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Ghost Stories for Grown-Ups: Pictorial Matters in Times of War and Conflict

by

Jim Aulich

and

Mary Ikoniadou

Humanities 2020, 9(2), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/h9020044 - 22 May 2020

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3284

Abstract

This introduction takes as its central armature Karen Barad’s agential realism to provide a framework for understanding the essays brought together in this Special Issue under the rubric of pictures of conflict. The intention is to move the discussion with regard to picture [...] Read more.

This introduction takes as its central armature Karen Barad’s agential realism to provide a framework for understanding the essays brought together in this Special Issue under the rubric of pictures of conflict. The intention is to move the discussion with regard to picture making forward to more fully embrace the pictorial and the physical, the historical and institutional processes within apparatuses of picture-making. The attempt in ‘Ghost stories’ through the concept of a visual apparatus, is to shed new light and thinking on pictures as material objects; how they act and feed into our subjectivities, experiences and realities and to account for their currency, duration, affectivity and authority beyond transparent representation or symbolic meaning. In order to achieve this, Barad’s agential realism is inflected by insights from Malafouris’s (2013) material engagement theory; W.J.T. Mitchell’s (2005) image theory; Jens Eder and Charlotte Klonk’s (2017) image operations; Mondzian’s (2005) understanding of the economy of the image, as well as the ontological concerns of new German art history and image science exemplified in the work of Hans Belting (1996, 2011) and Horst Bredekamp (2017), for example. In this framework, the worlds pictures create, and the subjectivities they produce, are not understood to precede the phenomena they depict. The picture, as the outcome of the apparatus which produces it, makes an ‘observational cut’ that simultaneously excludes and includes certain elements from its frame. As such, it has to be comprehended as party to processes which are both ethical and political. A fact which is particularly important during times of conflict and war. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pictures and Conflicts since 1945)

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Research

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Open AccessArticle

Postcards from Chile and Images from an Archive: Lighting the Nitrate of the 1973 Coup

by

Louise Purbrick

Humanities 2018, 7(4), 115; https://doi.org/10.3390/h7040115 - 12 Nov 2018

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Abstract

This article examines a mass produced postcard image as a picture of conflict. It considers the postcard as a Benjaminian ‘prismatic fringe’ through which an archive can be viewed, wherein documents of the British trade in Chilean nitrate are juxtaposed with those of [...] Read more.

This article examines a mass produced postcard image as a picture of conflict. It considers the postcard as a Benjaminian ‘prismatic fringe’ through which an archive can be viewed, wherein documents of the British trade in Chilean nitrate are juxtaposed with those of General Pinochet’s 1973 military coup. The archive itself is explored as a site of loss and its postcard, an unvarying idealisation, as a particularly problematic but powerful image that renders conflict out of sight. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pictures and Conflicts since 1945)

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Open AccessArticle

Constructing the ‘Right Image’: Visibility Management and the Palestinian Village of Susiya

by

Gary Bratchford

Humanities 2018, 7(4), 98; https://doi.org/10.3390/h7040098 - 10 Oct 2018

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2426

Abstract

This article focuses on the Palestinian Bedouin village of Susiya in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the multi-agency efforts to save the village after the Israeli Civil Administration issued a full demolition order to all existing structures in 2012. [...] Read more.

This article focuses on the Palestinian Bedouin village of Susiya in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories and the multi-agency efforts to save the village after the Israeli Civil Administration issued a full demolition order to all existing structures in 2012. By analysing a range of creative visual responses to the demolition order, including social media campaigns and video appeals, the paper examines the problematic nature over who and how to produce the ‘right image’ of the village and its struggle. Based upon fieldwork and interviews undertaken between 2013–2014 with activists and community workers, I identify how in an effort to overcome the separation between audience and distant spectator, a number of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and Human Rights Organisations (HROs), acting on behalf of the village, ultimately weakened rather than strengthened the representation of the villagers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pictures and Conflicts since 1945)

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Open AccessArticle

Hard Ground-Soft Politics: The Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana and Biting of the Iron Curtain

by

Wiktor Komorowski

Humanities 2018, 7(4), 97; https://doi.org/10.3390/h7040097 - 09 Oct 2018

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3123

Abstract

In 1955, the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts was founded. It was the first curatorial initiative that aimed to link graphic artists working around the world and with those divided by the Cold War. The Ljubljana Biennial became a major success and its [...] Read more.

