viz. - war

“Like it’s your little toy”: Masters and Disasters of War

Justin Tremel — Sun, 29 May 2011 15:24:15 +0000

I never imagined my childhood play would be a harbinger of real-life disaster. Before I discovered Nintendo, I amused myself with various toys, and countless hours were devoted to “playing war” with what I referred to as my “army guys”those small, forest green, plastic soldiers forever frozen in distinct battle poses. Others may have had more elaborate sets, but my collection of army men (there were no female plastic soldiers), consisted of only a handful of poses. As I remember I had: radioman, grenadier, crawler, crouching machine gunner, standing shooter, and lookout, similar to the first group pictured below:

Image by I remember JFK

I would intricately arrange opposing armies on battlefield carefully peering at my men, delicately positioning each figure, pointing weapons, and constructing groupings, before finally opening fire. Perhaps because each army guy had dozens and dozens of identical types, I never thought of my casualties as individuals. This held true both in my monologues in the heat of the battle, “that grenade-thrower just took out my last machine gunner” and after all the soldiers had fallen.

After happening upon images of a new series of army men, my eyes have been opened to a dark side of this game and my position as indifferent war master, casually killing of and tossing about my soldiers, typecasts, not individual warriors (unlike my GI Joe collection). I can’t help but find myself haunted by Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” with its biting accusations

You that never done nothin’
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it’s your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

After destroying my opposing armies, post-war I’d briefly examine the aftermath of the battle, a disarray of fallen soldiers that I’d quickly pile together, throw in my toy bucket, and forget about until some future battle. A creative reworking of these familiar army men by UK-based Dorothy collective prohibits any such forgetting, and it forces us to linger post-battle—what happens to our veterans after “the fast bullets fly.” This collection was inspired a report published in July of 2009 in the Colorado Springs Gazette, a two-part exposé “Casualties of War” (part1, part 2), that details soldiers from single battalion based at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs who, after returning from Iraq, spin out of control, engaging in rampant domestic abuse, rape, suicide, shootings, drug abuse, drunk driving, and assault at alarming rates.

Dorothy repositions the tiny army men in new poses, in so doing, repositions the “toys” as, arguably, masterworks of visual art, and certainly as poignant and massively effective productions of social commentary.

Perhaps the most striking new figure is of a veteran amputee:

Though he still remains clad in his helmet and combat uniform, his machine gun has been recast as a wheel chair, and a stump of upper thigh is all that remains of his once sturdy crouching right leg. The medium of the minute plastic toys works in multiple ways, playing off of a sense of familiarity and childhood nostalgia. The tiny scale forces us to closely examine the changed details, the soldier’s accoutrements, and the implications of these changes. The wounded vet remains all the more tragic because of the permanence of his pose, forever confined to his well chair, never able to cast off the vesture of battle—his bulky boots, bulky combat fatigues, and the leaden mental fatigue felt in the tilt of his helmeted head, in the blankness of his frozen, plastic stare.

I find most tragic touch in the subtle positioning of his hands. When viewed from above they seem to be engaged in propelling the wheels of his wheelchair, but when seen at eye level, from an acute angle, one discovers that his hands are placed outside the wheels, and noticeably clutched, seemingly gripping a phantom machine gun.

The hands continually grasp for his machine gun, but remain forever empty, leaving him with only the machine: a legless chair, wheeled but inert—immobile, sad.

In “Master’s of War,” Dylan castigates the warmongers of the world, describing them “like Judas of old” full of lies and subterfuge, deceptions which he can see through, snarling, “But I see through your eyes / And I see through your brain / Like I see through the water / That runs down my drain.” Might we not recast Dylan’s song in relation to these new works of art, reframing his haunting lyrics not so much in terms of accusation, but in terms of revelation, describing a new vision we can take on vis-à-vis these toy soldiers. These plastic objects are so compelling because they allow us to see through eyes that aren’t there, imagine painful thoughts of tortured brains, and immerse ourselves in a painful reality which otherwise so often miss. Like a child with his toys have we not lumped the individual tragedies of our nation’s heroes into an anonymous mass of “war veterans”? How odd that a “little toy” a tiny piece of plastic can help us see with such clarity and run rampant through our thoughts pouring forth emotion.

