 Althusser’s engagement with aesthetic theory was not nearly so consistent as those with philosophy of science and social philosophy. However, dramaturgical speculations from the early 1960s were crucial to the development of his method of symptomatic reading and forays into the criticism of visual art beginning in the mid-1960s likewise proved of decisive importance for the development of his theory of ideology. In particular, Althusser’s Brechtian musings on aesthetics provide partial answers to the question of how criticism of ideological notions of the real as well as the development of revolutionary strategy is possible. Althusser does not argue that art provides a glimpse of actual social conditions unfiltered by ideology. Indeed, he argues that art mostly reproduces ideology. Further, there is no formal way to distinguish between a work of art and other cultural productions like advertising. A person can “sees herself” in a pick-up truck advertisement as easily as a subject can mis-recognize herself as the subject of a drama. However, some art, that which Althusser deems “authentic” (1996a), troubles a subject’s usual relationship between herself and the world. This habitual relation is one where the world is always seen to conform to and to confirm the subject’s view of “the way things are”. Authentic art though makes felt or known the distance between the real world and a subject’s habitual ideological view of it. In this moment, the space for criticism, investigation, and, perhaps, the possibility for acting to change the world is inaugurated.  