Plastic Space and Political Space—

Jean-Francois Lyotard

The interesting thing about political posters is that they expiicitiyestablish a relationship between the organization of society and theplastic surface (6cran). Through these posters we should be able toestablish a correlation between the effective treatment of the plasticsurface and the desired treatment of social space. We propose thefollowing hypothesis: beneath the articulated signification and iconicmeaning, the poster's plastic form (plastique) has its own value as asymptom of a political unconscious. Given this hypothesis, the localiza-tion of this symptom can be sought through Freudian categories. Ouraim, then, is to elaborate a critique of ideology.

First of all we will distinguish textual and figural space. Graphic(or phonic) units have no value in and of themselves according to theplastic force of their form or rhythmic impact on the reader's eye orbody, but only by being opposed within a system (e.g., the alphabet,if we accept the letter as a unit). This play on opposition is rule-bound,and breaking the rules leads to the effects of signification jamming.The system assumes a spatial cutting-up (d6coupage) (here visual; vocalin the case of speech) according to invariant intervals which allow forfast recognition. This cutting-up is textuality.

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Space IS, on the contrary, treated figurally when the norm of theintervals defining the textuai units is transgressed, giving currency toanother order of meaning. This definition is intentionally negative, itis particularly important to beware of identifying figural and perceptualspace, since even the organization of the field and perceptual profilescan be transgressed, and this transgression make them appear a con-trario as textual elements. There are thus "written" figures. Similarly,the graphic signifier and/or signified of a text, properiy speaking, canbe deconstructed in such a way as to heavily invest it with figuraiityFreud's analysis in Chapter VI of the Interpretation of Dreams showsthat this sort of transgression is the work of desire insofar as it is arepressed drive The transgression proceeds through work, notdiscourse.

The poster combines images and letters and the work of desirecan be followed on both. Reckless deconstructions, obeying thedemands of ([the] death) instinct, recombine new recognizable ag-gregates (according to the principies of reality and Eros)

The sociai space the apprehension of which by poiiticians weseek to diagnose, through an analysis of posters, is what Marx, in theintroduction to the 1857 edition of the Critique of Political Economy,called the empirical space of intuitions and representations. This spaceIS not that of the system which supports it and hides in it, but that Inwhich social relations are lived, in which ciass struggie unfoids. Theposter belongs to this space insofar as it is an object of intuitions andrepresentations

But even in its most "naive" forms, the poster constitutes aspecific object in the midst of other objects occupying that space: an"art'-object, if one wishes; an object which mirrors other objects; anempty space (non-piace, u-topia) where situations given elsewhere iniived social space become manifest. Now the way in which this recovery(reprise) takes piace plasticaiiy is crucial for diagnosing the politicaiunconscious in play in the poster. It is a process of simple representa-tion (corresponding to simple reversal, described in The GermanIdeology as an ideologicai relation) or, more precisely, doubie reversalor even overthrowing.

The poster of the Russian Revolution (1920) (fig. 2) is divided in-to three-quarters figures and one-quarter text: "May 1st," "The Satur-day Workers of All the Russias." The scene represents a man strikingan iron bar held on an anvil by a woman with the aid of a pair of fongs.On the left, a man holds a pickaxe in his hand—at rest, it seems—staring toward the locomotive and flags in the background sky. The fac-tories in the background resemble a stage set; nothing allows us toaffirm that these people are at work. The scene itself takes place out-doors; the flags and banners give it a festive air and the sense of a joyoushubbub. The look of the central figure (red shirt, black pants) holdingthe sledgehammer is fixed on the center of the picture: the anvii. Therailroad tracks converge toward the same point. This nexus of lines isthe reason why the picture's plastic form knots and unknots, where ourlook is inevitably rooted, like at the center of a spider web, so as to

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traverse all the lines which diverge from it. Let us follow line A vertical-ly (fig 2). It contains "May '•st," the anvii, a hand and sledgehammerLine B, the raiiroad track, obliquely followed, establishes the picture'sdepth, allowing me to pene*rate it, or, inversely, expels me toward thatother expanse of space—the text Line A shows planes of color whitehand, red shirt, black pants and anvil, a fiery red object to be hammered,red "1st," black letters: "the Workers," etc.

There is an image-text symmetry here, a passage from one tothe other via the piastic eiement of coior, color which reinforces thegeneral unity of the poster.