I’ve here examined just one of the figures in the series, yet, I would argue, that each of the other silent different figurines evokes unique, though similarly profound emotions and social commentary. When subjected to dual modes s of “seeing” close inspection, and introspection, these lifeless figures alter our vision, to showing a harsh reality; standing in for heartrending lived experiences cannot be hidden:

Images by Dorothy Collective

Like these tragically posed plastic army men, many real-life veterans, both male and female can’t walk, can’t speak, and remain trapped, suffering enduring post-war wounds both visible and hidden. Veterans like these plastic representatives, often can’t change position, can’t, can’t cast off their combat fatigue(s), can’t turn their heads to view a brighter future, and everybody knows that plastic army men certainly can’t weep; can we not do at least this much on their behalf? As a nation we celebrated Memorial Day last Monday, remembering those brave soldiers who paid the ultimate price. These figures remind us that every day is memorial day, to not just remember, but also to pay tribute to our heores and our lost loved ones—the dead, the dying, the living...

War Games - Isao Hashimoto

Michael Widner — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 13:30:00 +0000

"1945-1998" by Isao Hashimoto

Originally created in 2003 by the Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto, "1945-1998" maps all 2053 nuclear explosions during that period.

A Wired article from the time quotes Hashimoto as saying he wanted to show "the fear and folly of nuclear weapons." The increasing pace of tests culminates in a global frenzy of explosions. Each nation's tests have a different color and sound associated with them. The effect is oddly beautiful and reminiscent of an early video game. Even the counters for each nation look like scores.

Hashimoto states that he chose lights and sounds to provide "equal messaging to all viewers without language barrier," yet the clear association with video games also invokes a chilling disconnect between form and content. While appreciating the abstract beauty of the map, we also consider the horror of mass destruction displayed in such a seemingly trivial form. It reminds me of another cautionary work in the war-as-video-game genre:

Reboot: DADT and Public Sacrifice

Megan Eatman — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 17:51:33 +0000

Image credit: Chan Lowe, The Lowe Down

The above cartoon, republished yesterday on the artist’s blog, makes a very effective argument against Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. The use of flag-draped coffins, signifying shared tragedy, suggests that dying for one’s country has little to do with sexual orientation and that is rather the work that an individual does—in this case, sacrificing his/her life for the United States—that matters. In this kind of public sacrifice, the image suggests, everything individual is erased. However, this message seems more complicated when considered in relation to one of Tim Turner's earlier posts and the wider cache of meanings that these coffins suggest.

Image credit: thememoryhole.org, via Associated Press, NYT,2/15/2009

Last year, Tim discussed speculation as to whether President Obama would change Pentagon policy and allow the publication of photographs of flag-draped coffins returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tim suggested that this debate was in large part about the tension between public and private sacrifice (a difficulty that the eventual solution addressed), although there are obvious issues of information control as well.

When thought of in the context of public/private tension, Lowe’s cartoon could also be translated as an argument for making these coffins visible, as the coffins signify an act of public sacrifice, the death of a soldier, rather than a man or woman. The suggested erasure here could also be troubling in the debate on DADT. Lowe’s image’s suggestion that being a soldier is an overriding identity seems like it could actually be appropriated as an argument for DADT, suggesting that, in the military, you are a soldier above all else and can therefore be told to conform to gender and sexuality standards. Obviously,that argument is problematic (why these standards?) and extremely discriminatory, but it makes visible some of the complications that arise in the public/private tension around soldiers’ bodies.

Tim’s original piece is below, and here. For more discussion of images and DADT, see this recent post on No Caption Needed.

