THE POLITICS OF ‘PRIMARY REJECTION’ IN HERMAN MELVILLE'S BARTLEBY AND HITO STEYERL'S HOW NOT TO BE SEEN : RACISM, (IL)LEGIBILITY, SURVEILLANCE, AND DETERMINATE NEGATION

In this article I analyse the primary rejections depicted in Herman Melville's Urtext on withdrawal of complicity, Bartleby (1853), and Hito Steyerl's video installation How Not to be Seen (2013), which experiments with a Bartleby-like from surveillance through becoming illegible machine vision. My focus is potential rejection reveal disavowed content racist violence foundational regimes (financial, sociotechnical) rejected these texts. Adopting hermeneutic hauntology, my reading emphasises its publication context amid slow struggles over abolition slavery US, explore connections between Bartleby's strike history lingering depiction an oddly vacant Wall Street. Turning installation, evaluate techniques it proposes for Bartlebys digital age, emphasising complexity mobilisation mixed-footage montage dangers legibility invisibility internet era. Throughout, set two works dialogue leading interpretations Bartleby, Adorno Horkheimer's interpretation Hegel's ‘determinate negation’, hauntological analyses German other texts, current theories race pose question: whom affordable who, like will perish if they try exit dominant schemes legibility? Dieser Artikel befasst sich mit der ʻprimären Ablehnungʼ Melvilles (1853) und Steyerls Videoinstallation (2013). Ich konzentriere mich auf das politische Potential dieser Art von Ablehnung, um die verleugnete rassistische Gewalt aufzudecken, grundlegend für herrschenden Systeme ist, diesen Texten kritisiert werden. Dafür muss ʻBartlebyʼ vor seinem historischen Hintergrund langsamen Abschaffung des Sklavenhandels den USA verstanden Durch Methode Hauntologie soll meiner Lektüre Zusammenhang zwischen Streik Gegebenheit aufgezeigt Video, einen Rückzug aus digitalen Überwachung versucht, erkenne ich ebenfalls eine Bartleby-Geste digitale Welt. Dabei betone Komplexität visuellen Experimente gemischten Bildmontagen, Video benutzt, Gefahren Lesbarkeit Unsichtbarkeit einem rassistischen Internet-Zeitalter zu erforschen. bringe diese Werke Dialog führenden Interpretationen Adornos Horkheimers ʻbestimmten Negationʼ bei Hegel, hauntologischen Analysen deutschsprachigen anderen aktuellen Theorien Rassismus Überwachung, Frage stellen: Wer kann primäre Ablehnung erfolgreich vollziehen, wer wird, wie dem Versuch, dominierenden Lesbarkeitsschemata entziehen, verschwinden? our era ubiquitous surveillance, exploitation extremely difficult execute successfully. Anybody who uses internet, that locus non plus ultra data profiteering, familiar empty promise consent screen invitation take back sovereignty one's life online by ‘managing cookies’ or ‘turning tracking off’. It more than tropes suggest regain withdrawing complicity computational being means providing read analysed purposes profit, propaganda discrimination. Meanwhile, has power withdraw global finance industry which, invisibly but inexorably, relies profit few? article, acts canonical short story, The Scrivener Munich-born media artist theorist Seen: A Fucking Didactic Educational .MOV File notion illegibility unites different media, possibility rejecting injustice: text, are intertwined economic defining US around 1850 Steyerl's, biased regime dataveillance enabled present-day algorithmic securitisation. Moreover, both depict rejections, term coined special number mean ‘a spontaneous often transient yet forceful refusal behave according normative expectations’,1 problematic productive fashion. what follows, link Andreas Gehrlach Marie Kolkenbrock's Theodor W. Max Frankfurt School philosophers developed idea bestimmte Negation as progressive manner ‘reading’ truth independent oppressive logics positivism instrumental reason.2 enacted texts Melville Steyerl represent determinate negations, do not have any positivist alternative propose critique, retain due truths tell about their contexts. Bringing together foregrounds present them, one see crucial challenging discrimination even capable stimulating new gestures conducive less violent shared world. first part conduct analysis eponymous legal clerk famously ‘prefers to’ carry out his work. Critics disagreed real undermine system him, all agree capacity spread unease within it. expands here recent alike argue disruptive force because resistance catching. His ineffable rebellion haunts employer's first-person narrative curse, resembling ‘cadaverous’ presence 1850s Street.3 As Kara Keeling writes her queer time ‘Bartleby’, ‘[b]ent toward redemption “de-creation”, figure unsettles existing social organization things’.4 Indeed, at once uncanny sovereign shape-shifting imitator whose actions cannot thus unsettle apparent order him. Building Keeling's analysis, claim act radical ‘de-creation’, defined potent anti-instrumentality, central example issue. differ Keeling, however, seeking evidence story haunting New York's district mid-nineteenth century: Black people benefit nation's wealthy. For ‘there little [Melville] had […] mind’ when he wrote story.5 Slavery explicit plotline Benito Cereno, 1855 tale revolt slave