Note the interesting placement of "1st." From the formal view-point, this eiement works as a "iyricai" verticai vector which organizesthe entire poster and gives it all its meaning. The vertical creates thestage (nght-ieft, front-rear) on which actors are able to move about, play"In human representation, the horizontai corresponds to the iine orpiane on which man stands" (Kandmsky).

If we take the separation of image and text literally, it is clearthat "1st" functions in another sense than a simpie aid to the scene'splastic compostion (fig. 3). " 1 " taken by itseif assumes a symbolic role.It no longer merely indicates a "directional" vector but the deep mean-ing of the poster. It supports and grounds the entire scene, symboliz-ing the opening of a new era—the sociaiist era Or, more fundamentally,what IS originary, matncai: history's source point; the founding act; whatseparates what was from what is yet to come. The anvil is in this casethe initial fixed base where nascent socialism is forged, where it drawsIts strength.

Sociaiist ideology draws its force and sense from myths, herethrough Vulcan who transmits his suggestive power thorugh the over-exposed eiements of iron and fire But, inverseiy, myth piunges ideoiogyinto an abyss, if one is not careful, the connoted elements can crackto pieces, iet themseives be invaded by meanings issuing fromeisewhere which destablize the unwieldy and "exact" presence ofideoiogy.

The presence of "1st" on the anvii is ambivalent. It has a dream-like quaiity insofar as it is a graphic and chromatic eiement But throughits legibility and meaning, it fixes the image of the anvil which is ex-cessively polysemic ("the image, place of resistance to meaning in thename of a certain mythics of life," says Barthes).

The text in this case is our most solid point of contact, veneer-ing its meaning on the figure, fixing it: it is a question of the SaturdayWorker. The text informs our view. This poster is addressed to the Rus-sian workers of 1920, not to us. It is not surprising that the text's "an-choring" (Barthes) function is less important for us and that we be moreaware of the image's polysemy. Image and text lock me in a "reading"game from which all contemplation is absent. It is at the level of thisgame that we wouid be able to disclose the Utopia. The passage fromimage to text, nowhere indicated as referent in the poster, would beof an Utopian nature.

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Reading becomes enriched in passing from text to image. Newpulsations of meaning ftoresce; new circuits of singifiers are disclosed.

The image which is presented to me is truly fantastic. The scene,like in the theater or a dream, shows me workers who are not workers

The text is here comparable to a stage apron, "the invisible limitwhere the spectator's look strikes a barrier which halts and returns it(the first reversal) to the spectacle's recepient, that is, to himself in-sofar as he IS the source of the iook" (A. Green, Un oeil en trop). Withthat smali difference, the stage apron is constituted as text, a text whichpreciudes all narrative, ail diaiogue. The figures here are mute, have onlya dream-like depth. Without this text, the figures, presented in theirsilence and immobility, would surely anguish the spectator.

The text is the order, the written commentary of a henceforthreassuring image which one recites to oneself—an image into whichI can resolutely project myself.

The eye, then, can itself be captured by the invisibie, "written form"of the perspective, more fictive and illusory than ever, and which makesIt penetrate the allurement-space (espace-leurre),\he depth of the scena

The vertical, the "silent line" (Kandinsky), and the horizontal, theoblique, are not taken in their own right They are captured, reified inthe gestures and attitudes of the players who evolve on the stage.

The eye is caputred by that "written" "form" of the poster whichpresents itseif as figure-desire, as action to be realized. This organiza-tion of a fantasmatic scene, needed to induce the viewer's desire, tomake him take his desire for reality (the other of piay), this "visible"of the poster does not refer to the visible of a real object but to an in-visibie situated eisewhere. An invisibie which is neither of the orderof the reality of the poster nor the reality of which it speaks. Like inMore's Utopia, all contacts with reality are broken, and reality survivesonly in "overexposed" traces: sledgehammer, tongs, anvil, railroadtracks.

These elements are divested of their proper functions, connotedon the one hand, but reinvested on the other with all their mythicai at-traction. The viewer's desire enters into play and is constitutive of theirforce. I am the one who swings the sledgehammer and smashes theiron, who lifts it and effortlessly violates the sky's interdiction.

At this primary level, there is harmony between the principlesof reality and pleasure.

