Description
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,
Pergamon Accounting, OrganizaNons and Sociery, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 113-137, 19%
Copyright 0 1995 Elsevia Science Ltd
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IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS*
ALISTAIR M. PRESTON
Universtity of New Mexico
CHRISTOPHER WRIGHT
Royal Anthropological I nstitute
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, photogra-
phers 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 busi-
ness 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.
113
114 A. M. PRESTON et al
“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 devel-
oped considerably, and eventually began to
draw upon the pluralism of form that charac-
terizes 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 estab-
lished in 1988 when the Cooper-Hewitt
Museum (the Smithsonian Institution’s
National Museum of Design) hosted an exhibi-
tion 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 mate-
rial provides a rich source to explore the devel-
opment 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] person-
nel 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 market-
ing in the U.S. (see Ewen, 1988 for details).
Indeed, in the design and advertising litera-
ture, annual reports are frequently referred to
as marketing tools and as a means of commu-
nicating 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 fman-
cial 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 rela-
tively 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 atten-
tion 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 anthropol-
ogy. 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 anthro-
pology 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 creat-
ing ways of knowing other cultures is high-
lighted (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 eco-
nomic 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 photo-
graphy 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 repro-
duce 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 representa-
tional 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 busi-
ness press, and is premised upon the notion
that images are a transparent medium of com-
munication through which corporations send
messages to investors and the public. The sec-
ond 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 ideologi-
cal content of the form of the image. The cul-
tural 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 representa-
tional 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.
116 A. M. PRESTON et al.
authors have promoted what has come to be
characterized as a postmodem aesthetic. The
term “postmodem” has a number of valen-
ces, 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 contempor-
ary postmodem images. In photography, how-
ever, 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 the-
orized about the intertwined representational
and constitutional properties of the photo
graphic image and sought to deploy photogra-
phy 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 see-
ing 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 ideologi-
cal 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 cho-
sen to adopt the format used in Anthropol ogy
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 photo-
graph (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 ques-
tion 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-
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 117
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 back-
grounds. 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: “ome creatures show a
strong inclination to multiply . . . “, emphasiz-
ing 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 busi-
ness 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-
118 A. M. PRESTON et al.
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 wres-
tler 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 mes-
sage 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 exam-
ple, 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 repre-
sented (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 com-
mon 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 pre-
sented 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
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 119
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 nutri-
tional value of its fast food products. In this
context, annual reports may be seen as a med-
ium through which “many kinds of problems
can be resolved, dissolved, dispersed, or trans-
formed 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 ques-
tions 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 “mes-
sage” 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 strate-
gies 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 perspec-
tive, 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 multi-
ple (mis)interpretations of the “corporate”
message seen in the Business Week commen-
tary 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
120 A. M. PRESTON et al .
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 con-
tain more than the technicians and compo-
nents. 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 possi-
ble 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 photogra-
pher 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 actu-
ally 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
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 121
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 consider-
able 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 rea-
lity 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 transpar-
ent, 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 attrib-
uted 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 deter-
mined 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 some-
what 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 fore-
ground 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 meta-
phoric components of the Northern Telecom
images. What he and a number of other wri-
ters, including Judith Williamson (1978) Vic-
tor Burgin (1982a,b,c) and John Tagg (1982)
