Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology - uncopy

to argue for a video of representation. to argue
for a video against the mythology of everyday life
martha rosler
I
Where do ideas come from? All the myths of everyday life stitched together form a seamless
envelope of ideology, the false account of everything thinkable. Ideology is a readymade always
ready to stand in for a closer understanding of the world and its workings. The myths of
ideology cushion us, it is true, from the paranoia that is engendered by mistrust of cultural
givens. But they are not nurturant. The interests served by ideology are not human interests
properly defined; rather, ideology serves society in shoring up its particular form of social organization.
In class society, ideology serves the interests of the class that dominates. Through
the channels of mass communication, which it controls, our dominant class holds its own
ideology up to our whole society as the real and proper set of attitudes and beliefs. The impetus
is then strong for everyone to identify her/himself as a member of the “middle class,” a mystified
category standing in for the image of the dominant class. We have all come to aspire to
the condition of the petty bourgeoisie: to be, paradigmatically, “one’s own boss.” Thus the
legitimate desire for control over one’s own life is flattened out, transmuted into a desire to
own one’s own business—or, failing that, to construct a “private” life in opposition to the
world out there.