The text, however, fixes the scene, drawing it into a more limitedsignifying network. It poses its spatial limit, halfway to our eye.

it is this space between text and image which is Utopian—aspace that is reduced to an impalpable trace in the poster. "1st" func-tions here like an index, an ethereal hinge, an untranslatable "relay"(Barthes) between image and text. It is the key through which the imageposits its "reality," a "reality" which passes through "real" reality bymediation of the restricted signification of the text proper.

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June 26, 1968

A poster put out by the metal industry on which the work rhythmsare accentuated to make up time (fig. 4).

(This allows a certain perception which brings out all latent andunexpressed ideology, rather than subjecting us to the turmoil of im-ages. Assuming that this poster has some fundamental ground or isgrounded, it is a matter of seeing it in extreme depth; of studying itfrom an attitude In which knowledge is put aside so as to free up thefield to vision; of deconstructing it, and, then, perhaps, of destroyingor unravelling it).

We are immediately struck by three sorts of lines: the line "ABAS,"^ the line of the chained wrists, and the line of "CADENCES IN-FERNALES." They are all comparable in color (here black, m the originalgreen) and not too different in thickness (mean width = 1 cm. with avariation from 0.5 to 2.0 cms). At the level of the dynamic of the iine,we find the binary continuous/discontinuous, which is fundamental

(1) In "A BAS" the line is discontinuous.— In order to respect the interval between the letters (B-A-S)

and between the words (A-BAS). The sole function of line breaks at thislevel is so that the letters can be recognized and the iinguistic segmentread.

— In the letter, itself, since the characters are stenciled, thatis, form a surface where the space of the letter is hollowed out as op-posed to printing where it is raised. These characters are thus usedon surfaces other than paper, supports such as packing crates, barrels,sacks, etc. This aspect refers to a connotation more or less consciousto the viewer, which can be physical labor. For these characters are thekind outlined on crates and sacks at loading yards, ports, etc. This con-notation of labor, provided by the internal rupture of the letter, is an ir-ruption of the figural in the textural. Another irruption, at an entirelydifferent level, of the figure into the text results from the rather speciaiinterjection "A BAS," which is defined as "a cry of hostility toward some-one or something" The expressive overcomes the significative. The cry"A BAS" draws its strength from the repetition of the "a" (/a/) sound,which is the vowel located at the maximum degree of voiced openingIn the case of "A BAS" a back laJ (1st /a/) and a front /a/ (2nd /a/) (SeeA. Martinet, Elements de linguistique g4n4rale, 2-18, p. 42).

(2) The line in the image of the chained wrist. This line is con-tinuous in thf it closes on itself. The entire outer contour and eventhe greater" A of the figure can be drawn without lifting the pen fromthe paper, ihe line of each of the elements delimits an encircied, im-plosive space, consisting of chain links, handcuffs and bound wristsBecause of its enclosed constitution, its being imprisoned, the linetransmits its inherent tension from a thin line to the interior of the en-circled surface it delimits. This displacement of tension produces achange in the value of the white interior. Physically, the whitebackground of the poster and the white interior of the design have thesame value: the original color of the paper used But they differ percep-

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tually The white interior has, by compression, a more intense energythan the exterior white space which seems to spread infinitely sincethe poster is unframed. On the original poster (where the drawing isgreen) the white interior appears pinker because the green encirclesthe white and the eye instinctively adds its complement (magenta),which happens to be the natural color of the hands We find this dif-ference of value in all the compressed spaces of the figure (links, hand-cuffs, etc.) and to a lesser degree in the enclosed spaces of the lettersa, d, e, of "cadence" as opposed to c where the letter opens onto a whiteexterior

(3) The line of "CADENCES INFERNALES" is discontinuous inorder to allow its reading, as in the case of "A BAS," but it respectsth integrality of the letter, which rids it of the connotation "labor" Atthe level of the signifier, the usual interval between the words "LES"and "CADENCES" is not maintained, since the interval is the same asbetween two letters, e.g., between D and £ in recognizing these words,however, the eye instinctively reestablishes the intervai, and for thefollowing reasons:

(a) The syntagms "LESQ" "LESCAD," . "LESCADENCES" arenot pertinent in French and thereby not confusing

(b) The key on the handcuffs interpolates and separates thetwo words much in the same way as a caret ( v ) does when we mistaken-ly connect two words in a manuscript: "Lescadences." This is a ratheroriginal irruption of the figure in the text.

