materials that might be be a call for disassembling instead? least in their ancient learned tradition, dont want
more and more from scientific demonstrations; 58 needed later for them to build this new Noahs And yet this is just what happens when you simply to add their differences to other differ-
technical know-how absorbs more and more ele- Ark: the Parliament of Things. Dont you hear the begin to listen to other voices. Not because they ences. They are more than happy to take their
ments from law. 59 There is no river that flows any- rain pouring relentlessly already? And Noah for are exotic, far fetched, archaic, irrational, but seats in the global amphitheater of multicultural-
more from mountain to sea without being as sure was a realist. because they too claim that making things public ism similarly seated but with a tiny difference of
equipped in speech-making instruments as might be a much more protracted affair than angle to witness the same spectacle but wish to

Latour
humans are through opinion polls. 60 Such is the ... to an Assembly of Dissembling entering into the realm of politics even widely remain indifferent to our own, meaning Western,
constant commerce, the ceaseless swapping, the There might just be another reason than the weak enlarged. Under the thin veneer of democracy for ways of being all-encompassing. Differences we
endless crisscrossing of apparatuses, procedures, imagination of architects for not having a well- all will soon appear another crisis of representa- could absorb we thought we could absorb under
instruments and customs that we have attempted designed dome under which to assemble: Getting tion, one much wider and deeper, because it will the decaying but still solid dome of the Holy
to weave through this show and this catalog. together might not be such a universal desire after strike at the heart of what it is to represent at all. Roman Empire but indifferences?
To collect such an assembly of assemblies, we all! No matter how wide you stretch it, the politi- Listen to the Japanese tradition: The very word To the possible dismay of political scientists,
have not tried to build around them an even big- cal horizon might be too small to encompass the representation strikes their ears as quaint and the very idea of a political assembly does not
ger, a more all-encompassing dome. We have not whole Earth. Not only because parliaments are superficial. 63 Listen to the Jivaros: Their highly gather much interest. This is where things become
tried to imagine that they would all be reducible to too tiny, not only because a parliament of parlia- complex rhetoric of agonistic encounters aim at really complicated and thus interesting: How to
the European tradition of parliaments. On the ments would require the use of many different not meeting in the same assembly.64 Listen to the devise an assembly of ways of dissembling instead
contrary, we have offered to show how much they machineries now dispersed among different gath- Jihadists calling for the extension of the Oumma. of sending a convocation to gather under the com-
differ from one another by linking them through erings, but because the very idea of a political The word demokrata remains an imported mon dome of One Politics Size Fits All? Can we
the humble and mundane back door of their repre- assembly might not be shareable in the end. The vocabulary that resonates more like a term of enlarge our definition of politics to the point
sentation machineries. We would like visitors and urge for political representation might be so much abuse than any deeply cherished value. 65 There where it accepts its own suspension? But who can
readers to move from one to the other by asking of a Western obsession that other people might are many other ways to assemble than under the really be that open-minded? 72
every time the three following questions: How do object to being thus mobilized or called for. And aegis of a political intent.66 And when highlanders And yet, do we have another course of action?
they manage to bring in the relevant parties? How this objection too has to be registered in our show. of Papua New Guinea assemble to vote using a It would be too easy simply to recognize the many
do they manage to bring in the relevant issues? If you read the UNESCO literature, it seems complex procedure imported by helicopter from contradictions as if we could be content with the
What change does it make in the way people make that the whole world aspires to become one under Australian-trained scrutinizers, can we measure absence or the demise of all political assemblies, as
up their mind to be attached to things? the aegis of democracy, transparent representa- how much they have transformed it? 67 Even in if we could abandon for good the task of composi-
We hope that once this assembly of assemblies tion and the rule of law. But what if every time this our own lands obsessed by the transparent repub- tion. There must be some alternative to cheap uni-
is deployed, that which passes for the political inflatable parliament was being dropped in, many lic, much effort is put into doing just the opposite, versalism (but surely every human is a political
sphere namely the parliaments and the offices of other voices were raised: No politics, please! that is, into making things secret.68 What if one of animal) and to cheap relativism (let everyone
the executive branches will appear as one type No representation! Not with you, No the causes of fundamentalism were that all those gather under their own flag, and if they have no
a m o n g many others, perhaps even a rather ill- democracy, thanks, Would you please stay as far other ways of gathering find themselves, in the flag then let them hang themselves!).
equipped type. This approach to presenting the away as possible? Leave us alone, Id rather end, badly represented? As if the usual garment of
representation technology of parliamentary life not, I prefer my king.62 What if the disagree- politics were too narrow for them? As if they never
63 Masato Fukushima, this volume, chapter 1.
will not seek to ridicule its antiquated ways or to had room to assemble with the other things they 64 Philippe Descola, this volume, chapter 1.
criticize the European way of imagining public 55 Daniel Beunza, Fabian Muniesa, this volume, chapter 11; are attached to, such as their gods, their divinities, 65 Gilles Kepel, Fitna . Guerre au coeur de lIslam, Gallimard,
space. On the contrary, in the object-oriented Alex Preda, this volume, chapter 11. their scruples of conscience. Its as if the whole Paris, 2004.
56 Vinciane Despret, this volume, chapter 6; Isabelle Mauz, 66 Anita Herle, this volume, chapter 2; Amiria Henare,
conception, parliament is a technical term for Julien Gravelle, this volume, chapter 6.
definition of politics inherited from the conflicts this volume, chapter 1.
making things public among many other forms 57 Richard Rogers, Noortje Marres, this volume, chapter 14. between church and state had to be discussed 67 Pierre Lemonnier, Pascale Bonnemre, this volume,
of producing voices and connections among peo- 58 XPERIMENT!, this volume, chapter 14. again.69 chapter 1.
ple. By this comparative visit, we seek to learn 59 Susan S. Silbey, Ayn Cavicchi, this volume, chapter 10. To see politics as a problem of collecting, 68 Peter Galison, this volume, chapter 10.
60 Christelle Gramaglia, this volume, chapter 8; Cordula 69 Olivier Christin, this volume, chapter 7.
how parliaments with a small p could be Kropp, this volume, chapter 8; Jean-Pierre Le Bourhis, where if you dont manage it properly you disap- 70 Philippe Descola, Par del la nature et la culture, Gallimard,
enlarged or connected or modified or redrawn.61 this volume, chapter 8; Matthias Gommel, this volume, pear into chaos, seems to be the problem of only a Paris, 2005.
Instead of saying that everything is political by chapter 8. fraction of humanity, for instance, those obsessed 71 Franois Jullien, The Propensity of Things . Toward a History
61 Delphine Gardey, this volume, chapter 13; Michael Lynch, of Efficacy in China, Zone Books, Cambridge, MA, 1995.
Stephen, Hilgartner, Carin Berkowitz, this volume, 72 Compare Isabelle Stengers definition of politics (this vol-
chapter 13. ume, chapter 15) with Ulrich Beck, Der kosmopolitische
24 62 Isabelle Stengers, this volume, chapter 15. 25 Blick, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt, 2004.
That we have to find a way out is forced upon when its made of a fleet of diverging but already
us by what is called globalization: even though intertwined barges? In other words, can we over-

