IMag[in]ing annual reports

Pergamon Accounting, OrganizaNons and Sociery, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 113-137, 19% Copyright 0 1995 Elsevia Science Ltd

Printed in Great Britain. Au rights reserved. 0361-36B2/% $15.00+0.00

03613682(95)00032-l

IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS*

ALISTAIR M. PRESTON Universtity of New Mexico

CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT Royal Anthropological Institute

and

JON1 J. YOUNG University of New Mexico

Abstract

Visual images are integral elements within corporate annual reports. Yet, these visual images have been largely ignored in accounting research. We begin to explore the significance of selected visual images appearing in U.S. annual reports during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Our intent is not to produce a general survey of images, but rather to offer different “ways of seeing” images and through these “ways of seeing” to encourage a critical dialogue that focuses upon the representational, ideological and constitutive role of images in annual reports, Our fnst way of seeing views the image as transparently conveying an intended corporate message. The second way of seeing draws upon neo-Marxist aesthetic literature and considers the ways in which images in annual reports may be mined for their ideological content and may also reveal society’s deep structures of social classitication, institutional forms and relationships. Finally, we employ critical postmodernist art theory to see images in terms of their constitutive role in creating different types of human subjectivities and realities. We argue that this way of seeing creates the potential for new voices to be heard and the possibility to subvert the dualisms typical of the totalizing theories of modernity.

In 1959, Robert Miles Runyan, a graphic designer, produced an annual report for Litton Industries. This report has been referred to as the first “concept” or “modem” annual report (Smithsonian Institution, 1988). Before the pro duction of this concept report, annual reports had begun to use the work of artists, photographers and graphic designers. However, these media were typically used in a documentary style. For example, Hupp Motor Car featured its latest model car on the cover of its 1938

annual report. The Chesapeake and Ohio Rail- way Company report featured an artist’s por- trait of a locomotive engineer on its 1951 report and G. D. Searle & Co. displayed a glass flask and apothecary bottles on its 1957 report cover (Smithsonian Institution, 1988). In each case, these images related in some obvious and direct way to the nature of the product or business in which the company was involved. In contrast to these rather mundane documentary images, it was suggested that Runyan employed

l The authors would like to thank Anthony Hopwood, David Cooper, Tony Tinker, Krish Menon, Dean Neu, Theresa Hammond and two anonymous reviewers for their useful comments.

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“images that gave a sense of the company’s philosophy and values” (Smithsonian Institu- tion, 1988). After the 1959 Litton report, the use of stylized images in annual reports developed considerably, and eventually began to draw upon the pluralism of form that characterizes the contemporary art world. It should be noted, however, that while these develop- ments were taking place the documentary style of reports also developed in sophistication, although less dramatically, and this style still remains an important and interesting report format.

A long and lively analysis of the changing design features of annual reports exists within the pages of art and graphic design journals. Indeed, the Art Index has a specific category devoted to “Reports”. Print, Communkation Arts, Graph& Art Direction, and Metropolis regularly carry articles on the design aspects of annual reports. The place of the annual report in the design world was further established in 1988 when the Cooper-Hewitt Museum (the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Design) hosted an exhibition entitled “A Historical Review of Annual Report Design.” Print has carried an annual feature since the early 1960s called the “Annual Report on Annual Reports.” This material provides a rich source to explore the development of annual reports from statutory document to a more visual medium through which corporations may seek to create and manage their images.

Further evidence of the importance placed on the design of annual reports is reflected in the large sums of money spent annually by corporations on reports and the existence of design houses that work exclusively in this medium. As annual reports have been recon- structed by the design industry, so too have the uses and users of annual reports. As Sikes

(1986) suggests, “executives use them as call- ing cards, salesmen as credentials [and] personnel departments as recruiting tools.” The emergence of the concept report in the late 1950s may therefore be placed, and in part understood, within the context of the growth of the consumer culture and consumer marketing in the U.S. (see Ewen, 1988 for details). Indeed, in the design and advertising literature, annual reports are frequently referred to as marketing tools and as a means of communicating a particular image or message. Bonnell II (1982, p. 35) suggests that annual report designers have blurred the distinction between the annual report as provider of fmancial information and the annual report as “a carefully manipulated sales pitch.”

While annual reports are documents central to much of accounting practice and research, scant attention has been paid to their visual design features (exceptions include Neimark & Tinker, 1987; Neimark, 1992; Cooper et al., 1992; Graves et al., 1993). Such a lack is not surprising, for the study of the visual in much of the social sciences remains a relatively underdeveloped area. ’ Social science research, however, is not devoid of the visual. It employs many forms of graphs, photographs and videos. However, such media are typically presented as data intended to establish social facts. Relatively little attention has been accorded the constitutive role of such visual media. Although advertising and communication studies have also focused on the visual, typically these areas have limited their studies to the examination of images in terms of their visual impact and have interro- gated them to discern their intended message.

One area of study in which the visual has always been an important medium is anthropology. Indeed, photography and anthropology run curiously parallel in their development

’ In the accounting literature, the research focus has been primarily upon the supposed reaction to the financial data contained in reports by capital markets. Little attention has been given to the role of information, let alone the role of images, in making the corporation public or visible in ways other than the impact of fmancial information upon stock prices.

IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 115

(Pinney, 1992). Initially, photographs in anthropology were viewed as documents and a means of data gathering to establish anthropological “facts” (Edwards, 1992). More recently, images from anthropological field research have been the subject of a revisionist inquiry in which the facticity of the photographs is questioned and their constitutive role in creating ways of knowing other cultures is highlighted (Edwards, 1992).

Sharing a number of commonalities with visual anthropologists, Fyfe and Law (1988) call for greater attention to the ways in which the visual is deployed within many areas of sociological inquiry, including science, art and politics. They note that “[dlepiction, picturing and seeing are ubiquitous features of the pro cess by which most human beings come to know the world as it really is for them” (p. 2, emphasis in the original). Fyfe and Law are concerned with how the visual has shaped and continues to shape ways of knowing within the social sciences. Our analysis shares commonalities with this frame in that we are concerned with “ways of seeing” annual reports and through them “ways of knowing” corporations. However, our perspective is also somewhat more general, because annual reports, in contrast to data, graphs, inter- views, and videos, are not the output of social science research. Instead, annual reports are a visual medium through which corporations, one of the principal political, social, and economic institutions of the twentieth century, attempt to represent and, as we shall argue, constitute themselves.

In our investigation into annual reports we draw extensively on critical studies of photography which developed in the mid-1980s. In these studies, both the representative and the

constitutive role of photography were explored. These studies, like those proposed by Fyfe and Law and conducted by visual anthropologists, serve to problematize the much vaunted claims of photographs to reproduce reality faithfully and to open up new ways of “seeing” photographs. Our investigation draws on this literature to explore “ways of seeing” into or through various representational and constitutive strategies employed in annual reports2

The first way of seeing we examine focuses on discerning the intended corporate mes sage(s) of the image(s). This way of seeing is typically found in the design literature and business press, and is premised upon the notion that images are a transparent medium of communication through which corporations send messages to investors and the public. The second way of seeing is concerned with decoding deeply embedded social signiticances brought to the image by the photographer/designer as well as the viewing subject. This way of seeing derives from neo-Marxist aesthetics and semeiotics and is premised upon the ideological content of the form of the image. The cultural studies literature (e.g. Williamson, 1’978; Grossberg et al., 1992) generally adopts this perspective. Photographic and art criticism are also important areas in which traditional asocial and ahistorical functional and analytical critiques have been countered by studies of the ideological content of images (e.g. Burgin, 1982a,b,c; Risatti, 1990; Foster, 1985). A final way of seeing recognizes the multiple, contra- dictory, shifting, and equivocal meanings that the designer and viewing subject may bring to pictures in corporate annual reports (e.g. Bau- drillard, 1984; Debord, 1983; Crary, 1990; Owens, 1980; Linker, 1984). These and other

J Although we focus on photographs in annual reports, these reports contain many other visual elements including graphics, graphs, the format and presentation of the financial statements (Tufte, 1983) and the fonts and presentation of the annual report text (Kinross, 1989). Each of these visual elements may also be explored in terms of its representational and constitutive possibilities. Indeed, the interplay of text, graph, image and financial statements is an important feature of annual report design. By focusing, as we do on photographs and graphics we may be accused of being too image- centric. However, we hope that our analysis provides a starting point from which the other visual elements of annual reports and the effect of their interplay can later be studied.