Start of Tim's post:

At his first televised press conference last week, President Obama received a question about a controversy that, though once debated quite energetically, had seemed for a time to recede into the background as the casualty rate for U.S. soldiers has fallen. The questioner wanted to know whether the new administration would order the Pentagon to reverse its policy of forbidding the publication of photographs showing the return of fallen soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (President Obama responded by not commenting, since the policy is currently "under review.")Image credit: thememoryhole.org, via Associated Press, NYT, 2/15/2009

The question, and the issue, were covered yesterday by The New York Times in a story and an editorial urging the President to overturn the policy. As the author of the former summarizes the issue, "Part of the debate that has developed turns on whether the return of soldiers is a private or public matter. While families have registered a range of opinions about allowing the news media at Dover, many have maintained that the return of a body is so deeply personal that they should be able to decide whether to keep it private." Above and beyond the questions raised by the difficult question of how to treat the images of what is essentially both a public and a private sacrifice (a soldier dying for his or her country is also lost to his or her family), the debate itself is simply a reminder of the power of images to move arguments.

Picturing Memory: Space and Faces of Trauma

Andi — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:19:57 +0000

Image credit: Nebojsa Seric Shoba

"Battle of Waterloo. Belgium. 1815"

Lens, The New York Times

Over the past two weeks, Lens, the photography and photojournalism blog component of the New York Times, has featured two different photographic collections concerned with memory, trauma, and war. Nebojsa Seric Shoba's "Battlefields" is comprised of images of former battle sites. Shoba returned to photograph the places where the Battle of Brooklyn (1776) or the Battle of Waterloo (1815) were fought. Rather than return to earlier places, Maciek Nabrdalik took portraits of Holocaust survivors, focusing closely on the faces of his subjects as they are lit against a stark black background. Both sets of images press the viewer to consider the possibilities and failures inherent in any attempt to make memory visible.

Image credit: Nebojsa Seric Shoba

"Battle of Verdun, France. 1916"

Lens, The New York Times

While I've considered the intersections of landscape, photography, war, and memory before, Shoba's images raise additional questions for me about the way memory should or can by visualized. His images rely on juxtaposition to invoke memory--they depict empty serene spaces in contrast to what must have been earlier scenes of chaos and violence or they depict battlefields that now contain McDonald's signs or rusting trucks. In either case, these images seem to suggest that they way we are remembering war is just not quite right.

Image credit: Maciek Nabrdalik

H/T: Rachel/Lens, The New York Times

Image credit: Maciek Nabrdalik

H/T: Rachel/Lens, The New York Times

Nabrdalik's images, on the other had, remove all possibility of juxtaposing the past with the present. His minimalist portraits are devoid of context--it is almost as if there can be no present for his subjects. Moreover, these images suggest that there is only one correct way to remember the Holocaust. This is memory of the past that suggests no future; nothing beyond the initial trauma. Unlike Shoba's images which suggest that we may have forgotten the past, Nabrdalik's portraits allow for nothing but memory of the past.

Remembering War

Andi — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:35:50 +0000

Image Credit: Simon Norfolk

"Gold Beach" from The Normandy Beaches: We Are Making a New World

Last week I had wanted to post about Veterans Day and the intersections between war, photography, and memory but Emily's consideration of the images of Fort Hood sent me thinking about the representation of recent tragedies. Simon Norfolk is a landscape photographer who creates images of places in the aftermath of war and genocide. His images of the beaches at Normandy are haunting photographs that visually echo earlier works such as Robert Capa's images of landings on D-Day and yet evoke absence and suggest extreme temporal distance from the earlier atrocities by depicting ethereal empty landscapes.

Image Credit: Robert Capa

"D-Day Landings, 6-6-1944"

Robert Capa’s “D-Day” photograph of a young soldier struggling in the surf to land on Omaha Beach is one of only eleven images to survive a darkroom debacle, yet the blurred face of the soldier, the grainy, over-exposed negative, and the indistinct depiction of the landscape all contribute to the rhetoric of authenticity that documentary photo-journalism privileges. Taken from the beach as the first wave of soldiers were landing, Capa’s image is cropped so as to pushed to viewer forward into the frame without the benefit of any visible land to orient the perspective. Although not an effect intended by Capa, this unpolished hazy aesthetic and the closely-cropped frame recreate for the viewer some of the disorientation and chaos of the original experience.