Now that the poster is deconstructed, we will present a disposi-tion of Its elements.

(A) A play on the position of "A BAS," placed, paradoxically atthe top of the poster.

(B) The image of the wrists is styiized-—the exterior contour of the fists which is in fact thin is as

broad as that of the chain line which has a real thickness.—there is no indication of shading, but a slight realist perspec-

tive on the handcuffs and fingers.Although stylized, this image posseses a certain depth. The

chain wrists have a hidden face, while the printed characters do not.(c) From the viewpoint of signification, "LES CADENCES INFER-

NALES" is an extremely constraining text, whereas "A BAS" is moreexpressive. "LES CADENCES INFERNALES" perfectly illustrates thefunctions of anchorage and relay that Barthes (Communications, No.4, Rhetorique de I'image," p. 44) picks out among the functions of thelinguistic message in its relation to the iconic message. Over againstthe polysemy of the figure and even of "A BAS," "CADENCES INFER-NALES" determines "the floating chain of signifieds," and the viewercan no longer be unaware that he is confronted with a poster aimedat the conditions of industrial labor For example, the rearranged poster(fig 5a) might very well be viewed as having an anarchistic aim.

The vice-iike positioning of the text in relation to the figure rein-forces Its previously mentioned implosive quality by precluding anyescape route This point becomes clearer in the posters rearranged by

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eiimtnating one or two of their terms (figs. 5a-d). (it's best to iook ateach poster while covering up the others.)

We can see that in fig 5a the passage between the two eiementsis much smoother than in fig 5c. The exteriority of the text m reiationto figure is quite obvious in the iatter The reiationship between "LESCADENCES iNFERNALES" and the wrists is that of caption to draw-ing, it IS somewhat different m Fig. 5a, where "A BAS" is better inte-grated with the figure. This piece of text, supported by the fists andowing to its iarge figurai component, enters into a continuous reiation-ship with the wrists to which it is materially connected at the base ofthe letter S. The cry "A BAS" seems to come from an imaginary mouthbelonging to the same body as the wrists. "A BAS" is like a balloonin a comic strip. Caption and balloon seem to characterize the play ofthe two texts with the figure. Moreover, fig. 5b, composed soieiy of thetexts, demonstrates the hiatus existing between the two kinds ofcharacters and the need to separate them by a figure

Fig 5d shows the extreme "written" quality of the handcuff sym-bol. Heavily coded, it intervenes, in certain respects, like a figurai ele-ment in a rebus.

The poster, then, presents three elements.A textual element (A BAS), but one which leaves considerable

room for the figure.An image of fists, which is by nature ftgural but very much

written.These two ambiguous eiements ieave open the option of reading

or seeingIt is the third eiement ("LES CADENCES INFERNALES"), essen-

tially textual and bereft of figurality, which tips the scaie and,simultaneously, recuperates the final space; for it transforms the im-age into an evasive iiiustration of a slogan. Because of this, the originaldesire which tended to invest itseif in the poster, that of trying to breakthe chains and free the hands, is sharply broken off.

The second Russian poster (fig. 6) breaks definitively with thehorizontal-verticai system. The poster's surface is no longer in-depth—adepth into which the eye can penetrate—nor, converseiy, a surfacewhicn meets the eye through the play of inversed perspective; instead,it is a surface baianced strictly by the lines defining it. It is no longera question of a window but a rectangle. The interior line tracing thisrectangle eventually becomes a black mass, and this occurs on thesame plane.

The presence of the text in the figurai space can appear surpris-ing. How can a linguistic space whose property is to be oriented towarda left-to-right reading—a space with strict and apparently inviolable in-ternal rules—"inhabit" the same space as the figure without botheringthe eye and ear?

The text here is taken in its figuraiity. The words become orientediines to which reading lends force and movement.

The words "wedge" (KANHOM) and "red" (KPACHbIM), pre-served in their iegibiiity, are arranged according to two lines whose

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source is m the upper-left-hand corner of the poster and which are in-visibly prolonged in the lower right-hand region, transmitting their vec-toral energy to the red triangle.

The red trangle is reinforced in its movement, in its tension, bya "significative" relationship with the words- "wedge" refers (se rap-porte) to the triangle, "red" to its color.

The linguistic and figural space lose their intrinsic value at thislevei. They are mutually deconstructed and their reference to bothlanguage and art displaced. This unfillable gap is the poster createdby El Lissitzky.