who belong to a neo-Marxist aesthetic tradi-
tion, are suggesting is that the level of meaning
which deliberately links the image to the cor-
122 A. M. PRESTON et al.
porate message belies another level of mean-
ing. In short, for these writers, it is naive to
assume that an image can “simply be a trans-
parent 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 cul-
turally determined meaning we spoke of ear-
lier, 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” envir-
onment of the hi-tech and realist foreground
represents the information age and advanced
semiconductor manufacturing of late capital-
ism. The sepia projections represent an earlier
period in which decorative form is as impor-
tant 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 informa-
tion 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, repre-
sented by the painter’s drop-cloth, is incom-
plete. 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 con-
spicuous 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 capi-
talist modes of production - in particular, the
shrinking core of full-time permanent employ-
ees 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 cen-
tral to the long-term future of the organization
and are thus featured in annual reports. In con-
trast, this core is surrounded by a peripheral
group consisting of full- and part-time employ-
ees with readily available clerical, secretarial
and routine manual skills. This group is charac-
terized 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 corpo-
rate 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
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 123
belong to a system of meaning exterior to the
image. Designers must refer or appeal to this
common knowledge about the typical repre-
sentation 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 depar-
ture from the classical Marxist sense of ideol-
ogy 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 photo-
graph 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 por-
trayal 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 conser-
vative business class currently in power (Bolton, 1989,
p. 261).
The deceptive force of photography is parti-
cularly 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 mes-
sage.* 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 impor-
tant 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 photo-
graphs has:
not yet succeeded in breaking clear of the gravitational
field of nineteenthcentury thinking: thinking domi-
nated by a metaphor or depth, i n which the surface of
the photograph is viewed as the projection of some-
thing 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 -
‘real i ty’ 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 experi-
ence 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 pro-
vide 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 see-
ing 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 depthless-
ness and meaninglessness of Iate capitalist
society. In the second way of seeing, we
explore how postmodem photography and
photographic criticism emerged as opposi-
tional 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 “postmod-
em state” has rendered problematic the
search for depth and meaning beneath the sur-
face of the image. Figure 3 from the 1990
annual report of Progressive Corporation (an
insurance company) highlights these pro-
blems. 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, apparentl y 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).
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 125
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 poten-
tial 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 col-
lage rather than authoritative finished art
objects, and with surface appearance rather
than roots (Harvey, 1989, p. 54) is criticized
for being decentered, schizophrenic, and alle-
gorical (lameson, 1991; Harvey, 1989; Foster,
1985). These critics typically argue for a resur-
rection of a Marxist narrative to reclaim the
depthlessness of postmodem culture and for a
return to a base structure upon which the foun-
dations 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 photogra-
phy 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.
126 A. M. PRESTON et al.
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 sub-
ject 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 mean-
ing in art (Risatti, 1990, p. xii).
By recognizing and retrieving the critical poten-
tial 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 dialo-
gue to emerge. Here, we are referring to ways
of seeing which emphasize the constitutive
role of images in creating multiple and chan-
ging 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 moder-
nity may be recognized.
However, the neo-Marxist critique of post-
modernity offers useful insights. In particular,
it emphasizes the way in which the art estab-
lishment and the advertising and corporate
image industry appropriated postmodern tech-
niques and images for purposes that were
clearly not critically motivated. It may be legiti-
mately argued that this process has the effect,
intentional or otherwise, of deflecting or mut-
ing criticism, not so much by limiting sign pro-
duction 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 foun-
dation 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 cri-
tical 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 pro-
ducts company). The images are a good exam-
ple 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, simi-
lar juxtapositions of famous paintings and smal-
ler and more contemporary photographs
appear. “Woman” appears in each image and
the diversity within this category is repre-
sented 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 relation-
ship between the Tambrands’ mission state-
ment 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-
128 A. M. PRESTON et al .
fer and defer the promise of meaning”
(Owens, 1980, p. 70). In using the Klimt paint-
ing 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 rea-
lity 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 com-
pletely 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 origin-
ally produced. According to Sarmany-Parsons
(1987), the public was disturbed by the image
of Judith when Klimt first exhibited the paint-
ing. She notes that:
It lacked the polite classicaI aura that usually sur-
rounded 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 reproduc-
tion 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 signiti-
cant” 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 inevi-
table:
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 possi-
ble, 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 trans-
formed. A painting emphasizing the duality of
Eros and Thanatos is “sanitized” to become a
symbol of the Western European “sanitary pro-
tection” market, of low-cost, high quality pro-
duction, 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 reproduc-
tion, has also been severed from its referent.