From Realpolitik
the Jivaros, the Chinese, the Japanese, the faithful come the multiplicity of ways of assembling and

to Dingpolitik
members of the Oumma, the born-again Chris- dissembling and yet raise the question of the one
tians dont want to enter under the same dome, common world? Can we make an assembly out of
they are still, willingly or unwillingly, connected all the various assemblages in which we are already
by the very expansion of those makeshift assem- enmeshed?
blies we call markets, technologies, science, eco-
logical crises, wars and terrorist networks. In other The Phantom Public
words, the many differing assemblages we have The cry is well known: The Great Pan is dead!
gathered under the roof of ZKM are already con- Nature, this huge and silent parliament where all
necting people no matter how much they dont the creatures would be arrayed tier after tier from

Latour
feel assembled by any common politics. The shape the biggest to the smallest, this magnificent
of the dome might be contested, because it does amphitheater offering to the clumsy politicians a
not allow enough room for differences and indif- perfect and successful original of what is rational
ferences, but that there is something at work that and what is irrational, this great parliament of
is called global is not in question. Its simply that nature has crumbled down much as did the Tower
our usual definitions of politics have not caught up of Babel.74 Political philosophy has always tried to
yet with the masses of linkages already estab- prop up its frail intuitions onto the solid and pow-
lished. erful pattern of some other science: It seems that
In this catalog we want to probe further into everything from the metaphor of the organism to
this historical paradox. In earlier times, say during that of the brain has been tried. It has been a con-
the Enlightenment, there existed a metaphysical tinuous undertaking: How to replace the danger-
globe, to use Sloterdijks expression, 73 even ous trade of politics by the serious and safe knowl-
though globalization was barely beginning. But edge of some better established science? And it
now that we are indeed globalized, there is no has continuously failed.
globe anymore! To take an example, when the car- A crisscrossing of metaphors from Meneniuss
tographer Mercator transformed Atlas from a dis- Fable of the Members and the Stomach 75 to
torted giant supporting the Earth on his shoulder contemporary socio-biology and cybernetics 76
into a quiet and seated scientist holding the planet has tried to fasten the poor assemblies of humans
in his hand, this was probably the time when glob- to the solid reality of nature. All the organs of the
alization was at its zenith. And yet the world in body have been tried out to probe the making up
1608 was barely known, and people remained far of the monstrous Body Politik.77 All the animals
apart. Still, every new land, every new civilization, have been invoked in turn ants, bees, sheep,
every new difference could be located, situated, wolves, bugs, worms, pigs, chimps, baboons to
housed without much surprise in the transparent establish a firmer ground for the whimsical assem-
house of Nature. But now that the world is blies of humans. And yet to no avail, since there
known, people are brought together by violent are many ways to be a body, since sheep dont
deeds, even if they wish to differ and not be con- flock, 78 wolves are not as cruel as humans,
nected. There is no global anymore to assemble baboons have an intense social life,79 brains have
them. The best proof is that there are people set- no central direction. It seems that nature is no
ting up demonstrations against globalization. The
The rats council, fables from La Fontaine, illustrations by Gustave Dor, 1868, Bibliotheque N ationale de France, photo B N F, global is up for grabs. Globalization is simultane- 73 Peter Sloterdijk, Sphren II Globen, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt,
D parte m ent des estampes et photo ously at its maximum and the globe at its nadir. 1999.
There are lots of blogs but no globe. 74 John Tresch, this volume, chapter 6.
And yet, we are all in the same boat, or at least 75 William Shakespeare, excerpt this volume, chapter 3.
76 Eden Medina, this volume, chapter 12.
the same flotilla. To use Neuraths metaphor, the 77 Francisco Varela et al., The Brainweb: Phase Synchroni-
question is how to rebuild it while we are cruising sation and Large-Scale Integration, in: Nature Reviews
on it. Or rather, how can we make it navigate Neuroscience, 2, 2001, pp. 229-239; Michael Hagner, this
volume, chapter 2.
78 Vinciane Despret, this volume, chapter 6.
79 Shirley Strum, Almost Human . A Journey Into the World of
26 27 Baboons, Random House, New York, 1987.
longer unified enough to provide a stabilizing good ghost, the only spirit that could protect us will be entirely lost (I did nothing, and here is Politics of Time, Politics of Space
pattern for the traumatic experience of humans against the dangers of fundamentalism. Long what happened), while at some other times the Going back to things and speaking positively of

From Realpolitik
living in society. No doubt, the Body Politik is a before the United States degenerated into its pres- effect will be direct but on some other visitors. the phantom of the public, is this not, in the end,