The word "wedge" materializes and "figures" the all too abstractform of the triangle, functioning like an indicative sign which laterallyilluminates its meaning. The triangle guards its polysemic autonomy,resisting, as figure of negation, the solidification of the word The fieldof attraction between word and figure, far from proving detrimental tothe latter, which was the case in the first Russian poster where the textfunctions to make us select the proper level of the reading of a "realist"image, confirms it, restores it in all its depth of meaning.

The lines circumscribing the space of the word "red" render itmore dense and nearer to our eye. Both the letter and the entire word"red" are related to the color-substance of the triangle, but also to thecolor inscribing the word, informing it. Both the color red and the word"red" are the same thing, though it was necessary to designate the colorso that from being seen it could be understood. The red of the triangleand the word "red" are displaced into another area of the poster andinvested in the verb "beat" (BEN), constructed in such a way as to ap-pear as though it plunges into the poster in the shape of an invisibiepoint which recalls the other point of the triangle.

The text "whites" (EEAblX) has been expelled, tangentially setoff from the white circle, and thrown back towards the black area whereIt IS positioned in a white rectangle. (The letters written in gray indicatethe passage from white to black; on the opposite side, downstream inthe movement, is the word "red" with white letters outlined in blackand the color trapped in the word, in its letter. This also recalls the graymasses, traces of a full space, further framing the lines of the trianglewhich penetrate the circle.)

The circle is basically a fixed, closed figure foreign to that otherfigure, the triangle, foreign to Its straight lines, its movement and itsenergy Here the figure of the triangle breaks with the symbolic planeof the circle. At the point where the triangle plunges into the plane, itcreates the center of the circle and at the same time destroys it. Thecircle becomes a mad figure, a death form iacking reference to its centerThe triangie shatters the myth at its very root.

Further in time and space, as between parentheses, the redtriangle completely expels the white circle, throwing it out towards theblack background (E) (fig. 7).

At the periphery of the white circle and the red triangle we find:(a) Lxiwer and to the left on a white background, bits of red, black

and white rectangular spaces.

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(b) Opposite in the upper-right-hand corner of the blackbackground, smail red, biack and white triangies and squares

Space surrounded on all sides.Vibrant echos refracted in the opacity of black, in the fluidity

of white.Colors: white, red, and black "nsing" to create a kinetic space.Reading the words "wedge," "red," "beat," and "whites"

dissociates reading from its horizontal base and left-to-right coordinates,casting it into an unusual up-and-down dimension. The phenomenonof writing outstretches in a spatial dimension which was unitl now pro-hibited This extension brings out the "direction" included m the legi-ble. Using the letters of the word as figural material, withoutundermining the word's legibility, involves displacements of writingItself. A critique of the orderiy space of writing poses the problem ofthe space of respresentation, a pseudo-deep space, but also the prob-lem of the body (a vertical balanced to left and right)

This displacement does not consist only m a shift in the posi-tion of the word or the transgression of the regulated intervals of syn-tax, an unfolded text, but equaliy in a "shift in accent" in Freud's senseof the term.

The characters are handled as follows: a black and rigid line for"wedge"; a fine line for "red," which delimits its letters and at the sametime creates privileged, denser white spaces; red lines for "beat", greylines on a white background for "the whites," like a iabel, which, farfrom transgressing meaning, makes it more "audible."

Reading can be scanning by ear.Reading, by the establishment of a space of difference with

regard to its normal legibility, by the positioning of words in differentplanes, reinforced by different colors, can be scanning with the entirebody according to the pleasure principle alone. Reading can be scan-ning with the look.

The red triangle is not the expression of the object "wedge," itsabstraction, but the expression, unreifiable meaning, form and pureviolence of sharpness. The words remain iegible, and thereby refer tothe horizontal with which they mutually arose (co-naissent). This ac-tion is a "critique" "of reading," of reference. In other respects the texthas a purifying function in its relation to a figure which it empties inadvance of the projections that it could all up, to which, through itslateral luminosity, the text confers an "uncanniness" (Freud) Due toits normative-space, this text precludes a return to a space governedby perspective, a theater-form space.

Forms, visible and invisible iines: their free play creates a spaceof contradictory energies which completely breaks from the May 1stposter; that stage-space where attitudes and "sentiments" are thedirectly "readable" "expressions" of the body: captured energy reifiedin an image.