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 129
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 expres-
sion 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 par-
ody 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 com-
pany 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 photo-
graphic image may also evoke an earlier period
and in so doing fail to provide a contemporary
“feel”.
Rather than adding meaning, the combina-
tion 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 paint-
ing is in stark contrast to the work of Sherrie
Levine, one of the first postmodern photogra-
phers to use the technique for critical pur-
poses. In the early 1970s Levine directly
rephotographed reproductions of classic mod-
ernist 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 establish-
ment 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 postmod-
ern art as a critical medium by the late-twen-
tieth 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 char-
acterize 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 rela-
tions. Despite these concerns, in the next sec-
tion we argue that the critical potential of
postmodem art, including the potential to cri-
tique its cooptation by the art establishment
and the culture industry, remains.
LOOKING ON THE SURFACE
In this section we return to the critical poten-
tial 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
130 A. M. PRESTON et al.
Fig. 5. Photo 0 1994, Arthur Meyerson.
extant social structures and institutional rela-
tions. Instead, it posits that these structures
and relations are themselves constituted i nter
al i a 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 mean-
ing obscured by the meaninglessness of post-
modern i mages to reveal. In the following
discussion, we present a way of seeing (or
ways of seeing) which recognize the constitu-
tive role of images in the production and repro-
duction 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
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 131
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.
132 A. M. PRESTON et al.
have in turn tremendous import for the vlew-
ing subject and the construction of subjectiv-
ities in the twentieth century. As Linker (1984)
argues “available forms of subjectivity are pro-
duced 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 i n, formed by and construct meani ngs”
(Linker, 1984, p. 392, emphasis in the origi-
nal). 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, contem-
porary 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 subjectiv-
ity. 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 relation-
ship 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 assi mi l ated
i nto 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 technol-
ogies 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.
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 133
ratuses, whether social, libidinal, or technolo-
gical.” They continue by asking “n what
ways is subjectivity becoming a precarious con-
dition of interface between rationalized sys-
tems 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 the-
oretical foundations, Haraway (1991) invites us
to think about what new kinds of (corporate)
bodies and identities are being constructed
i nter al i a through Images at the present time.
In contrast to Foucault’s analyses, which reside
in the normalizing technologies of the nine-
teenth century, Haraway argues that contem-
porary bodies and identities are constructed
through networking, communication, and mul-
tiple 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 cen-
tury 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 post-
industrial 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 character-
ized nineteenth century modernist thought.
Haraway offers the “cyborg”, a hybrid of
human and machine, as a possible figure to
undermine the categorical distinctions of mod-
ernity (human/machine; nature/culture; male/
female; oedipal/nonoedipal) and for recon-
structing (female) subjectivity in terms of a fig-
ure 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 struc-
tures that surround and suffuse it. Indeed, incorpora-
tion 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 representa-
tion 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 oppor-
tunity 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 assembl ages 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).
134 A. M. PRESTON et al
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 see-
ing 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, con-
temporary art criticism draws upon debates in
social theory, anthropology, and cultural and
literary criticism in order to formulate an oppo-
sitional 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 sche-
matic by Baudrillard (1983). He offers us four
successive phases of the image which corre-
spond quite closely to the ways of seeing out-
lined in this paper. First, the image is the
refl ecti on of a basi c 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 basi c real i ty. 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 cen-
tury ways of thinking which emphasize struc-
tural and institutional relations.
The third phase suggests that images mask
the absence of a basi c real i ty. We use the
Progressive Corporation and Tambrands
images to illustrate this phase. Neo-Marxist cri-
tiques 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 con-
sti tute rather than merel y represent real i ty.’
Here images are endlessly produced from
models of the real to become their own
pure simulacrum. Critical postmodernity chal-
lenges 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 con-
stituted 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 repro-
duction 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.
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 135
and “the play of real and appearance” (Gane,
1991, p. 99). It encourages a comprehension
of the world that focuses on its easily manipu-
lated surface.