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authors have promoted what has come to be characterized as a postmodem aesthetic. The term “postmodem” has a number of valences, both positive and negative. Neo-Marxist critiques of Postmodernism (e.g. Jameson, 1991) focus on the potential for depthlessness and the evaporation of meaning in contemporary postmodem images. In photography, however, postmodernism has been identified with a specifically critical or oppositional stance toward modernist aesthetics (Owens, 1980; Buchloh, 1982; Foster, 1983; Crimp, 1984; Krauss, 1981; Solomon-Godeau, 1990). Critical of modernist claims to photo-realism, postmo dem photographers and critics have both theorized about the intertwined representational and constitutional properties of the photo graphic image and sought to deploy photography to dispel myths and open up spaces for new ways of seeing to be constituted. Both those who mount criticisms of postmodem images and those who explore the critical potential of images offer insightful ways of seeing images in annual reports.

We recognize that these different ways of seeing are often antagonistic if not antitheti- cal, and this paper is not intended to reconcile them. We also do not claim to offer a “neutral” report on each way of seeing. We have our preferences. Indeed, we acknowledge that ours is essentially a postmodernist position. Our preferences notwithstanding, we appreci- ate the polysemic nature of visual images and thus the potential to find meanings in authorial intent (the intended corporate message) as well as in the neo-Marxist search for ideological overlay and critique of postmodernity. In this respect, we believe that no way of seeing totally exhausts an analysis of visual images, and that ignoring any one perspective or attempting a reconciliation of all three are undesirable strategies. Each way of seeing offers valuable insights that may be ignored by the others. This paper outlines a project for study, or indeed a series of projects; it is intended to open rather than to narrow critical dialogue in this new terrain,

Before beginning the analysis, a few words

are necessary on our approach. We have chosen to adopt the format used in Anthropology and Photography (Edwards, 1992) and so we examine specific images from annual reports in detail rather than producing a general survey of such images. The advantage of this approach is to “concentrate on ‘reading the image’ ” rather than using the image to “exemplify general statements” (both quotes from Edwards, 1992, p. 5). The images we have chosen are often subjected to multiple readings or ways of seeing to emphasize that our ways of seeing are both illuminated and constrained by our codes of knowledge or theoretical predisposi- tions.

DISCERNING THE CORPORATE MESSAGE

We begin our analysis by looking at a photograph (the favored visual medium in annual reports) that appeared on the cover of the 1990 annual report of PepsiCo, a food and bev- erage company (Fig. 1). In looking at any image we begin by asking ourselves: what is it? Given the placement of this photograph on the cover of the annual report, the answer to our question may begin, and probably will end, by attempting to discern the meaning of the photograph intended by the designers of the report and their corporate clients. The image is of a grim-faced Sumo wrestler posed in the ceremonial stance adopted before the com- mencement of a Sumo bout. His nickname is “Tiny”. The image is not intended to be viewed literally as PepsiCo’s diversitication into Sumo wrestling. Instead, the image relies on symbolism and metaphor to connote a cor- respondence between a “powerful” Sumo wrestler and the “power” of PepsiCo’s soft drink and fast food products. This connotation is not left entirely to the imagination of the viewing subject, as the image is disciplined by its caption, “The Power of Big Brands”. Actu- ally, it is rare to see a photograph in annual reports that does not have some text attached to it. This is also true of photographs more generally (Burgin, 1982d). Although this photo-


Fig. 1. Reproduced, courtesy, PepsiCo, Inc. 0 1990.

graph presents a Sumo wrestler in a grim-faced stance, his appearance throughout the report is less threatening. Tiny is posed with children of different genders and different ethnic backgrounds. He is even posed with a dog. In these photographs we see a gentle affectionate Tiny, a benevolent power, who is kind to children and pets, suggesting that the Power of Big Brands is likewise benevolent and friendly. Pep siCo is renowned for its metaphoric use of photographs. In 1991, the report cover showed a family of white rabbits. Its disciplin- ing caption read: “[s]ome creatures show a strong inclination to multiply . . . “, emphasizing corporate growth. The 1989 report employed the photo-theme of babies of both

genders and different ethnic backgrounds. The caption on the cover read: “Forever young: Embracing change and focusing on the future.” This time the report was intended as a testimony to PepsiCo’s commitment to the future. These pictorial metaphors have received considerable attention from the business press and the design literature. They form a facet of PepsiCo’s corporate image and stand in stark contrast to its principal rival, Coca- Cola. In its annual reports, Coca-Cola consis tently employs realist images of youth from around the world and repeats its global soft drinks theme each year. In contrast to Coca- Cola’s more conservative approach, PepsiCo’s whimsical annual reports convey a very differ-


ent corporate philosophy and company image. In the 1990 PepsiCo annual report, an asso-

ciation between the photograph of the Sumo wrestler and the advertising genre is inescap able. To some extent, such an association is true of all pictures in annual reports, including the more staid Coca-Cola images. As Roland Barthes (1964, p. 40) notes, “in advertising, images are presented with a view to the best reading; its meaning is intended to be clear or at least emphatfc” (emphasis in the original). This is true of the 1990 PepsiCo annual report, where there is a defmite attempt to transmit an emphatic “message” and to link the image to a particular corporate attribute. The image is offered to the viewing subject as a way of shap ing her/his perceptions of PepsiCo. However, authorial intent may be misread. In 1991, the annual commentary of Business Week on annual reports specifically mentions this Pep sic0 report:

The satisfied customer is a familiar 6gure in annual reports, and PepsiCo Inc’s latest glossy release seems to celebrate just that. Its 1990 offering features a Sumo wrestler on the cover and romping throughout the report. He’s pictured eating - or within chomping distance of - the company’s Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and Kentucky Fried Chicken dishes. Can this be the PepsiCo that renamed its Kentucky Fried Chicken unit KFC to entice more healthconscious consumers? Yes, but of course there’s an explanation. Says PepsiCo Chairman Wayne CaUoway: “There’s no better way to iuustrate the power of PepsiCo’s brands than with a sport in which a SOO-pounder goes by the nickname ‘Tiny’.”

The above quote Illustrates that visual images may be subject to multiple and potentially undesirable readings. At first, the Sumo wrestler is interpreted as a satisfied customer. This interpretation is then followed by an Ironic and less desirable interpretation of how a company concerned with its healthconscious customers one year earlier would associate its products with an exceedingly large individual. Finally, PepsiCo’s chairman retrieves the intended message by reinforcing the association of Tiny with powerful brands.

Both the design literature and the business press concentrate on authorial intent and a

reading of the corporate message contained in the images in annual reports. In the annual report design literature, phrases such as send- ing the “right message” to reflect the bankable values of the company (Pettit, 1990), to resolve conflicts among external perceptions of the company (Howard, 1991) or to shape the way various publics “know” or “feel” about the corporation (Hood, 1963) characterize the rhetoric of designers.

