Alva Bernadine: "The Philosopher Illumined by Candlelight"
The above image, by British photographer Alva Bernadine, resonates powerfully with any reader of Jean Baudrillard. For in this picture, it is the woman-as-object who, crucially, sheds light on the philosopher or thinking male subject and not the other way around. Indeed, despite the latter's obvious love of books, the woman-as-object remains beyond his learning having escaped conceptual understanding and assumed a position from which she might take ironic revenge upon those who would have her give up her secrets.
In other words, it's no longer the rational subject in this photo - or even the photographer - who has a privileged vantage point from which to understand and master the world; rather, it's the woman-as-object, that strangest of strange attractors outside of all traditional aesthetics or games of gender and representation, with whom a kind of enigmatic power lies.
By lying naked on a bed with her legs in the air, whilst gripping her ankles and holding a candle in her vagina, the woman-as-object transforms herself not only into a decorative piece of furniture with obvious utility, but also a work of fetishistic art that stands out from the obscenity of commodification (i.e. a thing that exceeds both use value and exchange value).
Liberal feminists will doubtless assert that, via her sexual objectification, she's been "degraded" as a human being. For such women have always believed in the splendour of the subject contra the shameful poverty of the object; always subscribed to the reassuring fiction of a free-willing agent with an economy and a history and a smiling white face.
Well, ok, let's provisionally accept this claim. But then let's suggest the possibility that, in sacrificing her human and all-too-personal aspect, she gains something new and unfamiliar; not sexual freedom or ideal independence, but a seductive allure that is both monstrous and magical.
In her silence and solitude, no longer allowing herself to be watched or judged, neither desiring nor being desired, woman-as-object - with or without a candle in her twat - becomes supremely indifferent and, if you like, the most radical form of femme fatale. For as Baudrillard says, the fatal is that which lies at the heart of this passionate indifference to the philosopher's desire for knowledge and power.
Ultimately, it's not up to me to tell women what to do - least of all on International Women's Day. But just as the sphinx once posed the question of man, I think there's much to be gained by a queer-feminist thinking of the object ...
