Mediatized Sapiens: Communicational knowledge

Circulation of faces: from the magic formula to resistance 173 4. The face as ethics From the proposition that we have been developing for some time now that circulation is configured as a relation of at- tribution of value (ROSA, 2017; 2019), the observables present- ed here allow us to consider that the image that circulates is the result of an intense dispute for meanings. What gains visibility is the result of power operations, exclusions, erasements, and, on the other hand, valorizations. The power here is not that of the State or the institutionalized but the power exercised on the interaction per se by valuing the other, putting the grammars of production and recognition in strains. In this aspect, we are interested in reinforcing the differ- ence between the condition of visibility and the condition of rec- ognition. The condition of recognition precedes recognition itself; it accounts for people who may be recognized within pre-estab- lished parameters and norms. The condition of visibility precedes access to the discursive media space; it is related to the notion of existence as a subject. In the face of these two formulations, in the case explored here, the group of children whose images are ex- posed as symbols of life and survival have the condition of visibility, but not necessarily recognition. It happens because they are known only for a short period - the time of the fact, their names, cities, andmotivations do not matter because they are faces raised to the media space to “humanize” political issues. However, such humanization implies an appropriation of “a” face, not effectively of “the face.” Levinás (1980) tackles the difference between face and visage. The face involves rec- ognizing the other as the other. Visage, on the other hand, is the plastic expressiveness that gives us contours. The way in which the other presents himself, ex- ceeding the idea of the other in me, we here name face. This mode does not consist in figuring as a theme under my gaze, in spreading itself forth as a set of qualities forming an image. The face of the Other at each moment destroys and overflows the plastic image it leaves me, the idea existing to my own measure and to the measure of its ideatum […] (LÉVINAS: 1980, p.37).

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