Ariella Azoulay, in conversation with french philosopher Jacques Rancierè, talks about the role spectators have, especially in regards to photographers. It is interesting to think of photographers as documents of truth. On the contrary, photographs could be manipulated like art to pursue one own’s truth.
The advocacy that is occurring by and for the “undocumented, unafraid, and unapologetic” is due to means of the new digital platform. A voice is given to these people, fighting for immigration and LGBTQ+ reform, because of the accessibility through the Internet. The internet is a vessel holding what we see and what we want to see. It is interested to thing about what is on the internet and then what is then harvested in “the dark web.” There is a fearlessness for those minoritarian, often punished, subjects when they are allotted a platform where allies can work together to “cultivate queer democratic sensibilities that are unrepentant, audacious, and fearless” (Beltrán 104). The internet is the place for this alliance to take place.
Similar to Azouley, Jacque Rancierè is also interested in a new type of spectatorship. In Rancierè’s The Emancipated Spectator, there is a new call to action for the intervention and role of spectatorship. Rancierè not only advocated for a more active spectator, but a new type of performance that the spectator digests. In order for there to be a more active spectator, Rancierè argues we need more active images.
“[W]e need images of action, images of the true reality or images that could immediately be inverted into their true reality, in order to show us that the mere fact of being a spectator, the mere fact of viewing images, is a bad thing. Action is presented as the only to the evil of the image and the guilt of the spectator. [T]he only response to this evil is activity” (Rancierè 87-88).
However, Rancierè clarifies that through the digestion of images, the spectator will only be an active spectator, not one that takes action. Therefore, we need images of action or media that advocates for some type of action so that the spectator will be an extension of that action, yet still in a passive way.