In 1955, the Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts was founded. It was the first curatorial initiative that aimed to link graphic artists working around the world and with those divided by the Cold War. The Ljubljana Biennial became a major success and its model quickly spread worldwide, augmenting the international circulation of prints and exchanges of artistic concepts. Over the next twenty years similar exhibitions were established in Krakow, Tallinn, San Juan, Santiago de Chile, Cali, Tokyo, Cairo, Fredrikstad, Frechen, Sofia and Bradford. The Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts offered an opportunity for artists from Yugoslavia, Eastern Europe and Latin America, such as Andrzej Lachowicz, Mauricio Leib Lasansky, Adolfo Quinteros and Aleš Veselý, to exhibit their works alongside the protagonists of the western contemporary graphic art circuit such as Robert Rauschenberg, Antonio Segui, Yozo Hamaguchi, Max Bill and Victor Vasarely. The network of exhibitions that followed the example set by Ljubljana Biennial of Graphic Arts became a window into the world not only for printmakers, but also for a number of artists who were affected by Cold War cultural exclusion. The network of dedicated international print exhibitions created favourable conditions for an emerging third space, which became a platform for communication between the cultures divided by the Iron Curtain. This article focuses on the curatorial assumptions that brought the Biennial of Graphic Arts in Ljubljana to life and questions its position as a cultural cornerstone for the Non-Aligned geopolitical order. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pictures and Conflicts since 1945)

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Open AccessArticle

Allaying Terror: Domesticating Vietnamese Refugee Artisans as Subjects of American Diplomacy

by

Jennifer Way

Humanities 2018, 7(3), 77; https://doi.org/10.3390/h7030077 - 01 Aug 2018

Viewed by 2887

Abstract

A photograph of a basketmaker and photographs of other refugee artisans published in the August 1956 issue of Interiors magazine iterated some common themes of refugee narratives during a decade of significant migration that saw the United Nations sponsor World Refugee Year in [...] Read more.

A photograph of a basketmaker and photographs of other refugee artisans published in the August 1956 issue of Interiors magazine iterated some common themes of refugee narratives during a decade of significant migration that saw the United Nations sponsor World Refugee Year in 1959. Of particular interest are the ways the publication of the basketmaker photograph helped to demonstrate how Vietnamese refugee artisans suited the needs of an American State Department-led aid project directed by the industrial designer Russel Wright in South Vietnam from 1955–61. The project aimed to export Vietnamese craft to the American middle class as a way to bring South Vietnam into the Free World during the Cold War. This essay explores how the photograph served the American State Department agenda by characterizing its subject in terms of pathos and need. To this point, it helped to allay American anxieties about supporting refugee artisans by depoliticizing the “refugee problem” and resolving it. In this case, refugee photography expressed how the interests of American diplomacy were linking to the American middle class as a demographic becoming synonymous with consumption and whiteness. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pictures and Conflicts since 1945)

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Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Traces of Traces: Time, Space, Objects, and the Forensic Turn in Photography

by

Paul Lowe

Humanities 2018, 7(3), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/h7030076 - 27 Jul 2018

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Abstract

Images of atrocity are deeply problematic, in that they potentially create a tension between form and content and are often accused of re-victimization, aesthetization of suffering, compassion fatigue and exploitation. As an alternative, therefore, there is considerable potential in examining images associated with [...] Read more.

Images of atrocity are deeply problematic, in that they potentially create a tension between form and content and are often accused of re-victimization, aesthetization of suffering, compassion fatigue and exploitation. As an alternative, therefore, there is considerable potential in examining images associated with atrocity that do not depict the actual act of violence or the victim itself, but rather depict the material presence of the spaces and objects involved in such acts. The temporality of the photograph is also fluid in this type of approach. This paper considers the work of four photographers (Edmund Clark, Ashley Gilbertson, Shannon Jensen, and Fred Ramos) who have used a “forensic aesthetic” in their practice. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pictures and Conflicts since 1945)

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Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

The Politics of Photobooks: From Brecht’s War Primer (1955) to Broomberg & Chanarin’s War Primer 2 (2011)

by

Bernadette Buckley

Humanities 2018, 7(2), 34; https://doi.org/10.3390/h7020034 - 02 Apr 2018

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 6639

Abstract

This essay intervenes in debates about the depiction of conflict since 1945, by comparing two highly significant photographic ‘hacks’: Brecht’s War Primer (Kriegsfibel) 1955; and Broomberg & Chanarin’s War Primer 2, 2011. Kriegsfibel is a collection of images, snipped from [...] Read more.

