ALLLIVINGbeingsareintheopen:theymanifestthemselvesandshineintheirappearance.Butonlyhuman beingswanttotakepossessionofthisopening,toseize holdoftheirownappearanceandoftheirownbeingmanifest.Languageisthisappropriation,whichtransformsnatureintoface. Thisiswhyappearancebecomes aproblemforhumanbeings:itbecomesthelocationof astrugglefortruth.
Thefaceisatoncetheirreparablebeing-exposedofhumansandtheveryopeninginwhichtheyhideandstay hidden.Thefaceistheonlylocationofcommunity,the onlypossiblecity.Andthatisbecausethatwhichfosingleindividualsopensuptothepoliticalisthetragicomedyoftruth,inwhichtheyalwaysalreadyfallandout ofwhichtheyhavetofindaway.
What the face exposes and reveals is not something that couldbe formulated as asignifyingproposition of sorts, noris it asecret doomedto remainforeverincommunicable. 'The face's revelation is revelation of language itself. Such arevelation, therefore, doesnothave anyreal contentanddoesnottellthetruthaboutthisorthatstate of being, about this or that aspect of human beings and of the world: it is only opening, only communicability. To walk in the light of the face means tobe this opening-and to sufferit, andto endure it.
Thus, theface is, above all, thepassion of revelation, the passion of language. Nature acquires a face precisely in themomentitfeelsthatit.isbeingrevealedbylanguage. And nature's being exposed and betrayed by the word, its veiling itself behind the impossibility of having a secret, appears on its face as either chastity or perturbation, as either shamelessness ormodesty.
The face does not coincide with the visage. There is a face whereversomethingreachesthe levelof exposition andtriestograspitsown beingexposed, whereverabeingthat appears sinksin thatappearance and hasto find awayoutofit. (Thus,artcangiveafaceeventoaninanimateobject,toastillnature;andthatiswhythe witches, when accused by the inquisitors of kissing Satan's anus during the Sabbath, argued that even there there was a face.AnditmaybethatnowadaystheentireEarth,which hasbeentransformedintoadesertbyhumankind'sblind will, might become one single face.)
I look someone in the eyes: either these eyes are cast down-and this is modesty, that is, modesty for the emptiness lurking behind the gaze-or they look back at me. And they can look at me shamelessly, thereby exhibiting their own emptiness as if there was another abyssaleyebehindit that knowsthisemptiness anduses it as an impenetrable hiding place. Or, they can look at mewithachasteimpudenceandwithoutreserve, thereby letting love and the word happen in the emptiness of our gazes.
Exposition is the location ofpolitics. Ifthere is no animal politics, that is perhaps because animals are always already in the open and do not try to take possession of their own exposition; they simply live in it without caring about it. That is why they are not interested in mirrors, intheimageasimage. Human beings, onthe other hand, separate images from things and give them a name preciselybecausetheywant torecognizethemselves, that is, they want to take possession of their own very appearance. Human beings thus transform the openintoa world, that is, into the battlefield ofa political struggle without quarter. This struggle, whose object is truth, goes by the name ofHistory.
It is happening more and more often that in pornographic photographs the portrayed subjects, by a calculatedstratagem, lookintothecamera, therebyexhibiting the awareness ofbeing exposed to the gaze. This unexpected gesture violently beliesthe fiction thatisimplicit
in the consumption ofsuch images, according to which the one who looks surprises the actors while remaining unseen by them: the latter, rather, knowingly challenge thevoyeur'sgazeandforcehimtolookthemintheeyes. In that precise moment, the insubstantial nature ofthe human face suddenly comes to light. The fact that the actors look into the camera means that they showthat theyaresimulating; nevertheless, they paradoxically appear more realprecisely to theextentto which they exhibit this falsification. The same procedure is used today in advertising: the image appears more convincing ifitshowsopenly itsown artifice. Inbothcases, theone who looks is confronted with something that concerns unequivocally theessence ofthe face, theverystructure oftruth.
