Caroline Burgess / SDGM 719-02 / This Is Not a Media Theory Project 1

“A type of word, the meaning of which determines reality and provides the name for all

things.”1 This definition for the word noun lays out the problematic nature of the relationship

between words (or other units of language that function as carriers of meaning) and reality (what the

word represents) which theorist Michel Foucault and Painter René Magritte critique and explore

with their work (Foucault historico-epistemological and Magritte visual).2 In his essay, This Is Not

a Pipe Foucault performs an “archaeological analysis” of Magritte’s painting (Fig. 1) in which he

unravels the precarious bond between words and things to reveal the systems and rules which

govern these power relationships.3 Translator of Foucault’s writings James Harkness suggests that

both Foucault and Magritte are cartographers of the Heterotopia — a Foucauldian concept (in

contrast to Utopia) of spaces in which the bonds between elements of a culture are dissolved,

suspended or reversed.4 Heterotopias are disturbing and uncanny — what Harkness terms (referring

to Magritte’s painting) a visual non sequitur. These spaces dissolve myths and break down

discourse — Weedon elaborates on Foucault’s definition of discourse:

… ways of constituting knowledge, together with the social practices, forms subjectivity and

power relations which inhere in such knowledges and relations between them. Discourses

are more than ways of thinking and producing meaning. They constitute the ‘nature’ of the

body, unconscious / conscious mind and emotional life of the subjects they seek to govern.5

At its core Foucault’s theory is a critique of the way in which these power relationships take

implicit knowledge and makes it appear natural and true.

Both Foucault and Magritte maintain linguist Ferdinand de Saussure’s assertation of the

arbitrary nature of the relationship between words and things, a signifier and the signified, language

and reality — a linkage which is argued to be contextual, historical and conventional, not inherent.6

1
“Meaning of ‘Noun’ in the English Dictionary.” Educalingo, educalingo.com/en/dic-en/noun.
2
Harkness, J. A. This Is Not a Pipe. University of California Press, 2008. pp 5.
3
Porter, James E. "This Is Not a Review of Foucault's This Is Not a Pipe." Rhetoric Review 4, no. 2 (1986): 210-19.
4
Harkness, J. A. This Is Not a Pipe. University of California Press, 2008. pp 4.
5
Weedon, C. Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory. 1987, pp 108.
6
Harkness, J. A. This Is Not a Pipe. University of California Press, 2008. pp 5.
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Foucault’s method of interpretation is a critical discourse analysis which he uses to investigate the

problematic nature of power relations using Magritte’s paintings (visualizations of this critique

which break the bonds of power relations and challenge conventions) as a case study.7

In his first pipe painting “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (Fig. 1) Magritte rendered a simple image

of a pipe (mid-canvas) and below that the words “This is not a pipe” in schoolboy cursive — two

elements which seem to all at once refer to/say the same thing yet subvert one another. In his

second pipe painting (Fig. 2) Magritte further asserts such intentional ambiguities and the

problematic nature of representing reality with symbols by painting the two graphical elements (one

visual, one textual) from the first painting onto a black background (as if on a chalk board) which

sits framed on an easel in a room, now with the addition of a much larger abstracted pipe-looking

figure hovering mid-air.

These paintings visualize an attack on the mystical “sharing of essences” between reality

and graphical representation — a convention in which the value of a sign lies in the effectiveness of

its mimetic representation in standing in for the real thing.8 Harkness continues:

In Saussurean linguistics, words do not “refer” to things themselves. Rather, they have

meaning as points within the entire system that is a language—a system, further, conceived

as a network of graded differences.9

In this same way, Magritte’s Surrealist images do not “resemble” things, as that would imply that

the copy is less real than the model.10 The painter eliminates the problematic issue of resemblance

(of traditional western illusionistic painting practices with techniques like Trompe l’oeil) which is

perpetuated by its own discursive affirmations and its inherent burden on discourse. Magritte does

this by applying a “dialectic method and quasi-scientific thinking” resulting in his usage of two

signs (one visual, one textual) in his paintings and arranging them in a standard image-caption

7
Schöttler, Peter. "Historians and Discourse Analysis." History Workshop, no. 27 (1989): 37-65. http://0-www.jstor.org.library.scad.edu/stable/4288886.
8
Harkness, J. A. This Is Not a Pipe. University of California Press, 2008. pp 7.
9
Harkness, J. A. This Is Not a Pipe. University of California Press, 2008. pp 5.
10
Harkness, J. A. This Is Not a Pipe. University of California Press, 2008. pp 7.
 Caroline Burgess / SDGM 719-02 / This Is Not a Media Theory Project 3

composition. This arrangement asserts a stable relationship between the two elements — the words

anchor/label the image. This superimposition (like a map and legend) is a visualized linkage, a

morphing of code to code asserting that the two elements (each belonging to different systems of

signification) point to the same thing. However, Magritte’s elements subvert one another resulting

in an irreconcilable contradiction rendering language useless. In challenging linguistic and visual

conventions Magritte makes the viewer aware of how words and images differ in their signification

procedures and also brings to light the problematic relationship between subjective representational

systems of signification and their linkages to reality. Magritte’s subversive paintings demonstrate

that graphical representations (visual and textual languages) are autonomous and do not signify the

same thing or anything — they are arbitrary, subjective and circumstantial. Foucault continues:

The relationship between language to the world is one of analogy rather than signification…

their value as signs and their duplicating function are superimposed… The simultaneously

familiar and nonrepresentational quality of Magritte’s images (is accounted for by) drawing

a distinction between resemblance and similitude…hierarchy gives way to a series of

exclusively lateral relations... of similar to similar.11

In exploring issues of representing reality with symbols, Foucault critiques the way these power

relations that govern the reality-language bond take implicit knowledge and make it appear natural

and true. When in actuality all representations and signs are subjective communication devices that

reflect one perspective — they are all wrong. Magritte’s elimination of bonds reveals the option of

creating something different, Foucault asserts:12

The death of interpretation is to believe that there are signs … that exist primally … The life

of interpretation, on the contrary is to believe that there are only interpretations.13

11
Harkness, J. A. This Is Not a Pipe. University of California Press, 2008. pp 7 and 10.
12
Harkness, J. A. This Is Not a Pipe. University of California Press, 2008. pp 12.
13
Foucault, M. This Is Not a Pipe. University of California Press, 2008. pp 12.
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In terms of the discipline of visual / motion pictures, Foucault’s argument suggests the creator’s role

can be one of both cartographer and guide as opposed to sign-slinger, in which the similitudes are

infinite and active viewership is actualized.14

1. Ceci n’est pas une pipe (1926). Private collection. Photo courtesy of Draeger, Maitre
Imprimeur.

14
Betancourt, Michael. "The Semiotics of (Critical) Viewership." Cinegraphic: Walther Ruttmann's Lichtspiel Films. Accessed January 31, 2019.
https://cinegraphic.net/article.php?story=20170930082233780.=
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2. Les Deux mysteres (1966). Private collection. Photo courtesy of Harry N. Abrams. Inc.