Biopolitics is consumed with the notion of political power becoming sovereign over all aspects of human life. This includes what we know as the nanny-state, such as health care, but also police states. An important aspect of the subjugation of human individual and social life is the threat of government violence to protect rather than destroy.
As American constitutional jurisprudence has recognised with the First Amendment, the threat of government power or scrutiny is enough to suspend liberty, such that populations are subjugated through self-regulation.
So what does that mean for artists like Bill Henson who has photographed teens outside of the accepted consumer marketplace of selling semi-sexualised teens?
Artists often occupy a place in the social polis that kids do in the familial environment, pushing at the edge and fringes of what is acceptable and what isn't; forcing reflection on our attitudes and beliefs.
For instance the Boudist writes:
I'm not sure what to think. It's quite clear Bill Henson is a renowned art photographer, not some shameless pornographer. I believe neither he nor the gallery intend to exploit children or that the images are indecent. Yet it's an obviously provocative thing to do. The images are creepy. And anything that exploits or sexualises children is repellent. Regardless, the work has succeeded in a way much of the best art does. It's provoked an emotional reaction, got people talking and asked more questions than it answers.But can these issues be resolved without the application of biopower? The liberty of self-governance of polis debate - al-la Australian Republicanism - demands that it is. This requires the debate to be in the public and social realm no t the political application of subjugation and intimidation. Images and collections like these can be condemned publicly, socially and in the polis such that there is real backlash; like the commercial failure of Henson's art, like social alienation for treading in that area. It does not require the threat and imposition of a political power to curtail what should be dealt with in the public and social realm by the polis.
