The Routledge Companion to Photography Theory, eds Jane Tormey and Mark Durden, Sept 2019

Sandra Plummer Deleuze and the simulacrum: Simulation and semblance in Public Order

This chapter investigates Gilles Deleuze’s concept of the simulacrum in relation to contemporary photography. Deleuze’s account is analysed in conjunction with a close reading of Plato’s Sophist (the simulacrum’s philosophical origin). Theorisations of photography by writers such as Rosalind Krauss are also considered. The second section of the chapter explores the simulacrum in relation to Sarah Pickering’s Public Order series (2002–2005). Public Order is seen to possess a complex relation to similitude and to raise questions about the nature of photography as a documentary medium. The chapter concludes by reflecting on distinctions between repetition and representation.