ship, Peter Coviello accurately locates ‘the most vengeful depictions racial dispensation World, specific moral horror, found fiction’.6 written years earlier, (which was still US's Southern states until 1865) does appear plot, find myself looking evidence, earlier consciousness (and is) going US. approach akin Thomas Elsaesser's claims film after Shoah, namely films neither directly acknowledge, nor can ever haunted by, events Germany's immediate, atrocious past.7 we below, reparative ‘wake work’ Christina Sharpe literary work writers post-slave trade diaspora,8 text holds mind some worst atrocities American history,9 wonders way against contributed riches stages mysterious rebellion, though leaves story's surface diegesis. short, acknowledges slavery, without sensing incalculable unconscious. Furthermore, racism inherent post-abolition law (still effective today) tangibly metaphors asides subtle but, claim, itself. conventional historiography, distinguished modality speculative represented Street tale, eras overlapped precisely moment writing. notes, moreover, Ian Baucom articulates similarities links financial those capitalism Zong atrocity 1781, several decades before 122 Africans were murdered sake insurance payout.10 argues ‘melancholy realism’ identifies literary, historical philosophical published including late twentieth century. makes no references recalling Atlantic post-Abolition only indirect signs how may relate strike. However, Baucom's culture Shoah offer models, while thinking enriched seeing structuring absence centre withdraws. To consider lend otherwise resistance. article's second part, Seen, concerned contemporary refusing legible surveillance. file designed gallery display, mixes dry mockumentary style striking computer generated image (CGI) animations formally-innovative manifesto impossibility after, use term, revolution’.11 On surface, teaches viewers become vision dataveillance, withdraws working perpetually-confused employer. fruitfully aesthetics draw few available under today's ambient systems, admits own rough, mixed format reliant same technologies critiquing. Therefore, close below darkly comic play frustratingly limited styles exist aspiring digital-era Bartleby. last then provocative sequences, invoke practice extraordinary rendition during War Terror. draws theoretical Louise Amoore, Alana Lentin Safiya Noble securitisation, influential studies Simone Browne Lisa Nakamura artistic interventions challenge biases coded into practices today. represents such intervention prompts privileged viewers, wishing privacy, instead avoiding governmentality harms marginalised communities radically more, making hypervisible certain subjects, conversely also dangerous seen. What few, least partially opt networked so others remain unable vulnerable exclusion,12 suffer torture death secret prisons drone strikes warfare? considering view ultimate rejection, alongside demonstrate traces racism's legacies ongoing effects. writing moves relatively swiftly injustices carried groups, Islamic faith, particular women plays role too. groups common experience rendered invisible bias, double-bind deadly violence. differentiation important here, follows vastly aesthetic strategies used complex concern: imperfect unethical leave room escape. Finally, light number's ‘compulsive need refuse’,13 comes expression future replace negated – sense recalls becomes possible engage urgent questions each poses politics complicity: participation? And alternatives living ineluctable ambient, personalised dataveillance? famous 1853 inhabited host agencies illegibility. himself, lawyer small profitable office Chancery district. Without reasoning beyond recurrent, insistent mantra ‘I would prefer (Bartleby, p. 25), rejects some, tasks finally prefers hunger prison rather participate world statement face narrator-employer, demands productivity initially harboured ‘natural expectancy instant compliance’ 25). non-compliance surprising resists meaning and, instead, remains simple complicity. perspective forces readers dwell uneasily narrator's bafflement, confronting us, extension, inability decipher refusal. character start, appears doorstep ‘motionless pallidly neat, exhibiting stasis bodes well first’ pp. 23–4), carries initial automaton, ‘silently, palely, mechanically’ 24). Illegibility defines ‘cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance’ 32. Italics original) ‘perpetual occupancy’ 45) destabilise resolve employer, feels ‘unmanned’ much confused; recalls: ‘incontinently slunk away’ 32). ‘[s]quidlike, upends Western humanism's categories’,14 especially reconciliation notions time, he, ‘reveals queerness time’.15 ineffability brings succeeds destabilising masculine confidence itself bringing troublingly heart orderly office. telling, instance, using spectral language (‘cadaverous’), appropriate fact just five Communist Manifesto, ghost Europe. him ghosts, too, ones local York workplace. ‘cadaverous triumph’ 42) offers us key rejection. constitutively grasp, words, difficulty proves intrinsic strike's potency: there tolerate truth's subjection ideology. This latter quality Negation:16 refuses