Abstract

Based on the 〉patchwork〈 as a concept of (political) heterarchy, the paper explores the formal and medial space of M. Brady's collaged group portrait of the 36th US-Senate and House of Representatives (1859). Poised between unity and decomposition, the image constitutes a congenial map of American politics, its specific relationism and 〉proximal distances.〈 However, Brady's subsequent work sees this lose patchwork disintegrate during the Civil War and then solidify under Lincoln's paternal rule