The “right” message may be designed to enhance the story of corporate performance contained in financial statements. For example, in 1985, after successive poor financial performances and a series of sombre, gray annual reports, Warner Communications issued an annual report celebrating its business through a multicolored collage of characters and personalities the company owned or represented (Sikes, 1986).

Alternatively, the “right” message may be an effort to signal poor performance. The use of black and white photography and images (Squ- iers, 1989) or the absence of images are common strategies for “communicating” poor performance and at the same time signalling responsible management. The annual reports of Pacific Enterprises (a supplier of natural gas in southern and central California) provide a particularly good example of this strategy. Before 1991, color photographs were presented on glossy paper stock throughout the report. In 1991, as the company began to report financial difficulties, the annual report was more sombre, employing black and white photographs. In 1992, the report contained no pictures and the paper stock changed from glossy paper to a much cheaper paper stock.

Annual reports may also contain messages intended to address social concerns, such as the environmental impact of a company or the nutritional value of its fast food products. Business Week (1990, p. 32), which produces a yearly glimpse at annual reports, noted that:

Everyone knows the oil industry didn’t distinguish itself in 1989 as a friend of marine life. Yet the cover of Texaco’s report is a dreamy underwater photo, with


lots of colorful fish and splashy coral. Turns out we’re staring at the legs of an oil rig off the coast of Santa Barbara Boasts the oil giant: ‘The legs of Texaco’s habitat platform serve as an artificial reef for mussels and other marine life’.

In its 1991 annual report, McDonalds included a lengthy discussion on nutrition and produced a menu for a healthy diet which included at least one McDonalds product for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This annual report attempted to counter criticisms about the nutritional value of its fast food products. In this context, annual reports may be seen as a medium through which “many kinds of problems can be resolved, dissolved, dispersed, or transformed depending on how the pictures and design are handled” (Squiers, 1989, p. 208).

A particularly popular way of seeing the images in annual reports attempts to uncover misleading messages and demonstrate how companies camouflage poor performance or steer the viewer away from circumstances or events that might raise uncomfortable questions about the companies’ operations. Lewis (1984) cites the 1983 Mattel annual report as a case of camouflage. As a graphic designer, he regards this report as a positive use of design:3

A magnificent example of using the annual report as a “positive force” for countering hard times is the 1983 Mattel report. The collapse of the video game market - in which the company’s Intelllvision video games held the number two position - created a financial crisis for the company that resulted ln its getting out of not only video games but also publishing, theme parks and hobby products - to raise money. What remains of Mattel is its original toy business. So besides containing the obligatory (and painful) financial history, the 1983 Mattel report features an ebullient, 20 page, chart-laden “overview” that both positions Mattel as the world’s leading toy maker and shows that toys are a wonderful business.

In this way of seeing, the observer is the focus of attempts at impression management in which only the memorable “facts” or “message” the company wishes to portray may be

3 This is not a view shared by the authors.

presented and highlighted by visual and textual strategies. Lewis (1984) describes these strategies as producing “reader friendly” annual reports in which the avowed intention is to encourage the viewer to read the text and view the images by making the text and images easily accessible. From a more critical perspective, annual reports may also be seen as suf- fused with the same fascinating effects as those employed in advertising. Bolton (1989) notes that these effects “threaten to over- whelm substantive discourse” (p. 263) by replacing it with noncontentious images and quotable statements. Ewen (1988, p. 263) observes that “as stylized images and easily scannable copy become a ubiquitous part of our social landscape, other ways of knowing, alternative ways of seeing become scarce” or muted.

LOOKING BENEATH THE SURFACE

Although alternative ways of seeing may become scarce, they are not eliminated. As Sekula (1982) notes, photographs present the “possibility of meaning”. As such “[a]ny given photograph is conceivably open to appropriation by a range of ‘texts’, each new discourse situation generating its own set of messages.” (Sekula, 1982, p. 91; also Barthes, 1964, p. 44) Here, Sekula is referring to something more signiticant than the multiple (mis)interpretations of the “corporate” message seen in the Business Week commentary on the PepsiCo annual report.

The images in Fig. 2 from the 1989 Northern Telecom annual report (a supplier of digital telecommunications switching systems) war- rant a close step-by-step analysis to reveal the “possibility of meaning” referred to by Sekula. On one level, the Northern Telecom images are intended to be realist and informative. North- em Telecom is involved inter aliu in the design and manufacture of hi-tech communication and


Fig. 2. Courtesy of Northern Telecom and Ron Baxter Smith

information technology. The man and woman in Fig. 2 represent this fact clearly and unam- biguously. The man is dressed in a white lab coat suggesting a technical position. On the floor is a blueprint, presumably of a product, and a piece of hi-tech componentry. The woman is dressed as a production technician working in the sanitized environment of hi-tech manufacturing. She holds another piece of hi- tech componentry. The workers, their cloth- ing, and the hi-tech components portrayed in these photographs, matter-of-factly represent the employees and products of the firm.

However, Northern Telecom’s images contain more than the technicians and components. Both the man and the woman appear in the foreground of sepia-toned projections of buildings. Behind the woman, we see what appears to be an Islamic temple. Behind the man, we see a picture of the Trans America building in San Francisco. Other images in the report also contain projections of other build-

ings taken from around the world. The slide projections offer the potential for other possible meanings. Although less whimsical than the PepsiCo report, these meanings also operate at a metaphoric level. In an interview in Commu- nication Arts, Ron Baxter Smith, the photographer of the Northern Telecom images, stated that “The theme of that year’s annual reports was ‘Fiber World: Changing the Landscape of Global Telecommunications’ ” (interview with FrasceIla, 1994, p. 66). At a fairly obvious level, the use of projections of buildings from around the world plays to this global theme. However, the use of slides, rather than location shots, also emphasizes that telecommunications link the world without requiring physical transpor- tation. You can, in a sense, be both at home and abroad at the same time, or you can actually bring the world into your home. Because slides are projected by light, their use in this report may also be seen as a play on the fiber optics theme of the report. It is communication


through light that makes the linking of the world possible. Although each of the above ways of seeing this image remain on the level of discerning authorial intent, there is considerable latitude in this process. For example, the sepia tones may be seen as suggestive of an earlier era, which when contrasted with the hi-tech imagery in the foreground implies a dynamic image of progress. This dynamism is reinforced in the projected image of San Fran- cisco, where an older building appears in the front of the more “modern” Trans America building.

The combination of the realist foreground and the metaphoric background is interesting in this photograph. The foreground permits the company to lay claim to an objective reality. In this respect, it may be said that the Northern Telecom images merely capture the hi-tech reality of the firm. Photography has long been attributed the ability to reproduce objects so that they become a cipher for the “real”. The medium is generally considered to be transparent, and its messages thought to be unbiased and therefore true (Sekula, 1982, p. 86). Such an interpretation is premised upon the much- vaunted realism, or what Barthes (1967) refers to as the denotative meaning commonly attributed to photography. Denotation implies that photographs contain a core of meaning that is devoid of cultural determination; this suggests that anyone examining these images would interpret them similarly. However, Sekula and others (Barthes, 1967; Williamson, 1978; Bur- gin, 1982a,b,c; Tagg, 1982) suggest that each photograph rests upon a culturally determined meaning and that this denotative core is part of a “folklore” which has granted the photograph the status of a testimonial (Sekula, 1982, p. 87). Even the realist foreground of the Northern Telecom images is not a neutral representation of the company’s product and personnel; rather it appeals to a series of culturally determined meanings about the value of hi-tech manufacturing and scientific and technical experts.