Image Credit: Simon Norfolk

"Omaha Beach" from The Normandy Beaches: We Are Making a New World

Norfolk’s photograph of Omaha Beach taken more than sixty years later returns to the same location tocapture an ethereal landscape completely devoid of the chaos and grit of the earlier image. His “Omaha Beach,” taken from the same perspective as was Capa’s, still denies the viewer any sense of orienting perspective, however the effect here creates a calming sense of surrendering to the surf. The translucent grays and greens of “Gold Beach” (above) contribute to the solemn, haunting feeling Norfolk creates by holding open the shutter for an extended length of time to capture the movement of the mist and the water as it passes through the remaining battlements still present decades after D-Day. Norfolk’s intentional blurring of the water and mist hearkens back to Capa’s earlier image and yet the most striking feature of these recent photographs is the glaring absence of the body of the soldier. One way to interpret this image is as a call to the viewer to recreate the absence—to remember the war onto the empty beach. These photographs are so tranquil that the viewer senses the temporal distance between the two moments—of war and of remembrance of war—and imaginatively projects the past onto such a pristine landscape. The incongruence of the juxtaposition is harrowing.

It is worth asking of Norfolk's work whether this is the way we want to remember our wars? To construct a collection the echoes several images of the atrocity of war recast in a serene space reifies the earlier photographs as safely ensconced in the past and romanticizes that past through commemoration. Norfolk's work attempts to explore “war” and “remembrance” as though they were only nouns—passive, inert objects of history—and not actions chosen by people, enacted on others. An exhibition panel from a showing of Norfolk’s work characterized it as “more about the memory of the event than the horror of it.” Why, especially given our current situation, would we ever want to remember a war without remembering the horror?

Documenting Documenting a Tragedy

Andi — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:17:42 +0000

Screen capture of www.nbcdfw.com

Emily's post this past week considers the ways in which many of the images of the shooting at Fort Hood reflect a "conflicted understanding of this event as both a military and a domestic tragedy." Her insightful comments sent me searching through much of the photojournalism that surrounds this recent tragedy and I found that many of the collections of slide shows contain at least one, if not several, photographs of the media documenting the aftermath of the event. Some of these photographs show the media set against the setting sun while others focus on a key speaker surrounded and almost swallowed by a sea of cameras and microphones. While it is no surprise that, with the onslaught of the 24-hour news cycle and the need for news, the media likes to focus on the impact of the media, I wonder whether we might see these images of image-making as more than just meta?

Screen capture of www.nbcdfw.com

These photographs of the photographing emphasize what we might call the "newsworthiness" of the event. The prevalence of so many photographs of the media documenting the tragedy leads to a feedback loop in which the event is depicted as worthy of being documented simply because so many people are documenting it. This is not to suggest that the Fort Hood shootings were not a significant event nor am I intending to diminish the tragedy. Rather, I am interested in thinking through why these images of image-making appear during the documenting of a tragedy but not, for instance, within the photo-essays documenting the New York marathon or a second tour of duty in Afghanistan.

Screen capture of www.nbcdfw.com

Perhaps these photographs of the media at work are meant to allay anxiety that the media is capitalizing on a tragedy and transforming it into spectacle. I suppose, actually, that we could read these images in multiple ways: the image of the swarm of photographers suggests that the media frenzy may be building the event into a spectacle. Or, conversely, the image of the many photographers may suggest that the recent event is so significant that it requires extensive documentation. In a paper she gave at the GLASA conference on visual culture, Elisabeth Ross argued that media coverage of the recent political campaigns has tended to include images of image-making much like these documenting the Fort Hood shootings. In many ways these images make a claim to truth by laying bare their constructed nature--images of image-making show us the man behind the curtain.