submit reason; proceeding offering agenda, utilitarian explanation resistance, insists value refusal, Incapable grasping positive utility, narrator understand perceiving errant employee ‘one beings nothing ascertainable’ 17). ‘unaccountable scrivener’ 33), slippery attempts When employer tries character, might ‘hot spicy’ 28), ginger nuts make up mainstay diet. But no: performs calm, cool conduct,17 upsets fragile environs. Critical cultural theorists repeatedly drawn inspiration figurehead systems collaboration exploited subjects. Agamben Deleuze, finds leverage ‘power no’,18 negative potentiality challenges principle operating Political philosopher Nina Power, hand, success, noting solidarity, collective dimension absent’.19 Certainly, opts build community with, scriveners Street, training ‘copyists’ implies ready join even, machine-like, copy given enough encouragement. Elsewhere, Elizabeth Hardwick notices revolutionary degree mimetic power, linguistic contagion: ‘The nipping clerks begin, sarcasm mimicry, involuntarily, were, say lawyer, ‘If you prefer, Sir,’ on.’20 involuntary introduction vocabulary ‘preference’ vernacular office, idiom (‘“Mr Nippers,” said I, “I'd withdraw’ 37)) echoes Power's frustration is, understandable. If worked systematically others, could catalysed widespread albeit that, turn, been easier shut down tear-gas tabloid hatred unreadable unrelenting ‘no’. causes problems boss already receptive presence. another clerk, Nippers, grapple desk ‘as table perverse voluntary agent, intent thwarting vexing him’ 22–3). Overcoming artificial strangely active table, good-enough arrangement staff arrives stirs everybody up. secure control, procures high green folding screen, entirely isolate sight, remove voice’ Even prevented exerting influence. fact, further extends status projectability, created blankness ‘blankly decline[s]’ 39) operates behind projection behaviour colleagues growing obsession ends musing superstitiously prior employment sorter dead letters, suggesting not, while, shake off curse bafflement. bothering inexplicable must admitted, useless disruptive? We seen agency anti-positivist combination readiness disruption where works. These aspects gain concert uneasiness text's metaphorical register racist, laws mid-nineteenth-century Although abolished Northern States, York, published, formally entire country thirteenth Amendment Constitution, ratified December 1865. Thus, emerged middle battle end remembering history. Judith Levine three Fugitive Slave Act, continuation stopped elsewhere.21 Considering deals explicitly ship uprising Cereno (1855) later, surrounding account modern recollection date taken granted struggle successful; allow ourselves bothered ships Atlantic, then-new vagrancy ancient Marx argued, accrued wealth hierarchies slavery. Reading lends seem senseless white-collar Given date, wonder instance whether exists terms ‘wake’ slavery.22 Sharpe, sign diaspora, she examines artworks succeed doing repaired white supremacy imagined. author, feature characters, hence analyses. Alternatively, context, focuses contribution politics, possibilities, pitfalls opacity, incommensurability, risk’.23 respectfully depart despite author workers interested trade, discriminatory laws. reading, returns fundamental symbols past know done agenda story. Then, relation unfinished reckoning people, underpinning thriving fictional rebels. Going grain searching unconscious, content, allows ponder unsettled register. solitude ‘[a] bit wreck mid-Atlantic’ 39), reference importance trans-Atlantic travel generally history, remember specifically forced crossings made slaves. shipwreck flagrant among massacre November–December 1781 became pro-Abolitionists sides Atlantic. crew chaining them throwing overboard pay-out. atrocity, J. M. Turner painting Ship (1840), referred essay loss ground implied preponderance vertical warfare's optical logics,24 treated purely technical British lawmakers, viewed murder hundred routine, legally complicated, case maritime fraud’, attributing lives killed.25 trials bring cycle accumulation long century either rise capital apposite abstract accumulation.26 argument logic governing eighteenth form model now accumulation. He hidden apparently distinct orders corpus displaying realism’: abolitionist human-rights ethics, English-language poetry, philosophy, twentieth-century Benjamin Derrida. ‘Melancholy realism’, evinces folded newer finance, mode include contains plot level later capitalism. performatively blanks screens amass vast colour appearance easily overlooked metaphor Late ponders potentially removed scene committed jail: vagrant, he?’ 46), primarily imprison sentence hard labour States. conscious equating former slaves, in, endemic to, Here, Marisa Parham's haunting, willingness feel uneasy empathy ‘someone else's funk’,27 African literature, helpful. pushes reminding belied Chancery's improbably calm streets. words Eve Tuck C. Ree, visited ‘specters collapse rendering empire's impossible erase national source persistent unease’.28 approaches Parham, above-mentioned mind, trace knows name. They maintain blank spaces themselves memory people's lost