subject / citizen / people

... //

first, over black, we hear the sound of a light rain.

1. a (wo)man's voice

i'm not a poet. i've never moved anyone with my words.

then, still over black, we hear the sound of a sudden organic beat.

maybe that's why they chose me.

// ...

A /

Access
Aesthetics
Air
Alarm
Algorithm(ic)
Alternative
Art
Audience
Autumn

B /
Behavior
Biology
Blitzkrieg
Blind Spot
Body
Bureaucracy

C /
Calendar
Canon
Capitalism
Celebrity
Change
Chamaeleon
Choice
Choreography
Citizen(ship)
City
Civilization
Class
Collapse
Colonialism
Commodity
Communication
Community
Conservatism
Consumption
Contemporary
Copy
Country
Culture

D /

Deconstruction
Defenestration
Democracy
Descriptor
Desire
Development
Diaspora
Difference
Disability
Discipline
Discourse
Distribution

E /

Economy
Education
Elite
Ellipse
Emotion
Empirical
Environment / Ecology
Equality
Equinox
Ethnicity
Everyday
Evaluation
Evolution
Exodus
Experience
Euskera

F /

Faith
Family
Fashion
Feminism
Fetish
Food
Formation
Frame(s)
Freedom
Fundamentalism

G /

G-Force
Gay and Lesbian
Gender
Gene / Genetic
Generation
Gift
Globalization
Government

H /

Hailstorm
Heritage
History
Holocaust
Home
Human
Human Rights
Hybrid

I /

Identity
Ideology
Image
Indifference
Indigenous
Individual
Industry
Information
Intellectual
Interest
Intermezzo
Invent

J /

Justice
Java

K /

Karoshi
Knowledge

L /

Laïcité
Level
Liberalism
Logistics
Logarithm(ic)
Logo

M /

Management
Marginal
Market
Mass
Materialism
Mathematics
Media
Measure
Memory
Meridian
Metric
Method
Mobility
Modern
Mode
Moebius Strip
Movements
Multiculturalism

N /

Narrative
Nation
Nature
Network
Noise
Normal

O /

Objectivity
Oblique
Ontology
Organization
Original Sin
Other
Orientalism

P /

Panic

Participation
People
Person
Place
Political Correctness
Policy
Popular
Pornography
Postcolonialism
Postmodernism
Poverty
Power
Pragmatism
Privacy
Public

Q /

Quantity
Queer
Quality

R /

Race
Radical
Reason
Reform and Revolution
Relativism
Representation
Resistance
Risk
Rupture

S /

Sarajevo
Science
Script(s)
Season(s)
Secular
Self
Sense
Sexuality
Share(holder)
Sign
Sleep
Socialism
Society
Solstice
Sovereignty
Space
Spectacle
Stake(holder)
Strategy
State
Subject
Syncope
System

T /

Taste
Technology
Territory
Text
Theory
Therapy
Time
Tolerance
Topology
Tourism

U /

Ultra
Unconscious
Utopia

V /

Value
Virtual

W /

Water
Welfare
West, the
Work
Writing

X /

X
xxx
X-Chromosome

Y /

Yesterday
Y-Chromosome
Youth

Z /

Zenith

Zero
Zone

(la) mesure(s)

... //

Godard counts /

Histoire(s) du cinema does not reduce to propositions. Yet its investigation does discover at least three points:

The first is the visibility of history in the artifactual record. History is visible in exactly the way that cinema is: in and through shared perception, mutual attunements between monteur and audience, connoisseur and community. There are no hidden discourses or ideologies or Zeitgeister. On the contrary, this mode of knowledge is no less (and no more) intimate than your relation to your own hands.

The second point is the priority of montage to any historical project. Technical procedures of combination regulate knowledge of the past, an assertion that does not entail skepticism about the world but the open-ended possibility of its rediscovery. Against the case method of historical criticism, with its arrangement of artefacts into objects of study and supporting evidence, Godard insists that the principle of combination always awaits fresh finding, as a continent, a world, forever new: “Firstly we have to know the meaning of ‘plus’”. The most neglected aspects of historiography - connoiseurship and other technniques of evidence - are, precisely, the ones that count most.

The third point is the ethical implication of monteur and audience. Exactly because montage asks us for universal assent, exactly because the audience will not give it, asking, giving, and withholding come to constitute either community or catastrophy. Testing these rules of agreement is the essence of what Godard calls a politique.

/ By Richard Neer, from Critical Inquiry, Autumn 2007