Our work here illustrates several ways of
seeing and opens up a new terrain for investi-
gation. These illustrations suggest future pro-
jects 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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doc_936211253.pdf
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,
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 I nstitute
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, photogra-
phers 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 busi-
ness 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.
113
114 A. M. PRESTON et al
“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 devel-
oped considerably, and eventually began to
draw upon the pluralism of form that charac-
terizes 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 estab-
lished in 1988 when the Cooper-Hewitt
Museum (the Smithsonian Institution’s
National Museum of Design) hosted an exhibi-
tion 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 mate-
rial provides a rich source to explore the devel-
opment 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] person-
nel 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 market-
ing in the U.S. (see Ewen, 1988 for details).
Indeed, in the design and advertising litera-
ture, annual reports are frequently referred to
as marketing tools and as a means of commu-
nicating 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 fman-
cial 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 rela-
tively 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 atten-
tion 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 anthropol-
ogy. 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 anthro-
pology 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 creat-
ing ways of knowing other cultures is high-
lighted (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 eco-
nomic 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 photo-
graphy 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 repro-
duce 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 representa-
tional 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 busi-
ness press, and is premised upon the notion
that images are a transparent medium of com-
munication through which corporations send
messages to investors and the public. The sec-
ond 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 ideologi-
cal content of the form of the image. The cul-
tural 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 representa-
tional 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.
116 A. M. PRESTON et al.
authors have promoted what has come to be
characterized as a postmodem aesthetic. The
term “postmodem” has a number of valen-
ces, 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 contempor-
ary postmodem images. In photography, how-
ever, 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 the-
orized about the intertwined representational
and constitutional properties of the photo
graphic image and sought to deploy photogra-
phy 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 see-
ing 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 ideologi-
cal 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 cho-
sen to adopt the format used in Anthropol ogy
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 photo-
graph (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 ques-
tion 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-
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 117
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 back-
grounds. 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: “
strong inclination to multiply . . . “, emphasiz-
ing 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 busi-
ness 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-
118 A. M. PRESTON et al.
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 wres-
tler 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 mes-
sage 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 exam-
ple, 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 repre-
sented (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 com-
mon 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 pre-
sented 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
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 119
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 nutri-
tional value of its fast food products. In this
context, annual reports may be seen as a med-
ium through which “many kinds of problems
can be resolved, dissolved, dispersed, or trans-
formed 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 ques-
tions 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 “mes-
sage” 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 strate-
gies 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 perspec-
tive, 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 multi-
ple (mis)interpretations of the “corporate”
message seen in the Business Week commen-
tary 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
120 A. M. PRESTON et al .
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 con-
tain more than the technicians and compo-
nents. 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 possi-
ble 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 photogra-
pher 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 actu-
ally 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
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 121
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 consider-
able 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 rea-
lity 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 transpar-
ent, 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 attrib-
uted 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 deter-
mined 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 some-
what 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 fore-
ground 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 meta-
phoric components of the Northern Telecom
images. What he and a number of other wri-
ters, including Judith Williamson (1978) Vic-
tor Burgin (1982a,b,c) and John Tagg (1982)
who belong to a neo-Marxist aesthetic tradi-
tion, are suggesting is that the level of meaning
which deliberately links the image to the cor-
122 A. M. PRESTON et al.
porate message belies another level of mean-
ing. In short, for these writers, it is naive to
assume that an image can “simply be a trans-
parent 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 cul-
turally determined meaning we spoke of ear-
lier, 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” envir-
onment of the hi-tech and realist foreground
represents the information age and advanced
semiconductor manufacturing of late capital-
ism. The sepia projections represent an earlier
period in which decorative form is as impor-
tant 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 informa-
tion 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, repre-
sented by the painter’s drop-cloth, is incom-
plete. 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 con-
spicuous 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 capi-
talist modes of production - in particular, the
shrinking core of full-time permanent employ-
ees 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 cen-
tral to the long-term future of the organization
and are thus featured in annual reports. In con-
trast, this core is surrounded by a peripheral
group consisting of full- and part-time employ-
ees with readily available clerical, secretarial
and routine manual skills. This group is charac-
terized 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 corpo-
rate 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
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 123
belong to a system of meaning exterior to the
image. Designers must refer or appeal to this
common knowledge about the typical repre-
sentation 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 depar-
ture from the classical Marxist sense of ideol-
ogy 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 photo-
graph 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 por-
trayal 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 conser-
vative business class currently in power (Bolton, 1989,
p. 261).
