The Aesthetics of Constituent Power

Abstract The ‘formless form-giving’ constituent power of the people raises not only vexing questions of institutionalization, legitimacy, and law but also aesthetic questions of visualization, representation, and form. Drawing from the example of the French Revolution, this chapter explores the debates around the aesthetics of popular constituent power. How does the constituent people appear? How does it make itself visible and tangible to the senses? How does the people take shape as a collective actor when no formal rules and procedures for identifying the popular will exist or when these rules and procedures are so deeply contested as to be effectively de-authorized?