Seeing Double: Ironic Encounters between Art and Law Karen Crawley, Faculty of Law, McGill University, Montreal March 2012 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctorate in Civil Laws © Karen Crawley, 2012 1 Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...……….. 6 Sommaire…………………………………………………………………………………………………………...……….. 7 Acknowledgments ……………………………………………………………………………………...…....………... 8 Introduction: Irony, Affect and the Law The Paradox of Censorship ........................................................................................... 11 Chapter Breakdown ..................................................................................................... 18 Art as Encounter ........................................................................................................... 22 Law’s Repression of its Other ....................................................................................... 25 Crime, Obscenity and Transgression ............................................................................ 31 Conclusion: Ironic Doubling ......................................................................................... 35 Chapter 1 - Repeating Law: Power, Performativity, and Psychoanalysis Introduction: The Dangers of Repetition .......................................................................... 37 I. Approaches to the Problem of Repetition ..................................................................... 40 Proliferation: Foucault and the Productive Power of Discourse .................................. 40 Iterability: Derrida’s Performativity ............................................................................. 47 Subversion: Butler’s Performativity ............................................................................. 50 Critiques of Butler: Intention and the Body ................................................................. 54 Excess: Felman and the Speaking Body ........................................................................ 57 II. Repetition and the Force of Law ................................................................................... 60 Derrida: Performative Law ........................................................................................... 61 Butler: The Sovereign Conceit ...................................................................................... 62 Psychoanalysis: Before the Law ................................................................................... 65 Law’s Founding Violence .............................................................................................. 68 Exposing Law’s Obscene Superego .............................................................................. 72 III. Repetition as a Critical Doubling .................................................................................. 76 Irony and Parody .......................................................................................................... 77 2 Rogers’ Mourning ........................................................................................................ 80 Agamben’s Mediality ................................................................................................... 83 Foucault’s Reflection and Deleuze’s Copy ................................................................... 86 Conclusion: Laughing at the New ..................................................................................... 91 Chapter 2 - Resignifying Words: Public Law, Private Judgment, and Obscene Repetition Introduction: Judging Obscenity ....................................................................................... 94 I. Writing Law: The Problem of Citation ........................................................................... 96 Circulation and Containment: The Origins of Anglo-American Obscenity Law ............ 96 Obscenity’s Primal Scene: R v. Hicklin ........................................................................ 103 The United States: Public Display and Private Subversion ......................................... 110 Corrupting the Law’s Body ......................................................................................... 121 The Chastity of the Record Decided ........................................................................... 128 II. Writing Pornography: The Power of Deferral ............................................................. 132 III. Writing Literature: Repetition as Purification ............................................................ 138 Ulysses and the Integrity of Dirty Words ................................................................... 140 Anglo-Saxon Words and the Trope of Authenticity ................................................... 144 Purifying Sex and Language ....................................................................................... 147 Conclusion: Repeating Differently .................................................................................. 150 Chapter 3 - Restaging Speech: Theatrical Cursing, Police Performance, and Obscene Repression Introduction: Farce of Law .............................................................................................. 152 I. Onstage: The Collision of Two Scripts .......................................................................... 159 II. Backstage: Unscripted Laughter ................................................................................. 167 III. Audience: Obscene Racism Revealed ........................................................................ 172 Conclusion: Unmasking Law ........................................................................................... 181 3 Chapter 4 - Reframing Images: Photographing Children and Desiring Law Introduction: Framing Henson ........................................................................................ 184 I. The Aesthetic Gaze: Reframing Art and Pornography ................................................. 193 Art as a Field of Cultural Production .......................................................................... 195 Reappropriation Art ................................................................................................... 201 II. The Political Gaze: Children, Sex, and the Trouble with Innocence ............................ 205 The Empty Image of the Child .................................................................................... 209 Critiques of Innocence ............................................................................................... 213 Instrumentalizing the Bodies of Girls ......................................................................... 216 III. The Lascivious Gaze: The Expansion of Child Pornography Law ................................ 222 Fantasizing about Fantasy .......................................................................................... 223 Circulating Desires ...................................................................................................... 227 IV. Re-Aestheticizing the Image: Desire and Disgust ...................................................... 230 Looking and the Collapse of Distance ........................................................................ 231 Fantasizing the Fantasy of the Other ......................................................................... 235 Conclusion: Inside the Frame .......................................................................................... 239 Chapter 5 - Repurposing Signs: Street Art, Public Space, and Legal Semiotics Introduction: Outlaw Art ................................................................................................ 242 I. Performing Illegal Art ................................................................................................... 246 Art on the Street ........................................................................................................ 247 Guilty Pleasures .......................................................................................................... 253 II. Repurposing Legal Semiotics ...................................................................................... 259 Moving through the City ............................................................................................ 260 Public Address ............................................................................................................ 264 Queering Semiotics .................................................................................................... 268 III. Public Space and City-zenship .................................................................................... 272 4 Spatial Governance and Social Control ...................................................................... 273 From Prosecution to Permission ................................................................................ 281 IV. Regulating Aesthetics ................................................................................................ 286 Aesthetic Pluralism .................................................................................................... 291 Beyond Criminalization .............................................................................................. 296 Conclusion: Reclaiming Form ......................................................................................... 300 Conclusion - Law Through the Looking