to Dingpolitik
monster so much so that its not even a body. ent conservative revolution, it had a much more Through this complex, invisible (and expensive!) terribly reactionary? It depends on what we mean
But which type of monster is it? This is what we sturdy and contemporary tradition. Those Ameri- work of art rendered possible by the complex by progressive. Imagine that you have the respon-
wish to find out. We might have transformed poli- can philosophers call their tradition pragmatism, technology infrastructure of ZKM, we hope to sibility of assembling together a set of disorderly
tics into a monstrous activity because we have meaning by this word not the cheap realism often substitute in the mind of the visitor the light spirit voices, contradictory interests and virulent claims.
tried to make it exist in a form, borrowed from associated with being pragmatic but the costly of the Phantom for the crushing weight of the Then imagine you are miraculously offered a
nature, that it could not possibly take. The realism requested by making politics turn toward total Body Politik. Unfortunately, the catalog has chance, just at the time when you despair of
answer was not acceptable in the nineteenth cen- pra g m a t a the Greek name for Things. Now to render through the layout the experience of accommodating so many dissenting parties, to get
tury, when men, in spite of all their iconoclasm, thats realism! what it is to be caught by the passage of this Phan- rid of most of them. Would you not embrace such
were still haunted by the phantom of identity, In this exhibition, we try the impossible feat of tom Public. Its to the flow of words and images a solution as a gift from heaven?

Latour
wrote Walter Lippmann in a stunning book called giving flesh to the Phantom of the Public. We want that we have to confide the task of imitating the This is exactly what happened when the con-
the Phantom Public.80 In many ways our exhibi- to make the visitors feel the difference there is ghostly but spirited figure of politics. tradictory interests of people could be differenti-
tion is an effort in teratology, an experiment in try- between expecting from the Body Politik some- Why do we attach so much importance to the ated by using the following shibboleths: Are they
ing to pry apart two ghostly figures: the Leviathan thing it cannot give and that surely creates a difference between Body Politik and Phantom? It progressive or reactionary? Enlightened or
and the Phantom of the Public. (Sorry, there is no monster and being moved by the Phantom Pub- is due to the fact that for the new eloquence to archaic? In the vanguard or in the rear guard?
way to talk about politics and to speak of beautiful lic. The idea is to take the word Phantom and to become a habit of thought, we must be able to dis- Dissenting voices were still there, but most of
shapes, elegant silhouettes, heroic statues, glori- grant this fragile and provisional concept more tinguish two ways of speaking. To raise a political them represented backward, obscurantist or
ous ideals, radiant futures, transparent informa- reality at least more realism than the phantas- question often means to reveal a state of affairs regressive trends. The cleansing march of progress
tion except if you want to go through, once magorical spheres, globes, common good and whose presence was hitherto hidden. But then you was going to render them pass. You could safely
again, the long list of grandiose ceremonies held general will that the Leviathan was supposed to risk falling into the same trap of providing social forget two-thirds of them, and so your task of
by various totalitarianisms which, as we are all incarnate. In other words, we want to tackle again explanations and do exactly the opposite of what assembling them was simplified by the same
painfully aware, lead to the worst abominations. the problem of composing one body from the is meant here by political flow. You use the same amount.
The choice is either to speak of monsters early multitude of bodies a problem that is reviewed old repertoire of already-gathered social ties to In the remaining third, not everything had to be
on with care and caution, or too late and end up as here by many exhibits but this time with con- explain the new associations. Although you taken into account either, since most of the posi-
a criminal. O Machiavelli, how right you were; temporary means and media. seem to speak about politics you dont speak polit- tions were soon made obsolete by the passage of