This essay intervenes in debates about the depiction of conflict since 1945, by comparing two highly significant photographic ‘hacks’: Brecht’s War Primer (Kriegsfibel) 1955; and Broomberg & Chanarin’s War Primer 2, 2011. Kriegsfibel is a collection of images, snipped from wartime newspapers and magazines, which Brecht selected and situated alongside the four-line verses that he used to comment upon and re-caption his pictures. These acerbic ‘photo–epigrams’ captured Brecht’s view, firstly, that photography had become a ‘terrible weapon against truth’ and secondly, that by repositioning the individual image, its political instrumentality might be restored. When, more than half a century later, Broomberg & Chanarin decide to re-work Kriegsfibel to produce War Primer 2, they effectively crash into and redouble the Brechtian hack; updating and further complicating Brecht’s insights; re-animating his original concerns with photography as a form of collective historical elucidation and mounting, literally on top of his pictures of wartime conflict, images from the ‘war on terror’. This essay argues that the re-doubling of War Primer performs multiple critical tasks. It explores the Kriegsfibel as a dynamic confrontation with images of war and stages the enduring need to interrogate and actively re-function images of conflict from WW2 to the present day. It re-examines debates about images as weapons of war in themselves, and finally, it situates the Kriegsfibel assemblage in relation to contemporary understandings of ‘post-truth’. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pictures and Conflicts since 1945)

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Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Reconsidering the Image of the Blue Bra: Photography, Conflict, and Cultural Memory in the 2011–2013 Egyptian Uprising

by

Dalia Habib Linssen

Humanities 2018, 7(1), 27; https://doi.org/10.3390/h7010027 - 16 Mar 2018

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 4739

Abstract

The role of photography and social media have been seen as pivotal to the Egyptian political uprisings of 2011 where icons of the revolution circulated widely, helped galvanize protesters, and documented key events against the backdrop of a rapidly shifting discourse of photojournalism. [...] Read more.

The role of photography and social media have been seen as pivotal to the Egyptian political uprisings of 2011 where icons of the revolution circulated widely, helped galvanize protesters, and documented key events against the backdrop of a rapidly shifting discourse of photojournalism. By examining the citizen-produced image of the ‘girl with the blue’ in its capacity to reflect the spatial-temporal dynamics of the revolution, to mediate complex social issues of gender and political visibility, and to contribute to the development of cultural memory role through contemporary street art, this essay uncovers the significance of an icon in the digital age. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pictures and Conflicts since 1945)

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Open AccessArticle

Iconography for the Age of Social Media

by

Raymond Drainville

Humanities 2018, 7(1), 12; https://doi.org/10.3390/h7010012 - 26 Jan 2018

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 8587

Abstract

An iconic photograph of Ieshia Evans’ arrest at a Black Lives Matter protest went viral on Twitter. Twitter users’ textual and visual responses to it appear to show recurring patterns in the ways users interpret photographs. Aby Warburg recognized a similar process in [...] Read more.

An iconic photograph of Ieshia Evans’ arrest at a Black Lives Matter protest went viral on Twitter. Twitter users’ textual and visual responses to it appear to show recurring patterns in the ways users interpret photographs. Aby Warburg recognized a similar process in the history of art, referring to the afterlife of images. Evaluating these responses with an updated form of iconography sheds light upon this tangled afterlife across multiple media. Users’ response patterns suggest new ways to develop iconological interpretations, offering clues to a systematic use of iconography as a methodology for social media research. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pictures and Conflicts since 1945)

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Other

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Open AccessFeature PaperEssay

Revisioning Australia’s War Art: Four Painters as Citizens of the ‘Global South’

by

,

,

and

Humanities 2018, 7(2), 37; https://doi.org/10.3390/h7020037 - 17 Apr 2018

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Abstract

This essay discusses the recent artistic depictions of contemporary war by four artist-academics based in Australia. The families of all four have served in some of the twentieth century’s major conflicts and, more recently, each has been commissioned in Australia or the UK [...] Read more.

This essay discusses the recent artistic depictions of contemporary war by four artist-academics based in Australia. The families of all four have served in some of the twentieth century’s major conflicts and, more recently, each has been commissioned in Australia or the UK to serve as war artists. Collaboratively and individually they produce artwork (placed in national collections) and then, as academics, have come to reflect deeply on the heritage of conflict and war by interrogating contemporary art’s representations of war, conflict and terror. This essay reflects on their collaborations and suggests how Australia’s war-aware, even war-like heritage, might now be re-interpreted not simply as a struggle to safeguard our shores, but as part of a complex, deeply connected global discourse where painters must re-cast themselves as citizens of the ‘global South’. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pictures and Conflicts since 1945)

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