We should here oppose the writing of images (the pictorial) inthe first Russian poster to the "pure creation of figures" (the figural)in the second. The quasi-depth of perspective gives way in the latter

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to the only real density—meaning. To pose the problem of writing isto pose that of representation, of the body And this is substantiatedm the second Russian poster because our body, upset in its naturaibalance of viewing and reading, must shift, find new positions fromwhich reading once again becomes legibie: the seeing seen.

The Utopia here is the very act of creation which transgressesthe interdiction, making possible the relation between two supposed-ly heterogeneous spaces, spirituai breathing of revolution without whichIt wouid be merely reassuring revolution, linear in its search for truthand justice

Conclusion

in the May 1st Russian poster the recovery of social space iseffected through representation, that is, the presentation of an absence,but readily identifiable. The spectacle is recognized through a highlyconnoted use of colors, the reaiistic organization of space, and recourseto the social stereotype of the steel industry (tracks and locomotivesare needed to transport the Red Anny). The properly plastic iines of forceare submerged, they act, they do not invite detection by the eye. Thissubmersion corresponds to that of the plastic surface which is drawnaccording to the rules of Leonardo's window. The viewer is summonedto pass through this "window" and climb onto the stage, to join theSaturday workers. The perspectivai treatment works in the same wayas the use of stereotypes, provoking desire and at the same time focus-ing It on a known and communicable situation.

An appeal is made to an experience which already bears titleand terms: labor as the struggle against material; the workers' collec-tive as active subject. Recourse to these sociai objects, to that ex-perience and to the discourse and representations grafted onto it (tothat experience and its complementary ideology) rules out a critiqueof the social space in all its dimensions. Some regions of experienceremain sheitered from the critical overturning. They are, moreover,presented as regions to be invested by desire, and their representationIS used to invoke in the poster's readers the channels through whichthis experience is reproduced.

We can see the correiation. Piasticaily, it is a case of simpie rever-sal, reality is represented, presented as a readable absence. With regardto libidinal economy, what the poster evokes in desire is the drive torepeat the formation of an organic unity (the work collective, of whichthe proietariat has experience). Politically, the social space is not cri-tiqued but applied to the ends of ideological exploitation.

The function of the French poster of May '68 is no different fromthat of the first Russian poster except in that the fulfillment of desireis evoked more by what is written (le verbe) than by the image.

This iatter is written, symbolic. The syntagm "cadences infer-nales" is doubly conventional. First, in the graphic treatment of thesignifier, and, second, in the powerful connotation of the signified. Eventhe "a bas," which is to some extent figuralized, conforms to conven-

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tional criteria (inscription on materials used m work) The figure of thetextual is textuai in its turn. This textuality does not call for commen-tary different than that of the May 1st poster it seeks fast recognitionof the social object (mass-production), and to induce conduct whichitself has a long tradition within the history of working class struggles

This effect is not produced by establishing a visual scene m adeep space, but by inscribing a text and symbol to be read on a sheetof paper, in fact, to be read twice, first, so as to understand the signifiedof the discourse itseif, and then so as to understand the secondsignified (connoted) of the discourse and the figure. This predominanceof the written must be related to the time and piace of the poiitical ac-tion, the decline of figurality within the western tradition. Capitalism'sadvancement of articulated linguistic communication over all otherforms, the importance of the student environment. The poster's iadenconnotations attest to the paucity of the critical deconstruction—infact, to its absence Piastically, the poster might very well be an adver-tisement.

From the libidinai viewpoint, however, it should be categorizedunder the death instinct, since it invites destruction rather than con-struction. The libidmat and political meaning of the poster are, in reali-ty, contradicted by its piastic organization The combination of elements(ensemble) operates like a compromise-formation, with a manifest con-tent which comes under the death instinct and a latent content, secretedin the form of the object, which satisfies Eros by inducing, through con-notations, the strong feeling of belonging to a commmunity.

