“Representation” is an equivocal but crucial term in academia, may have various definitions referring to different contexts, like politics, arts, linguistics and history, which often leads to catachresis.But the term itself etymologically is from old french representer “present, show, portray” (12c.), from Latin repraesentare “make present, set in view, show, exhibit, display,” where there is an inclined visual component. And its legislative sense is attested from 1650s. And “representation”is also a key concern in “Can the subaltern speak” ,which is related to the constitution of subject and the formation of class.

Spivak’s analysis is set in opposition to Foucault & Deleuze account of subjectivity , within which desire and interest are unified on Freudian and Lacanian sense of familial structure and para-subjective culture, but in alignment with Marxist account of subject formation as a consequence of class consciousness. The dislocation within the subject is the condition for possibility of subjectivity.

They are actually both working against totalization, but FD’s “production of theory is also practice”claim that servers theory’s link to the signifier is too quick and easy. According to FD, the system of power permeates the whole network of society. To fight against hegemonic power and hypocrisy of reform, the practice and theory must be partial and local.The intellectuals themselves are part of the system of power, which invalidate the representation.“Those involved finally have their say from a practical standpoint. ” The signifier has been dispatched, there is no sign structure operating experience and we may lay the semiotics to rest .So they made the claim that “There is no more representation. There is only action, the action of theory, the action of praxis, in the relations of relays and networks. ”

For Spivak, she retrospects Marx’s essay “Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte ” in Derrida’s deconstructive approach to interrogate the problem of subject-as-agent through the distinguishing two senses of “representation” .Basically, darstellen and vertreten is in the relationship between portrait and proxy. She thinks FD’s conversation blurs this distinction and produces an “unquestioned valorization of the oppressed as subject” through the conflation of “individual” and “subject” and the disavowal of ideology. FD consider the reality as “what actually happens” is based on the “concrete experience” unfolds as positivist empiricism which neglects the epistemic violence and leads to essentialism. Such Eurocentric construction of other consolidates the international division of labor. In Marx sense, under capitalism, objectified labour as signifier points to value.The subjectivity is determined by labour force, which makes it back to the semiotics logic.

Marx touches on “class” as descriptive and transformative concept.

“Insofar as there is merely a local interconnection among these small-holding peasants, and the identity of their interests forms no community, no national bond, and no political organization among them, they do not constitute a class. They are therefore incapable of asserting their class interest in their own name, whether through a parliament or a convention. They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented.”

The descriptive definition of class is what Althusser calls “class instinct” operated by the isolation of the mode of life . The classes are separated by economic conditions, which formation are artificial and impersonal . The structure model is familial “Natural exchange”,which is a “place holder” for use value. In this context,Representation as darstellen is rhetoric-as-tropology.The intellectual is not representative consciousness. “Insofar as millions of families live under conditions of existence that separate their mode of life, their interests, and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile opposition to the latter, they form a class.”

The ground-level of class consciousness in the form of national-political identity is the precondition of subjectivity.Marx is obliged to construct models of a divided and dislocated subject whose parts are not continuous or coherent with each other.Thus, only “Intercourse with society ” leads to the production of surplus value (class agency)and the formation of transformative class . Then, the political influence can be in the place of the class interest finding its substitution to speak for them in the force of law. Here, the representation as Vertreten is sort of rhetoric-as-persuasion.

However, in “18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte” ,two senses of representation conflates in the process of class formation.The small peasant proprietor eventually fails to form a class between the gap from Feudalism to Capitalism since Bonaparte doesn’t represent them but the” the ghost of the Empire”. If the oppressed subject is absent or mute, neither sense of the representation is in vain but creates another form of oppression. The subjectivity is only recognized by the representative as master insofar as it is oppressed, as Spivak says “the white men are saving brown women from brown men ”

The discussion is back to what subaltern is? What is tricky is that only the ones who have no has no access to the political structure or power are counted as subaltern.The concept of “subaltern” only exists in opposition to the “intellectual” as sub- oppressor, so it’s impossible to be independent.

Now that both ways are exhausted.Faced with such desperate occlusion ,what to do next?Is it still necessary or operative to differentiate these two representation? when the subaltern communicate with those who are not subaltern, a process of overcoming subalternity begins. This change is enormously important, as it suggests a possible way out of subalternity and “have been inserted into the long road to hegemony.”

The first situation is the artist as representative intervenes into the society. Though it’s trivial and helping nothing ,re-construct the oppression instead mostly, the artwork has its political significance in some degree. Dennis Adams (1948-) exhibits his site- specific work in the highly-visible locations like station and newsstand to be against the power of public architecture.The french “artivist” JR’s project “Inside Out” put one hundred portraits of invisible people participated in Tunisian revolution 2011 into public places even in the facade of the former dictator Ben Ali’s house though not adequately represented the revolution, it’s a striking effort to re-create representation and transform visual-political thinking.

Artists as intellectuals have an obligation not to disown their subjectivity but to transform the indigenous knowledge into intellectual property visually and have their “voice” heard. The concept of “visual activism” comes to the point, raised by the south African Lesbian artist Zanele Muholi at the International Association of Visual Culture conference 2014 in San Francisco.Her identity is ironic but critical. “Visual activism is the interaction of pixels and actions to make change.” Despite there is “Rainbow Constitution”protecting the sexual minority’s rights literally, the law doesn’t work the way it supposed to be in Muholi’s small town, thus, discrimination and violence ,rape happen mutely everyday.She tries to set her black women lesbian subject and interest in place through her photography work. The exhibition “Isibonelo/ Evidence2015” in Moma gained attention and the movement began subsequently. One is the #Rhodes Must Fall iconoclast protest first happened in University of Cape Town then led to wider movement across South Africa and worldwide.The colonized oppressed finally got their chance to revision the history from below.Art activity as political confrontation processed by the oppressed (though not subaltern) who are awake and aware their identities, is a practice of self-representation.Two senses of representation coincide ,one transforms individuals into symbols of a group, while the other uses that symbol to act on the group’s behalf.

Legitimize the voce of the labour force and allow them to think their position and power they have, which might enable them to use that relative power against the value that’s been created under capital system. Help promote subaltern speak, and try to develop a new way of self-representation. When the slogan “they do not represent us”in Argentinian protest 2001 was raised, the movement of self-representation spread worldwide ,enabled by social media and Internet-based platform like Arab Spring. The participators of the movements are both “individual”and “the people” are asserted the right to see and be seen online or in the city areas through graffiti, selfie, painting, installation etc. It doesn’t mean everyone has to be “artist ”in traditional sense. Rather, art might seem to be the only way to live an otherwise life in the global economy , as opposed to the dominant service economy, especially under the disenchantment of art which makes it possible.For instance,Hong Kong activists downloaded instructions on how to make a gas mask from the Victoria and Albert Museum website, while an Occupy Umbrella—the symbol of the Hong Kong movement—quickly found its way to representation.

The identity of “Artist” remains opaque and there is a generalization of “Art”. Art itself somehow is sort of privilege.Recovering the subjectivity of the subaltern cannot avoid the question of alterity, which inevitably prevents the critic from exposing the reality—what subalterns actually want— that lies behind representations.It’s delusion to set the subaltern free and rid of the world of subalternity. But firstly the goal is to keep open the area of representation to make them heard and visible at least .