Wemay calltragicomedy ofappearancethefactthatthe face uncovers only and precisely inasmuch as it hides, andhidesto theextenttowhichituncovers.Inthisway, theappearancethatoughttohavemanifestedhumanbeings becomes for them instead a resemblance that betrays them and in which they can no longer recognize themselves. Precisely because the faceissolely thelocation oftruth, it is also and immediately the location of simulation and ofan irreducible impropriety. This does not mean, however, that appearance dissimulates what it uncovers by making it look like what in reality it is not: rather, whathumanbeingstrulyareisnothingother than th�s dissimulation and this disquietude within the appearance. Because human beings neither arenorhave to be any essence, any nature, or any specific destiny,
94, 5 their condition is the most empty and the most insubstantial of all: it is the truth. Whatremains hidden from them is not something behind appearance, but rather appearing itself, that is, their being nothing other than a face. The task of politics is to return appearance itself to appearance, to cause appearance itself to appear.
The face, truth, and exposition are today the objects of a global civil war, whose battlefield is social life in itsentirety, whosestormtroopers are themedia, whosevictims are all the peoples of the Earth. Politicians, the media establishment, and the advertising industry have understood the insubstantial character of the face and of the community it opens up, and thus they transform it into a miserable secret that they must make sure to control at all costs. State power today is no longer founded on the monopoly of the legitimate use of violence-a monopoly thatstatesshareincreasinglywillinglywithother nonsovereign organizations such as the United Nations and terrorist organizations; rather, it is founded above all on the control of appearance (of doxa). The fact that politics constitutes itself as an autonomous sphere goes handin handwith theseparationofthe face in the world of spectacle-a world in which human communication isbeingseparatedfromitself.Expositionthus transforms itself into avaluethatisaccumulatedinimages andinthe media,while anew class of bureaucrats jealouslywatches over its management.
Ifwhathuman beingshadto communicate toeach other were always and only something, there would never be
politics properly speaking, but only exchange and conflict, signals and answers. But because what human beings have to communicate to each other is above all a pure communicability (that is, language), politics then arisesas the communicative emptiness in which the humanfaceemergesassuch. Itis preciselythisempty space that politicians and the media establishment are trying to be sure to control, by keeping it separate in a sphere thatguarantees its unseizability and by preventingcommunicativity itselffromcomingtolight.Thismeansthat an integrated Marxian analysis should take into considerationthe fact thatcapitalism (or whatever othername we might want to give to the process dominating world history today) not only was directed to the expropriation of productive activity, but was also and above all directed to the alienation oflanguageitself, of thecommunicativenature of human beings.
Inasmuch as it is nothing but pure communicability, every human face, even the most noble and beautiful, is always suspended on the edge of an abyss. This is precisely why the most delicate and graceful faces sometimes look as if they might suddenly decompose, thus letting the shapeless and bottomless background that threatens thememerge. Butthisamorphousbackground is nothing else than the opening itself and communicability itselfinasmuchas theyareconstitutedastheir own presuppositions as if they were a thing.The onlyface to remain uninjured is the one capable of taking the abyss of its own communicability upon itself and of exposing it without fear or complacency.
96, 7
This is why the face contracts into an expression, stiffens into a character, and thus sinks further and further intoitself.As soon as the facerealizesthat communicability isall that it is and hence that it has nothing to express-thus withdrawing silently behind itself, inside itsown muteidentity-itturnsinto a grimace, whichis whatonecallscharacter. Characteristheconstitutivereticence that human beings retain in the word; but what one has to take possession of here is only a nonlatency, a pure visibility: simply a visage. The face is not something that transcends the visage: it is the exposition of the visage in all its nudity, it is a victory over character-it isword.
Everything forhuman beingsisdivided between proper andimproper, true andfalse, possible andreal: thisisbecause they are or have to be only a face. Every appearance thatmanifestshumanbeingsthusbecomesforthem improper and factitious, and makes them confront the taskofturningtruthintotheir ownpropertruth. Buttruth itself is not something of which we can take possession, nor does it have any object other than appearance and theimproper: itissimply theircomprehension, theirexposition.The totalitarianpoliticsofthemodern, rather, is the will to total self-possession: here either the improper extends its own rule everywhere, thanks to an unrestrainable will to falsification and consumption (as happensinadvancedindustrializeddemocracies),orthe proper demands the exclusion of any impropriety (as happensintheso-calledtotalitarianstates). In boththese grotesque counterfeitsoftheface, theonly truly human
possibilityislost:thatis,thepossibilityoftakingpossessionofimproprietyassuch,ofexposinginthefacesimplyyourownproperimpropriety,ofwalkingintheshadow ofitslight.