There is a piastic paradox m Ei Lissitzky's poster. The writingassumes a specific form, while the figure seems to create a text offorms. There is a deconstruction of letters and words on the one handwhich is not oniy manifest in the signified ("beat with a wedge") butaiso in the graphism designed in plastic relation with the space, andthus figurai work. But, inversely, we might say that the deconstructionof any representation, the placing of form and color in a flat two-dimensionai space, and the repiacement of the window illusion withan opaque surface, changes the pictorial givens back to scripturai ones,it IS indeed characteristic of writing to treat the material support likea board rather than something transparent

This trait, however, is oniy a secondary manifestation of whatis essential to writing, that is, that the graphic units oniy have differen-tiai vaiue, and not by their reiation to a body (or the unconscious) Nowthis is not the case In this poster. Here there is a disappearance of theobject, resulting from the Suprematist critique of representation, whichinvolves a use of form and color entirely subordinated to their elemen-tary power on the body, and not only the perceiving, worldly, body butthe erotic one as well.

It follows that desire cannot be lost here in an object or adiscourse by which it is fulfilled It meets the screen and is reflectedon it since the opaque surface mereiy refiects the sensible formalelements with which the work of fantasmatical fulfillment is done Theposter recails desire to itseif as fiesh, as a region of rhythms, profiles

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and colors. It lacks objectif ication and object recognition. The plasticspace IS a space of anguish.

There are three elements in Lissitzky's poster which are linkedto a radical critique of social space: (1) the reflection of desire on itself;(2) the redoubled reversal (where the reality invoked is not only presentedin Its absense, but the desire which invokes it is manifested in its veryprocess, thereby also reversing the relationship between desire's opera-tions and the fantasmatical object which results); (3) the empty spacewhich is opposed by the painted surface to its being fiiled by desire.

To beat the whites with a red wedge is not only to win the civilwar, improve the economy, build collectivism; it is also to drive thiswedge into all the white zones of expenence and ideology, the instituted;and it is to submit everything social, political, moral, and aesthetic tothe same reversal that desire undergoes in the poster. The envelopedand closed sphericity of the white investment must be opened andbroken everywhere by the red sharpness.

It would be necessary to open up another direction offered toanalysis by making use of the complex opposition introduced by Freudm 1920- reality/pleasure-Eros/death. In the first Russian poster, thedestructive drive is invested on the material (anvil, sledgehammer, etc.),sparing the sociai unity formed by the workers. This unity is not onlyrepresented on the stage, but presented in the connotation of the im-ages and the text, thanks to which it is easily reconstituted. We havesaid how the French poster organized these two components. In Lissit-zky's poster the dimension of death wins. There is no recognition,representation or connotation, there is no point where we are able tolink communication and participation to an "erotic" unity. The formspresented are situated well short of discourse and action. They are silentbecause they break the illusory fulfillment of desire, the lure by whichEros gives itself to seeing and hearing as reality. The connivance ofthe principles of reality and pleasure is the mainspring of ideology.

The reader will not fail to object that the composition of theposter and its critical force bear witness to the isolated situation ofthe artistic avant-garde in revolutionary Russia. That's an inconsistent"concept," a fulfillment of desire in words. On the one hand, men ofthis period like Mal6vitch and El Lissitzky were not an artistic avant-garde. They were anti-art, insofar as critical overtuming (it was the "rear-guard" which was merely "art"). On the other hand, they had no preten-tion of being an avant-garde in the political sense. What Is importantis that today they give us and artists and politicians a chance to reflecton a critical aesthetic, an aesthetic of the death drive (which, moreover,Freud suggests in Beyond the Pleasure Principle) in Its relation withrevolutionary critique.

Translated byMark S. Roberts

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NOTES

This IS a translation of "Espace plastlque et espace poiitique," which appearsin D6rive d partir de Marx et Freud (Pans Union G^ndrale D'Editions, 1973) Thetext, however, has a history which precedes this particuiar pubiication Accord-ing to a note in preface to this version of the text, the work first appeared asa seminar presentation at Nanterre in 1968-69, and was then later discussed inanother seminar offered by Mikel Dufrenne in 1969-70 This text aiso containsa note indicating that it was first pubiished in the Revue d'Esthitique, 23(December, 1970), crediting Dominique Avron and Bruno Lemenuel as coilabor-tors (I would like to acknowledge the vaiuabie heip of Professor Geoff Benn-ington of Essex University, who thoroughiy read and corrected an earlier versionof this translation) (Translator)

I have kept the French terms for the May '68 poster, since their pecuiiargraphoiogy seems essentiai to Lyotard's anaiysis "A Bas les Cadences Infer-nales" is perhaps best translated as "Down with the Heliish Work Rhythms"(Transiator)

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