The assumed ability of the photograph to “capture reality” is a quality that annual report

designers value. For example, Squiers (1989, p. 209) quotes the annual report designer Anthony Russell: “The photograph is very important in an annual. It is the most effec- tive, real, believable way of telling a story. To a large degree the annual depends on the suc- cess of the Photography” (emphasis added). Curiously, designer Arnold Saks attributes an even greater “realism” to black and white photographs. “There’s an honesty about black and white, a reality . . . Black and white is the only reality” (quoted from Squiers, 1989, p. 209, emphasis in the original). The attributed realism of black and white, despite the fact that it is obviously unreal, is part of the folklore of the photograph as testimonial and arises from black and white’s historical association with photojournalistic and documentary genres.

While the use of the slide projections in the Northern Telecom photographs detracts somewhat from the realism of the foreground, this effect was intended by Ron Baxter Smith who commented that “ [T]he film is a canvas and you can paint it whatever way you want and the first principle of photography is cheated a little when needed” (interview with Frascella 1994, p. 66). The first principle of photography is the claim that it can capture reality. Even though the creative combination of foreground and background detracts some from this claim, the background makes the picture more interesting, and, more importantly, for our purposes, it opens up the possibility of a mutiplicity of meaning and interpretations in the viewing subjects’ attempts to discern the message of the image.

The “possibility of meaning” referred to by Sekula includes the potential to move beyond authorial intent, and attempts to discern the corporate messages of technology, globalism and progress contained in the realist and metaphoric components of the Northern Telecom images. What he and a number of other writers, including Judith Williamson (1978) Vic- tor Burgin (1982a,b,c) and John Tagg (1982) who belong to a neo-Marxist aesthetic tradition, are suggesting is that the level of meaning which deliberately links the image to the cor-


porate message belies another level of meaning. In short, for these writers, it is naive to assume that an image can “simply be a transparent vehicle for the ‘message behind’ it” (Williamson, 1978, p. 17). This other level of meaning is what Barthes (1967) refers to as the connotative meaning of photographs, the culturally determined meaning we spoke of earlier, always inherent in each image, which depends upon the knowledge and background of the observing subject.

Moving beyond authorial intent, the North- em Telecom images may be seen to transmit more than overt messages of technology, pro gress, and globalization; they may also be seen as suggesting that the old order represented by the sepia projections is being replaced by a new age of “postindustrial, postalienation and posteconomic despair’ (Bolton, 1989, p. 216). The clinical, austere, and “clean room” environment of the hi-tech and realist foreground represents the information age and advanced semiconductor manufacturing of late capitalism. The sepia projections represent an earlier period in which decorative form is as important as function. Yet the transition from early to late capitalism in the image is neither sharply delineated nor complete. The set of the hi-tech foreground is a dishevelled decorator’s drop cloth. The grand architecture of the information age is not yet complete. The old, though fading, is present, even if only as a touristic image. While construction of the new is still in progress, the clean-up of the old, represented by the painter’s drop-cloth, is incomplete. This image strongly suggests that the architects of the new world are the technical elite. The other pictures in this annual report are of the managerlal elite who may likewise be seen as the pillars of the new age. The hi-tech worker and technologist are the showpieces or the valuable human capital of the organization and of the new age itself.

Burgln (1982~) notes that meaning may reside in absence as much as presence. In the Northern Telecom images, the presence of the two technical elites is contrasted by the conspicuous absence of the routine or manual

worker; this is true of most reports. Bolton (1989) suggests (within the context of art more generally) that “[w]orking up a sweat is no longer in style” (p. 261). The absence of labor may be seen as reflecting the radical restructuring of labor markets under late capitalist modes of production - in particular, the shrinking core of full-time permanent employees who enjoy:

greater job security, good promotion and reskilling pro- spects and relatively generous pension, insurance, and other fringe benefit rights, this group is nevertheless expected to be adaptable, flexible and if necessary geo- graphically mobile (Harvey, 1989, p. 150).

The core of full-time permanent employees is the technical and managerial elite who are central to the long-term future of the organization and are thus featured in annual reports. In contrast, this core is surrounded by a peripheral group consisting of full- and part-time employees with readily available clerical, secretarial and routine manual skills. This group is characterized by high labor turnover, “which makes work force reduction relatively easy as natural wastage” (Curson, 1986). These lower-paid workers, who enjoy little job security and few or no benefits, are the missing faces in annual reports. It is illuminating to contrast the depic- tions of workers in annual reports with the photo-essay on migrant workers by Berger and Mohr (1975).

Bringing these connotations to the Northern Telecom images takes them beyond the corporate messages of technological innovation and global marketing. It places the images in a wider sociocultural context in which more pro found significances may be read than those perhaps intended by the designers and their corporate clients. It might be argued that we have imposed upon these images our own meanings and have made something more of the images than what they really are. The neo-Marxist aesthetic tradition would argue that such arguments miss the point, as even the intended messages of the report are only meaningful because the objects in the image


belong to a system of meaning exterior to the image. Designers must refer or appeal to this common knowledge about the typical representation of prevailing social facts and values in order for the image to transmit the intended message or convey the “appropriate” meaning. Burgin (1982b, p. 47) further notes that:

Objects present to the camera are akead~~ In use in the production of meanings, and photography has no choice but to operate upon such meanings. There is, then, a ‘pre-photographic’ stage in the photographic production of meaning which must be accounted for.

The connotative meanings of the Northern Telecom images are both rich and obscure. Revealing them relies on a process of decoding the ideological overlay which transforms the image into a “cultural symbol charged with social significance” (Wemic, 1983, p. 23). Bur- gin however does not define ideology in the classical sense of false consciousness. Bather, he states that:

By ideology we mean, in its broadest sense, a complex of propositions about the natural and social world which would be generally accepted in a given society as describing the actual, indeed necessary, nature of the world and its events. An ideology is the sum of taken- for-granted realities of everyday life; the pregiven deter- minations of individual consciousness; the common frame of reference for the projection of individual actions. Ideology takes an inIinite variety of forms; what is essential about it is contingent and that wfthfn

it the fact of fts contingency fs suppressed (Burgin,

1982b, p. 46, emphasis in the original).

The emphasis upon contingency marks a departure from the classical Marxist sense of ideology and places it more in line with definitions of the term found in the new left writings of Eagleton (1991). Burgln is concerned to explore the historically contingent nature of ideology and in particular the way “objects transmit and transform ideology and the ways in which photographs in their turn transform

these” (1982b, p. 41). Burgin escapes the more limited classical Marxist notion that a photograph is a reflection of objective social tenden- cies unintended by their creators and recognizes the constitutive force of the image. In this respect, authorial intent, the portrayal of Northern Telecom as a progressive global telecommunication company rests upon the historical emergence and social acceptance of a belief in, say, the “virtues” of technological progress, production, and con- sumption espoused by the dominant order. Although these pervasive and durable doc- trines may encode genuine needs and desires (Eagleton, 1991, p. 12) their force is deceptive and their underlying assumptions false (Eagle- ton, 1991, pp. 16-17).

The portrayal of technical and managerial elites and the conspicuous absence of manual workers in this image and in annual reports more generally, obscure the underlying social reality that routine manual labor has not been eliminated, but rather has been relegated to non-union temporary agencies, to no-benefited pan-time status, or has been “shifted out of sight, to Mexico, Taiwan, and other countries where wages are low and unions are nonexis- tent” (Bolton, 1989, p. 261). Amural reports disguise a pernicious class structure that:

privileges the managerial class and the elite at the expense of the hourly wage-earner, the poor, and the less educated. In fact, the new economy has been accompanied by a general resurgence of authority across the board in business and government. Upon close examination, we find that the power base of America’s postindustrial society is precisely the conservative business class currently in power (Bolton, 1989, p. 261).