Thehumanfacereproducesthedualitythatconstitutes itwithinitsownstructure,thatis,thedualityofproper andimproper,ofcommunicationandcommunicability, ofpotentialityandact.Thefaceisformedbyapassive backgroundonwhichtheactiveexpressivetraitsemerge:
JustastheStarmirrorsitselementsandthecombinationoftheelementsintoonerouteinitstwosuperimposedtriangles,sotootheorgansofthecountenancedivideintotwolevels.Forthelife-pointsof thecountenanceare,afterall,thosepointswherethe countenancecomesintocontactwiththeworldabove, beitpassiveoractivecontact.Thebasiclevelisorderedaccordingtothereceptiveorgans;theyarethe face,themask,namelyforeheadandcheeks,towhich belongrespectivelynoseandears.Noseandearsare theorgansofpurereceptivity....Thisfirsttriangle isthusformedbythemidpointoftheforehead,as thedominantpointoftheentireface,andthemidpointofthecheeks.Overitisnowimposedasecond triangle,composedoftheorganswhoseactivityquickenstherigidmaskofthefirst:eyesandmouth.1
Inadvertisingandpornography(consumer society),theeyesandthemouthcometotheforeground; intotalitarianstates(bureaucracy),thepassivebackgroundisdominant(theinexpressiveimagesoftyrants
intheiroffices).Butonlythereciprocalgamebetween thesetwolevelsconstitutesthelifeoftheface.
TherearetwowordsinLatinthatderivefromthelndoEuropeanrootmeaning"one":similis,whichexpresses resemblance,andsimul,whichmeans"atthesametime." Thus,nexttosimilitudo(resemblance)thereissimultas, thatis,thefactofbeingtogether(whichimpliesalsorivalry,enmity);andnexttosimilare(tobelike)thereis simulare(tocopy,toimitate,whichimpliesalsotofeign, tosimulate).
Thefaceisnotasimulacrum,inthesensethatitissomethingdissimulatingorhidingthetruth:thefaceisthe simultas,thebeing-togetherofthemanifoldvisagesconstitutingit,inwhichnoneofthevisagesistruerthan anyoftheothers.Tograsptheface'struthmeanstograsp nottheresemblancebutratherthesimultaneit:yofthevisages,thatis,therestlesspowerthatkeepsthemtogether andconstitutestheirbeing-in-common.ThefaceofGod, thus,isthesimultasofhumanfaces:itis"oureffigy" thatDantesawinthe"livinglight"ofparadise.
Myfaceismyoutside:apointofindifferencewithrespect toallofmyproperties,withrespecttowhatisproperly one'sownandwhatiscommon,towhatisinternaland whatisexternal.Intheface,Iexistwithallofmyproperties(mybeingbrown,tall,pale,proud,emotional...); butthishappenswithoutanyofthesepropertiesessentiallyidentifyingmeorbelongingtome.Thefaceis
the threshold ofde-propriation and ofde-identification ofallmannersandofallqualities-a thresholdinwhich only the latter become purely communicable. And only whereIfindafacedoIencounteranexteriorityanddoes anoutside happentome.
Be only your face. Go to the threshold. Do not remain the subjects ofyour properties or faculties, do not stay beneath them: rather, go with them, in them, beyond them.
1. ThetermnakedlifetranslatestheItalian nudavita. This term appears alsointhe subtitleof GiorgioAgamben'sHomoSacer: iipoteresovranoelanudavita, as well as throughout thatwork. Wehave decided nottofollow DanielHeller-Roazen's translation of nudavita as "barelife"-see HomoSacer:SovereignPowerandBareLife (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1998),trans. DanielHeller-Roazen-and to retain the earlier translation ofnudavita as "naked life" to be found in Cesare Casarino's translation ofAgamben's essay "Forma-di-vita" (see "Form-of-Life" in the collection edited byPaoloVirno and MichaelHardt,APotentialPolitics:Radical ThoughtinItaly [Minneapolis: University ofMinnesota Press, 1996], pp.151-56).