let us pray that we heed your cautious lessons in The Phantom designed by Michel Jaffrennou ically. What you are doing is simply the extension time. Among the contemporary parties to the dis-
realism.) and Thierry Coduys is an invisible work of art. Its one step further of the same small repertoire of pute, progressive minds had to take into consider-
According to Lippmann and to the philosopher activated by the movements of the visitors already standardized forces. You might feel the ation only those few seen as the harbingers of the
John Dewey in response to his book,81 most of throughout the show so that each spectator is pleasure of providing a powerful explanation, future. So, through the magical ordering power of
European political philosophy has been obsessed simultaneously an actor in the show and the only but thats just the problem: You yourself partake in progress, politics was a cinch, since 90 percent of
by the body and the state. The Europeans have screen on which the whole spectacle is projected. the expansion of power not the re-composition of the contradictory passions had been spirited away,
tried to assemble an impossible parliament that By moving through the various exhibits, the its content. Even though it resembles political talk, left to linger in the limbo of irrationality. By ignor-
represented really the contradictory wills of the visitors will trigger various captors that will be it has not even begun to address the political ing most of the dissenters, you could reach a solu-
multitude into one General Will. But this enter- used as so many inputs to trigger outputs endeavor since it has not tried to assemble the can- tion that would satisfy everyone, namely those
prise suffered from a cruel lack of realism. Repre- which will give a vague and uneasy feeling that didates into a new assembly adjusted to their spe- who made up the liberal or revolutionary avant-
sentation, conceived in that total, complete and something happens of which the bystanders cific requirements. Drunk with power is an garde. In this way, the arrow of time could safely
transparent fashion, cannot possibly be faithful. By are responsible but in a way that is not directly expression not only fit for generals, presidents, thrust forward.
asking from politics something it could not traceable. Politics will pass through you as a rather CEOs, mad scientists and bosses it can also be Philosophers define time as a series of succes-
deliver, Europeans kept generating aborted mon- mysterious flow, just like a phantom. Moreover, used for those commentators who are confusing sions and space as a series of simultaneities.
sters and ended up discouraging people from the input/output relation will vary according to the expansion of powerful explanations with the Undoubtedly, while we filed away everything
thinking politically. For politics to be able to the time of day, the number of people in the show, composition of the collective. This is why we under the power of progress, we lived in the time
absorb more diversity (the Great Society in the answers given to the various queries, the might need still another slogan: Be sober with of succession. Chronos would eat away all that
Deweys time and what we now call Globaliza- cumulative effect of past visitors, the somewhat power. In other words, abstain as much as possi- was archaic and irrational in his own progeny,
tion), it has to devise a very specific and new type invisible presence of the web visitors. At times the ble from using the notion of power in case it back- sparing only those predestined for a radiant future.
of representation. Lippmann calls it a Phantom relation will be traceable in a sort of one-to-one fires and hits your explanations instead of the tar- But through a twist of history that neither
because its disappointing for those who dream of connection (I did this, and here is what hap- get you are aiming to destroy. No powerful reformists nor revolutionaries ever anticipated,
unity and totality. Yet strangely enough, it is a pened), but at other instances the whole effect explanations without checks and balances. Chronos has suddenlylost his voracious appe-
80 Noortje Marres, this volume, chapter 3.
81 John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems, Swallow Press,
28 Ohio University Press, Athens, OH, 1991 [1927]. 29
tite.82 Strangely enough, we have changed time so are part of our operating system any longer. both cases the Ding will disband and so will this handicaps are no longer denied but prostheses
completely that we have shifted from the time of And yet where is the alternative OS? Who is exhibit. If the demon of politics has taken you are accepted instead;