The deceptive force of photography is particularly powerful because of its status as an “unmediated agency of nature” (Sekula, 1982, p. 86) its assertion of neutrality and therefore its denial of the tendentious rhetoric which

124 A. M. PRESTON el al.

actually characterizes every photographic message.* The neo-Marxist aesthetic attempts to dispel the myth of neutrality and provides a powerful tool for uncovering institutional and social relations embedded in the photograph. However, despite the value of this way of seeing, one may legitimately raise an important question. By implying that there is a sin- gle correct way of seeing, the neo-Marxist position contradicts the polysemic nature of the visual. Without falling into a completely relativist position, one may argue that each individual’s act of theoretical reflection may “uncover” a different set of meanings rooted in a different referent system. The universalist claims of the ne@Marxists apparently exclude the possibility of meanings. Burgin (1982a, p. 11) claims that Marxist way of seeing photographs has:

not yet succeeded in breaking clear of the gravitational field of nineteenthcentury thinking: thinking domi- nated by a metaphor or depth, in which the surface of the photograph is viewed as the projection of something which lies ‘behind’ or ‘beyond’ the surface: in which the frame of the photograph is seen as marking the place of entry to something more profound - ‘reality’ itself, the ‘expression’ of the artist, or both (a reality refracted through a sensibility). The surface of the photograph, however, conceals nothing but the fact of its own superficiality. Whatever meanings and attributions we may construct at its instigation can know no final closure, they cannot be held for long upon those imaginary points of convergence at which (it may comfort some to image) are situated the experience of an author or the truth of a reality.

In the next section we examine the highly charged and contested arena of postmodem visual arts. Before examining images, we provide a brief overview of two of the many

valences of postmodernism in order to frame the subsequent discussion.

TWO VALENCES OF POSTMODERNITY

In this section we examine two ways of seeing which fall into the highly charged and con- tentious category of the postmodem. The first way of seeing continues with the neo-Marxist tradition. Here we examine ways of seeing postmodem images from a standpoint which criticizes their contribution to what authors like Jameson (1991) define as the depthlessness and meaninglessness of Iate capitalist society. In the second way of seeing, we explore how postmodem photography and photographic criticism emerged as oppositional voices, and how postmodem images may be used to challenge the ascription to photographs of representational depth and instead recognize their constructive potential. The lirst way of seeing is therefore critical of the postmodem turn in the visual, while the second seeks to confirm its critical potential.

The proliferation of images, the mixing of styles and mediums and manipulation of images made possible by digital processing in contemporary art and design have made the above quote by Burgin all the more poignant. Foster (1985) characterizes the contemporary art world as being in a state of dispersal and plurality; not a pluralism of originals, but rather a pluralism of copies. This “postmodem state” has rendered problematic the search for depth and meaning beneath the surface of the image. Figure 3 from the 1990 annual report of Progressive Corporation (an insurance company) highlights these problems. The image is of an open-mouthed bear

’ The assertion of neutrality has also been debunked in realms other than photography. Robin Kinross (1989) argues that even typography has a rhetorical content. Using as an example the letterhead of the Dessau Bauhaus, Kinfoss notes that this typographical style:

serves as a reminder of the faith of modernism: the belief in simple forms, in reduction of elements, apparently not for reasons of style but for the most compelling reason of need - the need to save labor, time, and money and to improve communication (Kinross, 1989, p. 138, emphasis in the original).


Fig. 3. Courtesy, Progressive Corp. and Stephen Frailey.

contained within an open human mouth. To the right, a raised fork holds a cube of meat about to be consumed by a mouth with a gro- tesquely protruding tongue. The denotative meaning of this image largely escapes the viewer. The image is emphatically surreal in its construction, compostion and effect, and has decided carnivorous connotations. How- ever, the intended corporate message and/or its social signiflcances, especially when the image is placed within the context of an annual report, are difficult to discern. Such images are problematic in that they “both soli- cit and frustrate our desire that the image be directly transparent to its signification” (Owens, 1980, p. 70). In short, the signs in this particular image, and in postmodern photography more generally, are increasingly disjoined from their referent. This image does not so much offer the possibility of multiple meanings as suggest the collapse of meaning or a state in which meaning becomes arbitrary if not indecipherable.

This collapse or arbitrariness of meaning has for some, particularly in critical studies, pro- voked a denunciation of the meaningless and

depthlessness of contemporary culture. Jame- son (1991) in particular challenges the potential of postmodem images to mute criticism and obscure social significances. Postmodem art and design, with its preoccupation with the signifier rather than the signified, with collage rather than authoritative finished art objects, and with surface appearance rather than roots (Harvey, 1989, p. 54) is criticized for being decentered, schizophrenic, and allegorical (lameson, 1991; Harvey, 1989; Foster, 1985). These critics typically argue for a resurrection of a Marxist narrative to reclaim the depthlessness of postmodem culture and for a return to a base structure upon which the foundations of criticism may be reinstated.5

In contrast to the criticisms of pastmodem- ity, postmodernism in the visual arts emerged as an oppositional stance towards the art estab lishment and modem formalist critique. From this perspective, the free-floating sign is seen to have been freed from the “tyranny of the sig- nzper” (Owens, 1980, p. 188, emphasis in the original). In doing so, postmodem photography is extolled for opening spaces in which new meanings may form, new voices may be

’ Curiously and worryingly, neo-conservatives such as Bell (1975) advocate a similar strategy of resurrecting the meta- narratives of modernity in the face of postmodem culture. However, such neo-conservatives call for the resurrection of the narrative of nineteenthcentury liberalism.


heard, and new forms of criticism may emerge (e.g. Buchloh, 1981, 1984; Crimp, 1980; Krauss, 1981; Owens, 1980, 1983). Risatti (1990) notes that postmodernlsm in art:

began as an attack upon what was seen as too narrow and restrictive a theory of art, one that left little or no room for individual emotions and socially relevant subject matter. In other words, the strictly formal interests of Modernism seemed to be insufficient and even insen- sitive in the face of new social and cultural concerns such as the environment, civil rights, feminism and Third World issues. Thus Postmodernism in art began as a challenge to the supremacy of Modernist ideas about form, aesthetic value, and the autonomy of meaning in art (Risatti, 1990, p. xii).

By recognizing and retrieving the critical potential of postmodern photography as a way of looking at pictures in annual reports, the con- clusions one may draw from images such as the 1991 Northern Telecom and the 1989 Tam- brands annual reports are not limited to the neo_Marxist notion of digging ever deeper to lind their ideological content, but rather, to open possibilities for seeing images in ways which enable different forms of critical dialogue to emerge. Here, we are referring to ways of seeing which emphasize the constitutive role of images in creating multiple and changing realities, and which abandon the notion of criticism as based upon deep structures and binary oppositions. In addition, other voices traditionally ignored or suppressed by the totalizing theories and rhetorics of modernity may be recognized.

However, the neo-Marxist critique of postmodernity offers useful insights. In particular, it emphasizes the way in which the art establishment and the advertising and corporate image industry appropriated postmodern techniques and images for purposes that were clearly not critically motivated. It may be legitimately argued that this process has the effect, intentional or otherwise, of deflecting or muting criticism, not so much by limiting sign production as by proliferating it. This appropriation of postmodem techniques and images is particularly ironic given that appro-

priation as a technique is itself at the very foundation of critical postmodem art and photography. In the following section we shall explore the ne&Marxist’s criticism of postmod- emit-y in order to highlight the usefulness of this way of seeing before returning to the critical potential of viewing images in annual reports from the perspective of postmodem photographers and critics.

REINSTATING DEPTH

The images in Fig. 4 are reproduced in the 1989 Tambrands annual report (a sanitary products company). The images are a good example of how the postmodem technique of appropriation has itself been appropriated by the image industry. The images also reflect another postmodem technique, namely that of hybridization or the combination of pre- viously distinct art mediums.