1. TheEnglish term power corresponds to twodistincttermsinItalian,potenzaand potere (which roughly correspond to the
French puissance andpouvoir, the German Macht and Vermbgen, and theLatinpotentia and potestas, respectively). Potenzacan often resonate with implications of potentiality as well as with decentralized or mass conceptions offorceandstrength. Potere, on theother hand,refers to the might or authority of an already structured and centralized capacity, often an institutional apparatus such as the state.
2. Marsilius of Padua, TheDefensorof Peace, trans. Alan Gewirth (NewYork: Harper and Row, 1956),p. 15; translation modified.
3. SeeYanThomas, "Vitanecisquepotestas: Le pere,la cite,la mort," in Duchatiment danslacite:Supp/icescorporelsetpeinedemort danslemondeantique(Rome: L'Ecole fran9aise de Rome, 1984).
4. Walter Benjamin, "Th�seson the Philosophy of History," inIlluminations, trans.HarryZohn (New York: Schocken Books,1989),p. 257. In theItalian
translation of Benjamin'spassage, "state of emergency" is translated as "state of exception," which isthephraseAgamben usesin theprececling section ofthis essay andwhich willbe a crucial refrain in severalof theotheressaysincludedin this volume.
5. "Experimental life" is in English in the original.
6. See, forexample, Peter Medawar and JeanMedawar,AristotletoZoos(Oxford: OxfordUniversityPress, 1983),pp. 66-67.
7. Theterminologyin theoriginalisthe same as thatused for bank transactions (and thus "naked life" becomes herethe cashreservecontained inaccountssuch as the "forms of life").
a. Aristotle, OntheSoul, in TheComplete WorksofAristotle, vol. 1, ed.Jonathan Barnes (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1984),pp. 682-83.
9. DanteAlighieri, OnWorld-Government, trans. HerbertW. Schneider (Indianapolis: LiberalArts,1957),pp. 6-7; translation modified.
1o. In English in the original.This term istaken from asingle reference by Marx, in whichhe uses theEnglish term. SeeKarl Marx,Grundrisse:FoundationsoftheCritique ofPoliticalEconomy, trans. Martin Nicolaus (NewYork: Random House, 1973),p. 706.
1. HannahArendt, "We Refugees," MenorahJournal, no. 1 (1943): 77.
2. HannahArendt, Imperialism, Part II of TheOriginsofTotalitarianism(NewYork: Harcourt, Brace, I951),pp. 266-98.
ii. Ibid.,pp. 290-95.
4. Tomas Hammar, Democracyandthe NationState:Aliens,Denizens,andCitizens inaWorldofInternationalMigration (Brookfield,Vt.: Gower, 1990).
1. HannahArendt, OnRevolution(New York: Viking Press, 1963), p. 70.
1. Gilles de laTourette,Etudescliniqueset physiologiquessurlamarche(Paris: Bureaux deprogres,1886).
2. Jean-MartinCharcot, Charcot,the Clinician:TheTuesdayLessons (NewYork: RavenPress, 1987).
ii. See Gilles Deleuze, Cinema1:The Movement-Image, trans. HughTomlinson and BarbaraHabberjam (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986).
4. Varro, OntheLatinLanguage, trans. Roland G.Kent (Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1977), p. 245.
5. Aristotle,NicomacheanEthics, trans. Martin Ostwald (Indianapolis: BobbsMerrill Educational Publishing, 1983), p. 153.
1. Fran�ois DeVauxde Foletier,Les Tsiganesdansl'ancienneFrance; cited in AliceBecker-Ho,Lesprincesdujargon:Un facteurnegligeauxoriginesde/'argotdes classesdangereuses;Editionaugmentee(Paris: Galliinard, 1993),pp. 22-23.
2. The reference is toAlice Becker-Ho, Lesprincesdujargon:Unfacteurnegligeaux originesde/'argotdesclassesdangereuses (Paris: Gerard Lebovici, 1990).