From Realpolitik
Time to the t i m e o f S i m u l t a n e i t y . Nothing, it busy writing its lines of code? We sort of knew over, a certain pattern will emerge: too much e) Its no longer limited to properly speaking par-

to Dingpolitik
seems, accepts to simply reside in the past, and no how to order things in time, but we have no idea unity, too much disunity. But if you manage to feel liaments but extended to the many other
one feels intimidated any more by the adjectives of the space in which to collect ourselves.84 We the passage of the Phantom Public through your assemblages in search of a rightful assembly;
irrational, backward or archaic. Time, the have yet to channel new political passions into actions, another pattern will emerge: fewer claims f) The assembling is done under the provisional
bygone time of cataclysmic substitution, has sud- new habits of thought, new rhetoric, new ways of to unity, less belief in disunity. The quest for com- and fragile Phantom Public, which no longer
denly become something that neither the Left nor being interested, indignant, mobilized and paci- position has begun again just as in the times of claims to be equivalent to a Body, a Leviathan
the Right seems to have been fully prepared to fied. Whenever we are faced with an issue, the old Father Nicron.This is at least the effect we wish to or a State;
encounter: a monstrous time, the time of cohabi- habits still linger and the voice of progress still produce on visitors and readers. g) And, finally, Dingpolitik may become possible
tation. Everything has become contemporary. shouts: Dont worry, all of that will soon disap- So what is D i n g p o l i t i k in the end? It is the when politics is freed from its obsession with
The questions are no longer: Are you going to pear; theyre too archaic and irrational. And the degree of realism that is injected when: the time of Succession.