On the left page, we see a copy of “Judith I”, a 1901 painting by Gustav Klimt. On the right, amidst the text, appears a smaller reproduction of a photograph taken by Sheila Metzner in 1980. Throughout the 1989 annual report, similar juxtapositions of famous paintings and smaller and more contemporary photographs appear. “Woman” appears in each image and the diversity within this category is represented through the reproduction of images of women of different ethnicities.

The theme of the Tambrands annual report is again that of globalization. Within this theme, Klimt’s painting and Metzner’s photograph are intended to represent the Western European woman and thereby the Western European market. The use of historical images, it may be argued, grants the company a sense of per- manence or continuity, a robust image of the seasoned and established player in the sanitary protection market rather than the new entrant. The use of fine art may also connote wealth, good taste, and (high) culture. It may, however, be equally argued that the use of the Klimt painting debases it. Borrowing this image from the museum and placing it on the pages

IMAG[Ir\l]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 127

Fig. 4. Courtesy, Tambrands, Inc.

of an annual report is seen by some as contri-

buting to the effacement of any distinction

between high and low culture. It is suggestive

of a relativism in which all images are equal, or,

as Foster (1985) claims, “equally unimportant”.

This apparent freedom to borrow (promiscu-

ously, as Ewen (1988) would argue) from a

variety of contexts may pose “provocative con-

tradictions” (Foster, 1985, p. 19). However, for

neo-Marxist critics such borrowing may result

in a collapse of meaning. The increasing plur-

ality and equivalency of forms in contemporary

images in turn make an ideological reading dif-

ficult and render criticism potentially mute. In the Tambrand images, the collapse of meaning and the muting of criticism manifests itself in

the following ways.

First, it is important to note that the image in

the Tambrands annual report is not an exact copy. Most obviously, the Klimt painting has

the following mission statement written across the top of Judith’s head:

We will be the LOW-COST PRODUCERS in every market in which we compete, while maintaining our traditional HIGH PRODUCT QUALITY. We wiU conduct all aspects of our business at a level that makes us bunt with pride (upper case in original).

Similar mission statements are written over the other paintings reproduced in this report. Whereas, the caption on the PepsiCo cover with the Sumo wrestler disciplined that image in such a way that the connotation of power would not be lost to the viewer, the relationship between the Tambrands’ mission statement and the image of Judith is not apparent. While the text refers, in an emphatic way, to certain corporate characteristics that make sense to the reader, the referent to which the image refers is not clear. Here, we see most clearly that the image “simultaneously prof-


fer[s] and defer[s] the promise of meaning” (Owens, 1980, p. 70). In using the Klimt painting in an annual report, there is a disjuncture between the painting as a sign and any identifi- able referent. Baudrillard, adopting what is sometimes seen as an extreme view, suggests that:

[A]bove all, it is the referent principal of Images which must be doubted, this strategy by means of which they appear to refer to a real world, to real objects, and to reproduce something which is logically and chronolo gically anterior to themselves. None of this is true. As slmulacra, images precede the real to the extent that they invert the causal and logical order of the real and its reproduction (BaudrilIard, 1987).

For Baudrillard, the referent in contemporary culture is merely an illusion, and the only reality resides in the image as simulacra that now precede the real. A hyperreality is generated “by models of a real without origin or reality” (Baudrillard, 1984, p. 253). Such a view completely eradicates a criticism based on a deep structure or foundational reality. While accept- ing the apparent disjuncture of the sign and the referent in postmodern culture, critics such as Jameson (1991, p. %) argue that this “does not completely abolish the referent or the object world or reality” but rather suggests a need for the return to a base structure upon which the foundation or criticism may be reinstated.

Second, although an historical image, the Klimt painting in the Tambrands annual report is used in an “a-historical” way. By being placed on the pages of a contemporary annual report, the Image has been severed from the historical context within which it was originally produced. According to Sarmany-Parsons (1987), the public was disturbed by the image of Judith when Klimt first exhibited the painting. She notes that:

It lacked the polite classicaI aura that usually surrounded a biblical 6gut-e. Judith is depicted as a lasci- vious Salome, a viciously menacing and decadent female, who combines appeahng softness - conveyed in the warm fleshy tones - with merciless cruelty. She emphasizes the duality of Eros and Thanatos, that recur- rent theme of symbolist Secessionist art, which appears

most vividly in IUimt’s many paintings of beautiful but threatening women (Sarmany-Parsons, 1987, p. 40).

The use of this image in the 1989 Tambrands annual report is clearly not intended to shock a contemporary audience. This becomes more obvious when you realize that the reproduction of Judith is incomplete. The report designers effectively censored the image by cropping the picture to eliminate the bare breast included in the Klimt painting which might shock the sensibilities of the annual report readership.

Owens (1980, p. 69) likens the appropriation of images to the work of the allegorist who while laying claim “to the culturally signiticant” also “poses as its interpreter”. In this respect, the designers of the Tambrands report do not restore or even draw upon the original meaning of the Klimt; rather, they either add another meaning to the image or displace meaning altogether. Berger (1972, pp. 24-25) argues that this alteration of meaning is inevitable:

When a painting is put to use, its meaning is either modified or totaIly changed. One should be quite clear about what this involves. It is not a question of repro duction failing to reproduce certain aspects of an image faithfully; it is a question of reproduction making possible, even inevitable, that an image will be issued for many different purposes and that the reproduced image, unlike the origlnaI work, can lend itself to them all.

In reproducing the painting by Klimt, it is transformed. A painting emphasizing the duality of Eros and Thanatos is “sanitized” to become a symbol of the Western European “sanitary protection” market, of low-cost, high quality production, and finally of the company’s bursting pride. The painting may be seen to have been emptied of its resonance, its significance, its authoritative claim to meaning, and its initial critical and subversive edge (Owens, 1980; Best & Kellner, 1991).

Finally, the Insert photograph by Sheila Metz- ner is important. This photograph, a reproduction, has also been severed from its referent.


We are left wondering what this photograph means. We could interpret the Klimt painting as symbolic of a “universal” category of woman, whereas the Metzner photograph might be interpreted as re-presenting a “real” woman. If this is our interpretation, the real woman is clearly subordinate to the much lar- ger symbolic woman. We may also note that the woman in the photograph has an expression and countenance similar to those of the woman in the palming. The “real” woman may be seen to mimic the symbolic. In this respect, the photograph can be seen as a parody of the painting, or as Jameson would have it, a pastiche, which he describes as “blank parody, parody that has lost its sense of humor” (Jameson, 1983, p. 114).

In examining these images, we might also note that the painting and the photograph are from different historical periods. The medium of color photography may be seen as a device to provide a contemporary “feel” to the company while the older painting alludes to a long or established corporate history. However, in contradiction to this reading, the photographic image could just as easily be seen as itself an appropriation of an earlier period and style, namely the 1920s and flapper dress. The photographic image may also evoke an earlier period and in so doing fail to provide a contemporary “feel”.

Rather than adding meaning, the combination of the painting and photograph further confounds meaning. Rather than rescuing the painting from its ambiguity and indecipherabil- ity, the addition of the photograph creates even greater uncertainty of meaning.

Tambrands’ appropriation of the Klimt painting is in stark contrast to the work of Sherrie Levine, one of the first postmodern photographers to use the technique for critical purposes. In the early 1970s Levine directly rephotographed reproductions of classic modernist art photography. Her work was intended to subvert many of the revered canons of fine art photography. It was intended to challenge the notions of authorship, originality, subjec- tive expression and the integrity and auton-

omy that is presumed to underlie a “work of art”. (Solomon-Godeau, 1990, p. 62). However, despite the explicit critique by the art establishment of her work and the early hostility this establishment exhibited towards her work, the very same establishment was quick to appropriate it. Godeau notes that as early as 1985 an exhibition placed side by side a “Sherrie Levine rephotograph of a Walker Evans and - what else? - a “real” Walker Evans (p. 69). In a similar vein, “punk” art lost its political effectiveness as it became fash- ionable ln the art world (Lippard, 1980). In many respects, it is the cooptation of postmodern art as a critical medium by the late-twentieth century culture industry that Jameson, Harvey and others find so objectionable, as possibly do the postmodem artists themselves.