3. Becker-Ho, Lesprincesdujargon;Edition augmentee, p. 51.
4. Ibid.,p. 50.
5. GershomScholem, "Une lettre inedite de GershomScholem a Franz Rosenzweig: Aproposdenotre langue. Une confession," trans.from German into FrenchbyStefan Moses,ArchivesdesScien�esSocia/esdes ReligionsetArchivesdeSociologiedesReligions 60:I (Paris,1985): 83-84.
1. Karl van Clausewitz,cited in Guy Debord,Prefaceii laquatriemeedition italienne de "LaSocirftrf du Spectacle"(Paris: EditionsChamp Libre, 1979),pp.15-16.
2. Wehave translated thispassagefrom the Italian aswecouldnot findtheoriginal reference.
3. Karl Marx, Capital, vol.1, trans. Ben Fowkes(New York:VintageBooks,1977), p. 165.
4. LouisAlthusser,"Preface to Capital Volume One," in Lenin andPhilosophy, trans. BenBrewster (NewYork: Monthly Review Press,1971),p.95; butsee the whole essay, and especiallypp. 81 and 88.
5. KarlKraus,"In These Great Times," in In These Great Times, trans. Harry Zohn (Montreal: Engendra Press,1976),p. 70.
6. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans.Walter Kaufmann (NewYork: VintageBooks,1974),pp.273-74.
The Face
1. Franz Rosenzweig, TheStarofRedemption, trans:William W. Hallo (New York: 144, 5
Holt,Rinehart andWinston, 1970), pp. 422-23.
Sovereign Police
1. Walter Benjamin, "Critique ofViolence," inReflections, trans. EdmundJephcott (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), p. 287.
1. WalterBenjamin, "TheologicoPoliticalFragment,"in Reflections, trans. EdmundJephcott (New York: Schocken Books, 1986), p.312.
1. Ayrtan Senna-Brazilian race-car driver and charismatic publicicon-died in Italy during the San Marino GrandPrix at the age of thirty-four.Hisdeath was a highly publicized media event.
2. Bettino Craxi washeadof the PSI (Italian Socialist Party)from1976 to1987, as well asItalian prime ministerfrom1983 to1986. In the early 1990s,he was at the centerofthe Tangentopoli scandal, was accused ofcorruption, and fled Italy for Tunisia,wherehe died in early 2000.
3. GiovanniBotero, TheReason ofState, trans. P.J. and D. P.Waley (NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1956),p.3.
4. Here Agamben isreferring to the controversial phenomenon of pentitismo, which ignited public opinion in Italy throughout the1990s.Pentiti-"turncoats," or,literally,"theoneswhohaverepented"are formermembersof organizedcrime or of left-wingorright-wing political organizations who decide to disavow their beliefs publicly and to name other membersof theirorganizationsduring police
investigationsortrialsinexchangefor immunityorreducedprisonterms.
5.KarlMarx,TheLettersofKarlMarx, trans.SaulK.Padover(EnglewoodCliffs, N.J.:PrenticeHall,1979),p.24.
&.ThetermestablishmentisinEnglish intheoriginal.
7.Aristotle,NicomacheanEthics,book1, trans.MartinOst;wald(Indianapolis: LiberalArtsPress,1962),p.16.
In this critical rethinking of the categories of politics within a new sociopolitical and historical context. distinguished political philosopher Giorgio Agamben builds on his previous work to address the status, d nature ofpoliticsitself. Bringing politics face toface with its own failures ofconsciousness and consequence. Agamben frames his analysis in terms ofclear contemporary relevance. He proposes, in his characteristically allusive and intriguing way, a politics of gesture-a politics of means without end. Attentive to the u gent demands of the political moment, as well as to the bankruptcy of political discourse, Agamben's work brings politics back to life, and life back to politics.
GiorgioAgambenteachesphilosophyattheCollegeInternational dePhilosophieinParisandattheUniversityofMaceratainItaly. HeisauthorofLanguage and Death, Stan�as, and The Coming Communi!J, all publishedbytheUniversityofMinnesotaPress.
VincenzoBinetti is assistant professor of Romance languages and literature at the University of Michigan.
CesareCasarino teaches in the Department of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Minnesota.
