230THIS IS NOT A HORSEAs seen in the work of Roni Horn, the actual movement of the viewer’s
body is phenomenologically connected to a moment in which ontological
mobility can take place. Therefore, It’s Hard to Make a Stand mobilizes
this classical, representational strategy for the purpose of evidencing
the hidden interconnectedness between the domestication/subjugation
processes in which economies of care and exploitation appear synergi-
cally aligned. In this context, the blue cellophane that wraps the manne-
quin anchors a context of industrialization, alluding to technocapitalist
economies, which are equally implicated in the production of man-made
objects, machine-made objects, and animal bodies. As Bishop stated,
this is the original wrapping material in which the mannequin arrived
at his studio.^27 The material strips the mannequin of any romantic poet-
ics and denounces it as a mass-produced object charged with a surrealist
eeriness and haunting obsolescence. Simultaneously past and present,
ghostly but plastic, the cellophane foldings emphasize the human/animal
power/knowledge relations that have intermingled over millennia, sub-
stantially shaping those of today.
BIOPOWER AND DOCILE BODIES:
CAPITALIZING ON THE LIVINGFurther delving into the analysis of the dispositifs inscribed in It’s Hard
to Make a Stand requires a disambiguation of Foucault’s notion of power
and the introduction of the concept of docile bodies. Foucault conceives of
power as a productive force present in all relationships. Power is identifi-
able in different ever-changing guises, it depends on a number of variables,
and it is not to be solely understood as that which is imposed directly by
individuals and institutions upon others. In this sense, Foucault’s anal-
ysis of power is concerned with unearthing specific clusters of power/
knowledge relations operating on the social and individual registers. It is
conceived as circulating and flowing combinations of forces acting on the
body. In Foucault’s work, the body (human, that is) is configured as an epis-
temological site inscribing a field of forces, shaped and defined by power
relations that can be illuminated by genealogical inquiry. Importantly,
conceptions of the Foucauldian body are substantially underlined by a