For neo-Marxists, the decentered, allegorical, and appropriated images that increasingly characterize contemporary sign production are seen to mute the possibility of critique. By deploying such Images, the corporation is seen to escape criticism of its practices and effects by the displacement of the real. The corporate world tolerates and encourages the pluralism of postmodem art and appropriates its images ever more quickly for use in annual reports, public relations and advertising (Bol- ton, 1989, p. 263). This strategy, as with the narrowing of sign production, is seen to “block off the possibility of a transformed state of affairs” (Eagleton, 1991, p. 27) and alter existing conflicting economic and social relations. Despite these concerns, in the next section we argue that the critical potential of postmodem art, including the potential to critique its cooptation by the art establishment and the culture industry, remains.

LOOKING ON THE SURFACE

In this section we return to the critical potential of postmodernist photography. From this perspective, the proliferation of images and the increasing pluralism of styles may be seen to challenge the claim that images represent


Fig. 5. Photo 0 1994, Arthur Meyerson.

extant social structures and institutional relations. Instead, it posits that these structures and relations are themselves constituted inter alia through the forms of visual representation which articulate them. In this respect, images are seen to constitute as well as to represent the social. By ascribing to images a constitutive potential, a Jamesonian call for the return to depth evaporates. There is no “real” reality beneath the surface to uncover, no fixed meaning obscured by the meaninglessness of postmodern images to reveal. In the following

discussion, we present a way of seeing (or ways of seeing) which recognize the constitutive role of images in the production and reproduction of reality and of the viewing subject’s own self.

Figure 5 is from the 1990 annual report of Searle (a pharmaceutical company). To the right of the image, a man lies connected to a machine though a number of sensors attached to his head and face. Behind the man, the neu- rological readings from the sensors are dis played in vivid yellow, blue, orange, green,

and purple traces on an enlarged video display of course possible. For example, the way in terminal. The man is asleep. The text informs which the hands fade into the machine, in us that he is part of a clinical trial to develop a spite of their possibly humanizing intent may non-benzodiazapine prescription sleeping aid. in fact be seen to reinforce the dehumanizing To the right of the sleeping man is a bank of and deskilling potential of contemporary tech- controls. The operator’s white coated arms nologies. The fading hands as well as the sleep fade into the control panel as if being absorbed ing man connected to the machine may suggest into the machine. The image is obviously con- that at the cutting edge of technology, the trived and worked on, but then so are the other human operator is increasingly superfluous images we have seen in this paper. There is a and immanently replaceable. However, rather fairly easily discernible corporate message in than developing this theme, our concern here this image. The corporate theme of the entire is with the role of the image in constituting a report is that of “Building on Strength”. The particular kind of contemporary subjectivity. image is intended to represent both the pro- Critical discussion of the constitudve poten- duct (pharmaceuticals) and the foundation tial of images typically ascribes qualities to the upon which the company’s strength is built, visual similar to those ascribed to the discur- namely research and development (R&D>. sive. “The term ‘reader’ could be replaced by The sleeping man is the only part of the image ‘viewer’, just as ‘text’ could be exchanged for that is in clear focus. From a corporate point of ‘photographs’, ‘film’, ‘advertisement’, or any view the sleeping man may be seen to repre- other cultural form whose circulation pro- sent humankind, on whose behalf the company duces meaning” (Linker, 1984, p. 392). Prior’s is developing new pharmaceuticals. The image (1988) work on the architecture of the hospital conveys the hi-tech world of R&D and for the similarly argues that “discourses cannot . . be most part is intended to be realist. The fading restricted to the analysis of written or spoken hands of the operator are the only departure language alone, for a discursive regime is from the realist mode. Like the slide projec- spread across many different types of state- tions in the 1989 Northern Telecom images, ments only some of which are linguistic.” She these hands overlay the image with metapho- argues, with respect to buildings, that “aspects ric signilicances, opening the image to the pos- of physical design are as solid a form of discur- sibility of multiple readings. The bank of sive enunciation as are texts or speech” (p. 92). controls and video display terminal may be The visual is, therefore, increasingly theorized seen as representing the company in terms of either as something akin to a discursive regime the machinic ideal of precision, objectivity, and vis-&vis a visual regime or as another form of the absence of human error or manipulation. discursive statement. In either case the visual, However, lest this image suggest too starkly in ways similar though not necessarily identical the replacement of human labor with to the discursive, is implicated “in constructing machines, and the possible negative connota- what we know as reality” (Linker, 1984, p. tions this may have for the company, the 392). Although Foucault’s (1979) earlier work human operator, represented by the fading rested on the metaphor of the panopticon6 hands, is not entirely absent. The machine is Crary and Kwinter (1992) and Batchen (1991) still controlled by him; he is still necessary to use the work of Foucault to theorize the visual set the controls or program the machine. In and the viewing subject as integral parts of the this sense, the hands seek to humanize the production of subjectivity. Linker (1984) like- image. An ideological reading of this image is wise argues that visually constructed realities


6 Foucauh (1979, p. 217) was critical of Debord’s society of the spectacle. He emphasizes the role of the panopticon and the discursive rather than the spectacle and the visual in the constitution of the subject.


have in turn tremendous import for the vlew- ing subject and the construction of subjectivities in the twentieth century. As Linker (1984) argues “available forms of subjectivity are produced in and by representation” and that “questions of signification cannot be divided from questions of subjectivity; from the pro- cesses by which viewing subjects are caught up in, formed by and construct meanings” (Linker, 1984, p. 392, emphasis in the original). The viewing subject is thus compllcit in the production of her/his own subjectivity. Individuals are both the “subject and object, effect and articulation” (Batchen, 1991, p. 23). Linker (1984) suggests that the subject is “bound in” to the representation, tilling in the constitutive absence or gap so as to eliminate the absence of meaning. However, “[Rlepresentation, hardly neutral, acts to regu- late and define the subject it addresses, posi- tioning them by class or by sex, in active or passive relations to meaning” (Linker, 1984, p. 392). Thus, as Crary (1990) argues, contemporary forms of visuality are implicated in a web of power relations in which the world is represented and constituted through the images which are at once forms of definition, means of limitations, and modes of power (Linker, 1984, p. 392)

represent the normalizing disciplinary technol- ogles articulated by Foucault. Although in the past human faculties and subjectivity were often conceived in terms of the structure and function of the machine, a sharp distinction was maintained between the human and the mechanical. Whereas the human subject was ordered, routinlzed, and disciplined in order to conform to the requirements of a mechan- istic system, modernist theories separated labor from capital and the artificial from the organic.

The bodies in the Searle image may be seen to be both constitutive of, and to constitute, a new kind of contemporary corporate subjectivity. The image represents, and at the same time constitutes, a subjectivity founded upon the individual’s incorporation into a machinic ideal. Seen in this light, the Searle image is unsettling. It is a departure from the familiar images of people working wfth machines or of the more desolate and disturbing images of people working Zfke machines on conveyor belts and the like. These more familiar images reproduce late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century ways of conceptualizing the relationship between human and machine. They also

The Searle image has resonances far beyond those of these nineteenth-century notions. In viewing the Searle image from right to left, we see the gradual “incorporation” of the body into the machine. The sleeping man is already one stage beyond ninteenthcentury mechanical imagery, he is passively connected to the machine. This Image gives way to another in which a body is being assimilated into the machine. The image emphatically states the biotechnical or technophyllic inter- connectedness of the human and machine; no separation is possible. The sleeping man is the epitome of passivity and docility; connected as he is to the corporate machinery. Detached from the body, the fading hands show how the body is being cannibalized by new technologies and may be seen to constitute the disap pearance of people from the field of visible social agents (Haraway, 1991)’ As the human organism is increasingly incorporated into a newly emerging set of biotechnical arrange- ments (Crary & Kwinter, 1992; Guattari, 1992) we may observe the production not only of a different type of human subjectivity but also the vitalization of the machine and the creation of a machinic subjectivity (Guattarl, 1992).