The deceptive force of photography is parti-
cularly 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 mes-
sage.* 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 impor-
tant 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 photo-
graphs has:
not yet succeeded in breaking clear of the gravitational
field of nineteenthcentury thinking: thinking domi-
nated by a metaphor or depth, i n which the surface of
the photograph is viewed as the projection of some-
thing 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 -
‘real i ty’ 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 experi-
ence 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 pro-
vide 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 see-
ing 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 depthless-
ness and meaninglessness of Iate capitalist
society. In the second way of seeing, we
explore how postmodem photography and
photographic criticism emerged as opposi-
tional 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 “postmod-
em state” has rendered problematic the
search for depth and meaning beneath the sur-
face of the image. Figure 3 from the 1990
annual report of Progressive Corporation (an
insurance company) highlights these pro-
blems. 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, apparentl y 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).
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 125
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 poten-
tial 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 col-
lage rather than authoritative finished art
objects, and with surface appearance rather
than roots (Harvey, 1989, p. 54) is criticized
for being decentered, schizophrenic, and alle-
gorical (lameson, 1991; Harvey, 1989; Foster,
1985). These critics typically argue for a resur-
rection of a Marxist narrative to reclaim the
depthlessness of postmodem culture and for a
return to a base structure upon which the foun-
dations 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 photogra-
phy 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.
126 A. M. PRESTON et al.
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 sub-
ject 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 mean-
ing in art (Risatti, 1990, p. xii).
By recognizing and retrieving the critical poten-
tial 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 dialo-
gue to emerge. Here, we are referring to ways
of seeing which emphasize the constitutive
role of images in creating multiple and chan-
ging 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 moder-
nity may be recognized.
However, the neo-Marxist critique of post-
modernity offers useful insights. In particular,
it emphasizes the way in which the art estab-
lishment and the advertising and corporate
image industry appropriated postmodern tech-
niques and images for purposes that were
clearly not critically motivated. It may be legiti-
mately argued that this process has the effect,
intentional or otherwise, of deflecting or mut-
ing criticism, not so much by limiting sign pro-
duction 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 foun-
dation 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 cri-
tical 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 pro-
ducts company). The images are a good exam-
ple 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, simi-
lar juxtapositions of famous paintings and smal-
ler and more contemporary photographs
appear. “Woman” appears in each image and
the diversity within this category is repre-
sented 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 relation-
ship between the Tambrands’ mission state-
ment 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-
128 A. M. PRESTON et al .
fer
(Owens, 1980, p. 70). In using the Klimt paint-
ing 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 rea-
lity 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 com-
pletely 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 origin-
ally produced. According to Sarmany-Parsons
(1987), the public was disturbed by the image
of Judith when Klimt first exhibited the paint-
ing. She notes that:
It lacked the polite classicaI aura that usually sur-
rounded 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 reproduc-
tion 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 signiti-
cant” 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 inevi-
table:
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 possi-
ble, 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 trans-
formed. A painting emphasizing the duality of
Eros and Thanatos is “sanitized” to become a
symbol of the Western European “sanitary pro-
tection” market, of low-cost, high quality pro-
duction, 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 reproduc-
tion, has also been severed from its referent.
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 129
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 expres-
sion 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 par-
ody 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 com-
pany 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 photo-
graphic image may also evoke an earlier period
and in so doing fail to provide a contemporary
“feel”.