Latour
disappear soon? Are you the telltale sign of new voice can only whisper: You have to cohabit Such is the experiment that we have under-
something new coming to replace everything even with those monsters, because dont indulge a) Politics is no longer limited to humans and in- taken with this show and catalog. Needless to say,
else? Is this the seventh seal of the Book of yourself in the naive belief that they will soon fade corporates the many issues to which they are the authors assembled here dont have to agree
Apocalypse that you are now breaking? An away; space is the series of simultaneities, all of attached; with one another or with this introduction! But
entirely new set of questions has now emerged: that has to be taken into account at once. b) Objects become things, that is, when matters accepting a fragile and provisional roof to probe
Can we cohabitate with you? Is there a way for This does not mean that there is no progress in of fact give way to their complicated entangle- one anothers attachment to things? Perhaps.
all of us to survive together while none of our con- the end, or that no arrow of time can be thrust for- ments and become matters of concern; If fundamentalism is the conviction that media-
tradictory claims, interests and passions can be ward. It means that we slowly proceed from a very c) Assembling is no longer done under the already tions may be bypassed without cost, then its the
eliminated? Revolutionary time, the great Simpli- simple-minded form of cohabitation such as the existing globe or dome of some earlier tradi- ultimate ding-less mode of doing politics. In the
ficator, has been replaced by cohabitation time, evolutionary or revolutionary ones to a much tion of building virtual parliaments; end, one question really has interested us: Can
the great Complicator. In other words, space has fuller one, where more and more elements are d) The inherent limits imposed by speech impair- fundamentalism be undone? When will the horse-
replaced time as the main ordering principle. taken into account. There is progress, but it goes ment, cognitive weaknesses and all sorts of men of the apocalypse stop meddling in politics?
Its fair to say that the reflexes of politicians, the from a mere juxtaposition to an intertwined form
passions of militants, the customs of citizens, their of cohabitation: How many contemporary ele-
ways to be indignant, the rhetoric of their claims, ments can you build side by side, generating the
the ecology of their interests are not the same in series of simultaneities? Communism might have
the time of Time and in the time of Space. No one been wrong not in the quest for the community
seems prepared to ask: What should now be but in the hasty way it imagined what is the Com-
simultaneously present? mon World to be shared.
How different, for instance, to deal with reli-
gion if you wait for its slow disappearance into the What is Dingpolitik?
faraway land of fairies, or if it explodes before your Back to things. Back to this fragile and provisional
very eyes as what makes people live and die now pandemonium: a show, a catalog. D e m o n and
now and also tomorrow. What a difference it demos, as I said earlier, have the same etymology.
makes if nature, instead of being a huge reservoir If you follow the first division, you multiply the
of forces and a bottomless repository of waste, occasions to differ and to dissemble; if you follow
turns suddenly into something that interrupts any the second division, you multiply the occasions to
progression: something to which you cannot agree, to compose, to assemble, to share. The dif-
appeal and cant get rid of. C o mm e n t s e n d - ference between the two is as thin as a knife. In
b a rra ss e r ? Ionesco asked during the Glorious
30s.83 It has now become the worry, the Sorge, 82 Francis Fukuyama (The End of History and the Last Man,
the s o u c i of almost everyone in all languages. Free Press, New York, 1992) was right in diagnosing the end
We can get rid of nothing and no one. Ecology of history but wrong to believe it would simplify the politi-
has probably ruined forever the time of Succes- cal tasks ahead: Exactly the opposite happened. Simultane-
ity is much harder to crack than succession because you
sion and has ushered us into the time of Space. cant get rid of any contradictions.
Yes, everything is contemporary. Progress and 83 Eugne Ionesco, Amde ou Comment sen dbarrasser, Gal-
succession, revolution and substitution, neither limard, Paris, 1954.
84 Witness how clumsy is the effort of Samuel Huntington
(The Clash of Civilization and the Remaking of World Order,
Simon & Schuster, New York, 1998) to project into geogra-
30 phy the history that Fukuyama had declared moot. 31
Athens (Greece), O pening Cere mony of the 2004 Olympic Gam es, photo AP Photo, photo:
David J. Phillip Athletes from countries all over the w orld asse mble inside the stadium during
32 33 the O pening Cere mony of the 2004 Olympic Gam es in Athens, Friday, August 13, 2004.

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