The Searle image is unsettling precisely because the interface between the biological and the technological is blurred. As Crary and Kwinter (1992) suggest, such images raise questions about how the body becomes “a component of new machine economies, appa-

_ ’ This statement obviously generalizes Hat-away’s (1991) concern with the impact of information technology on women.


ratuses, whether social, libidinal, or technological.” They continue by asking “[i]n what ways is subjectivity becoming a precarious condition of interface between rationalized systems of exchange and networks of information? ” Haraway likewise notes that:

Late-twentieth century machines have made thoroughly ambiguous the difference between natural and artificial mind and body, and self developing and externally designed, and many other distinctions tbat used to apply to organisms and machines (1991, p. 152).

While drawing heavily on Foucault for her theoretical foundations, Haraway (1991) invites us to think about what new kinds of (corporate) bodies and identities are being constructed inter alia through Images at the present time. In contrast to Foucault’s analyses, which reside in the normalizing technologies of the nineteenth century, Haraway argues that contemporary bodies and identities are constructed through networking, communication, and multiple interconnections. She argues that “Fou- cault names a form of power at its moment of implosion. The discourse of biopolitics gives way to techno-babble” (Haraway, 1991, p. 254). Crary (1990) likewise stresses that human subjectivity in the late-twentieth century is the “effect of an irreducibly heteroge- neous system of discursive, social, technological and institutional relations” (Crary, 1990, p. 6). Haraway forcefully argues that because of these changing technologies, the post-industrial system makes oppositional mass politics “utterly redundant” and that a new politics must be invented on the basis of a more adequate understanding of how the contemporary subject functions in the postindustrial framework (see Braidotti, 1994, p. 104). Her project is concerned with exploring what counts as human in this postmodem world and asking this in such a way as to avoid essentialism and the biological, psychic, and technological determinisms which characterized nineteenth century modernist thought. Haraway offers the “cyborg”, a hybrid of human and machine, as a possible figure to

undermine the categorical distinctions of modernity (human/machine; nature/culture; male/ female; oedipal/nonoedipal) and for recon- structing (female) subjectivity in terms of a figure of interrelationality, receptivity, and global communications (see Braidotti, 1994, p. 104). In their turn, Crary and Kwinter (1992) offer the notion of fncotporatfon as a generalized frame to view the relationship of the individual to wider discursive, social, institutional and machinic formations. They note:

Neither human subjects nor the conceptual or material

objects among which they live are any longer thinkable in their distinctness or separation from the dynamic,

correlated, multipart systems within which they arise. Every thing, and every individual emerges, evolves and

passes away by incorporating and being incorporated into, other emerging, evolving or disintegrating structures that surround and suffuse it. Indeed, incorporation may well be the name of the new primary logic

of creation and innovation in our modem world (p. 15).

Images like those in the Searle annual report raise questions about the ways in which the visual is involved not only in the representation of social/corporate realities and identities but also in their construction. The Searle image (and indeed all images in annual reports) offers the viewing subject a critical space and opportunity to illustrate and articulate the potential of images to construct corporate realities and identities and explore how such images contri- bute in a fundamental way to the ‘“fabrication of new assemblages of enunciation, individual and collective” (Guattari, 1992, p. 18, emphasis in the original). Recognizing this potential in turn creates an opportunity either to challenge the realities and identities that corporations seek to represent and constitute, or in the spirit of Haraway, to utilize images to rethink our bodily roots and view subjectively not as natural or historical (or even corporate) given, but rather, as an openended project to be con- tinually constructed (see Braidotti, 1994).


CONCLUSION

As stated at the outset of this paper, our intention is to open a critical dialogue focusing

upon the images in annual reports with the recognition that these images are an important means by which corporations seek to represent themselves to various publics. The ways of seeing outlined in this paper, namely those of dis cerning uncritically the intended corporate message, seeking the ideological content of the image or criticizing its absence, and enga- ging in a multifaceted postmodern critique, parallel debates in academia, more generally, and in accounting, in particular. Indeed, contemporary art criticism draws upon debates in social theory, anthropology, and cultural and literary criticism in order to formulate an oppositional stance towards the stranglehold of modern formalist critique. This multidisciplin- ary perspective has resulted in a rich set of possible ways of seeing images in annual reports and of examining their roles in both reflecting and constituting corporate reality.

By way of conclusion, we paraphrase a schematic by Baudrillard (1983). He offers us four successive phases of the image which corre- spond quite closely to the ways of seeing outlined in this paper. First, the image is the reflection of a basic reality. We used the Pep siCo cover with the Sumo wrestler to illustrate this phase, which persists in corporate and designer claims that images in annual reports communicate an unambiguous message. This way of seeing, which we cast in a critical light, is nevertheless very important. In many respects, it forms the foundation for seeing that pervades our culture and is therefore the basis from which we can launch critiques of images contained in annual reports by seeing them in a different way.

In the second phase, images are seen to mask and pervert a basic reality. We used

the Northern Telecom image to illustrate this phase which persists within the frame of the neo-Marxist criticism. Here, the trick is to attempt to uncover the ideological content of the form of the image. The aim of neo-Marxist cultural criticism is to reveal the underlying referent ideological structure and the asserted neutrality of photographic images. This way of seeing, however, is rooted in nineteenth century ways of thinking which emphasize struc- tural and institutional relations.

The third phase suggests that images mask the absence of a basic reality. We use the Progressive Corporation and Tambrands images to illustrate this phase. Neo-Marxist critiques of postmodernism embody this phase. They argue that postmodern schizophrenia and depthlessness are effacing all culture and meaning and these must be saved by a return to the meta-narratives of modernity. They also argue for a return to foundations upon which to construct a critical superstructure.

In the fourth phase, images are seen to constitute rather than merely represent reality.’ Here images are endlessly produced from models of the real to become their own pure simulacrum. Critical postmodernity challenges the call for a return to totalizing met- narratives (Lyotard, 1984). Instead, it encourages a way of seeing corporate images as inseparable from a vast visual apparatus in which the subject and reality have been constituted in the twentieth century. In this respect, images do not represent, they create reality. Critique is, thus, no longer a question of unmasking false representations of reality or ideology, but rather a question of both revealing and subverting the functioning of the collective apparatuses of subjectivity and reality production, of which mechanical reproduction and, increasingly, the electronic pro duction of images are part. It suggests an end to critiques based upon binary oppositions

% is in the fourth phase that we differ most from Baudrillard’s schematic. His fourth phase reads that images bear no relation to any reality whatsoever. We prefer to focus on the constitutive and representative elements of visual rather than the more extreme view of Baudrillard.


and “the play of real and appearance” (Gane, 1991, p. 99). It encourages a comprehension of the world that focuses on its easily manipulated surface.

Our work here illustrates several ways of seeing and opens up a new terrain for investigation. These illustrations suggest future projects for in-depth studies of images in annual reports. For example, further explorations of

images relevant to disciplinary technologies of the corporation, the machine/human/nature interface, and gender construction could be fruitfully undertaken employing the “ways of seeing” outlined here. Such investigations may provide a fertile terrain from which to open a critical dialogue about corporations and their roles within our contemporary society.

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