The Chameleon Subject: Representation, Law, and the Problem of Living Dead

Abstract

This article is concerned with the life of the subject that is always also an object. More specifically, it is concerned with the condition of being exposed to death by law, and how this is a condition of the living subject. The article examines this condition through analysis of two photographs by Beninese artists Joseph Moise Agbodjélou and Leonce Raphael Agbodjélou. These photographs enable us to see how representation is critical to the emancipation of the subject, creating the conditions for the “customization” of existence. They also enable us to see how law, like photography, is not to be perfected by transcending its representational frameworks. The critical work is ensuring such frameworks remain media of an “autonomous subjectivation.” The autonomous subject here is the emancipated subject: a living dead figure whose “autonomy” marks her off from the death-like petrifaction of mere representation without slipping into the conceit of a god-like subjectivity.