Visual subversion and the resistance of matter. The political ontology of a “disciplining city

Abstract

The article addresses practices of visual subversion undertaken by an independent contemporary art center called The Substation in Singapore. The curator project, “Discipline the City” examines the question of social control written into space and material and technological circumstances in a contemporary, highly urbanized metropolis. Drawing on the accomplishments of contemporary visual studies and urban studies and incorporating “material turn” into their discourse, I examine the issue of control in a disciplining city, where the source of oppression is not institutionalized and objectified power, but the material and visual properties of an urbanized reality. The political ontology of a disciplining city encompasses both forms of oppression and subversion, built into the relationships between objects, artifacts, technologies, people and other organisms that unveil themselves in social practices.