W. J. T. Mitchell’s “What Do Pictures Want?”: The Lives, Loves, and Agency of Images
A methodological tool of personification: temporarily treating pictures as social actors that can “woo, solicit, or provoke” in order to understand our complex relationships of love and hate with them.
Following Picture Theory, University of Chicago critic W. J. T. Mitchell published What Do Pictures Want? in 2005, pushing the focus from the “grammatical relations of image-text” to the “social life and agency” of images. Through essayistic discourse and a wide array of examples (religious icons, advertisements, political propaganda, contemporary art), the book builds an analytical framework for understanding the desires, powers, and conflicts of images by “treating them as actors.”
Core Concepts: The Desire and Power of Pictures
Mitchell’s argument unfolds along four primary paths:
1. The Agency of Pictures: Assuming “Pictures as Actors” is a Useful Hypothesis
Mitchell argues that while we don’t need to believe pictures are truly alive, assuming they “want” to be seen, loved, and circulated reveals the power networks of the human-image relationship. Who is summoning the image? Who is being summoned by it? The focus shifts from what a picture means to what it wants—how desire and demand drive its social effects.
2. Idol / Totem / Fetish: Three Social Forms of Image Power
Images are often treated as “idols” (objects of worship or destruction), “totems” (markers of group identity), or “fetishes” (objects of projected desire and value). Mitchell uses this tripartite structure to explain the cycle of worship and “iconoclasm,” pointing out that struggles over images are struggles over collective emotion and political order.
3. picture / image Re-articulated: The Co-Production of Materiality and Form
The picture (the concrete, material support, like a statue or photo) and the image (the fluid, mobile form that can migrate across supports) are co-dependent. The material “body” gives the abstract “image” a site that can be attacked, venerated, or sold. The “image’s” reproducibility, in turn, gives the material “picture” the power of constant rebirth. Conclusion: To understand an image’s power, one must track both its material and formal paths.
4. Metapictures and “Voicing”: Pictures Talking About Pictures
“Metapictures” (self-referential images) and the process by which images are “voiced” (spoken for) by media, captions, or institutions are sites of theory-generation. Mitchell focuses on who speaks for the image (the state, the brand, the art institution), because the right to “voice” an image determines what it wants, what it can do, and how it will be treated.
Value and Impact: From Iconology to Relationality
The enduring value of What Do Pictures Want? can be understood on two levels:
- Value as Method and Tool: The book shifts iconology from “decoding” to “relationality,” offering four tools: (a) The “agency hypothesis” (asking what pictures *want*); (b) The “idol/totem/fetish” trio for analyzing propaganda, branding, and iconoclasm; (c) Dual tracking of “picture/image”; (d) “Voicing analysis” (who speaks for the image).
- Long-Term Impact: This book, in tandem with Picture Theory, provides an “anthropology of the contemporary image” for visual culture. It is widely applied to analyses of iconoclasm and culture wars, social media memes, protest imagery, and controversies over public statues. In an age of algorithms, Mitchell’s question translates to: Which algorithm does the image *want* to be read by?
This book reminds us that rather than just asking “What does this picture represent?” we should ask: “What does it want from us, and what kind of relationship does it make us enter into?”
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