Rather than adding meaning, the combina-
tion 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 paint-
ing is in stark contrast to the work of Sherrie
Levine, one of the first postmodern photogra-
phers to use the technique for critical pur-
poses. In the early 1970s Levine directly
rephotographed reproductions of classic mod-
ernist 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 establish-
ment 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 postmod-
ern art as a critical medium by the late-twen-
tieth 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 char-
acterize 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 rela-
tions. Despite these concerns, in the next sec-
tion we argue that the critical potential of
postmodem art, including the potential to cri-
tique its cooptation by the art establishment
and the culture industry, remains.
LOOKING ON THE SURFACE
In this section we return to the critical poten-
tial 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
130 A. M. PRESTON et al.
Fig. 5. Photo 0 1994, Arthur Meyerson.
extant social structures and institutional rela-
tions. Instead, it posits that these structures
and relations are themselves constituted i nter
al i a 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 mean-
ing obscured by the meaninglessness of post-
modern i mages to reveal. In the following
discussion, we present a way of seeing (or
ways of seeing) which recognize the constitu-
tive role of images in the production and repro-
duction 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
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 131
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.
132 A. M. PRESTON et al.
have in turn tremendous import for the vlew-
ing subject and the construction of subjectiv-
ities in the twentieth century. As Linker (1984)
argues “available forms of subjectivity are pro-
duced 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 i n, formed by and construct meani ngs”
(Linker, 1984, p. 392, emphasis in the origi-
nal). 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, contem-
porary 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 subjectiv-
ity. 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 relation-
ship 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 assi mi l ated
i nto 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 technol-
ogies 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.
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 133
ratuses, whether social, libidinal, or technolo-
gical.” They continue by asking “n what
ways is subjectivity becoming a precarious con-
dition of interface between rationalized sys-
tems 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 the-
oretical foundations, Haraway (1991) invites us
to think about what new kinds of (corporate)
bodies and identities are being constructed
i nter al i a through Images at the present time.
In contrast to Foucault’s analyses, which reside
in the normalizing technologies of the nine-
teenth century, Haraway argues that contem-
porary bodies and identities are constructed
through networking, communication, and mul-
tiple 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 cen-
tury 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 post-
industrial 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 character-
ized nineteenth century modernist thought.
Haraway offers the “cyborg”, a hybrid of
human and machine, as a possible figure to
undermine the categorical distinctions of mod-
ernity (human/machine; nature/culture; male/
female; oedipal/nonoedipal) and for recon-
structing (female) subjectivity in terms of a fig-
ure 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 struc-
tures that surround and suffuse it. Indeed, incorpora-
tion 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 representa-
tion 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 oppor-
tunity 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 assembl ages 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).
134 A. M. PRESTON et al
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 see-
ing 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, con-
temporary art criticism draws upon debates in
social theory, anthropology, and cultural and
literary criticism in order to formulate an oppo-
sitional 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 sche-
matic by Baudrillard (1983). He offers us four
successive phases of the image which corre-
spond quite closely to the ways of seeing out-
lined in this paper. First, the image is the
refl ecti on of a basi c 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 basi c real i ty. 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 cen-
tury ways of thinking which emphasize struc-
tural and institutional relations.
The third phase suggests that images mask
the absence of a basi c real i ty. We use the
Progressive Corporation and Tambrands
images to illustrate this phase. Neo-Marxist cri-
tiques 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 con-
sti tute rather than merel y represent real i ty.’
Here images are endlessly produced from
models of the real to become their own
pure simulacrum. Critical postmodernity chal-
lenges 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 con-
stituted 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 repro-
duction 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.
IMAG[IN]ING ANNUAL REPORTS 135
and “the play of real and appearance” (Gane,
1991, p. 99). It encourages a comprehension
of the world that focuses on its easily manipu-
lated surface.
Our work here illustrates several ways of
seeing and opens up a new terrain for investi-
gation. These illustrations suggest future pro-
jects 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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