Screen capture of www.nbcdfw.com

These photographs of the photographers at work document the media's role in and relation to the event but there is another trend running through these photographic slide shows. Many of the collections also privilege photographs of people holding photographs of victims of the Fort Hood shooting. While the images of image-making may suggest that this tragedy is being documented so that we will remember this one day in the future, the images of family members holding photographs may suggest the memories of an entire life lived and lost on this one day.

Fort Hood in Images

EmilyBloom — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:41:09 +0000

Image Credit: The Guardian

As the memorial service for the victims of the Fort Hood shooting begins, I want to spend some time considering the visual representations of this event in the media. Photographs representing the shooting seem to mirror our conflicted understanding of this event as both a military and a domestic tragedy. In the absence of more information about the shooter and his motives, this ambiguity marks the photographs that appear online and in print. Some photographs evoke Columbine, Virginia Tech or 9/11 by focusing on groups of mourners and the buildings where the shooting took place. In so doing, these images emphasize the effects of violence on a place and a community. However, other photographs more closely resemble traditional war photography in which the soldier is represented through metonymic devices such as a uniform or a gun.

Image Credit: CNN

Examining these images together led me to consider the strange position of the military base in American life. Military bases, for good or ill, are integral to the life of neighboring communities and yet there is also a distance between life on the base and life outside. When 13 lives are taken on a military base it is a domestic tragedy and many of the photographers have been sensitive to this connection by showing mourners in the local community and images of soldiers mixed with civilians.

Image Credit: NPR

In addition to shedding light on the liminal space of the military base in American life, I think these images also contribute to a discussion that Andi began on this blog several weeks back in which she described a photo-essay on the life of the American soldier. The military base itself seems to fit into what Andi describes as anti-iconic images of war. How various photographers choose to represent this shooting— as iconic or anti-iconic, domestic or military—reveals a great deal about how we imagine this tragedy.

Images of an American Soldier

Andi — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:18:32 +0000

Image Credit: Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post

H/T: The New York Times

Noel’s comments this past week about the circulation of iconic images of violence and the role of affect in our reception of these images left me wondering about contemporary photojournalism and its treatment of war. In their text and blog, No Caption Needed, John Louis Lucaites and Robert Hariman have written extensively about the way iconic images, such as the photograph of General Loan executing a suspected member of the Viet Cong, circulate in public culture but what should we make of images that are less well known or that focus on the more mundane aspects of war?

Image Credit: Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post

From July of 2007 through August of 2009 photographer Craig F. Walker and journalists Kevin Simpson, Michael Riley and Bruce Finley documented the life of Ian Fisher as he enlisted in the U.S. Army, went through basic training, and served in Iraq. The series of photographs follow Fisher as he graduates from high school, says good-bye to friends and family, struggles through basic training, and serves on escort missions in Iraq. Quite a few of the photographs, however, show Fisher and other enlisted men waiting around, smoking by the side of the road, or sleeping while they wait to be deployed. The daily practice of war looks like a lot of standing around. In fact, the bulk of the action shots document Fisher's time spent in training. Moreover, the only images that capture and convey any affect focus on the emotional response of Fisher, his friends, and his family as he leaves and returns to the U.S.

This depiction of the waiting around of war seems to play off the more iconic images and cliches that have been burned into our collective memory. The photo-essay begins by focusing on Fisher's love for his country but later captions tell us of his frustration at having to dig ditches and complaints about having to pick up trash. Taken as a whole, the essay undermines many of the more traditional narratives of war--we see no transformation from boy into man. There is little focus on homosocial bonding and friendships forged through fire. Fisher's love of country slowly devolves into a lament over the tedious tasks of waging a long war.

Perhaps this portrait is able to emphasize the mundane aspects of war because the photo-journalists spent so much time with Fisher. Are these photographs simply the byproduct of extended time spent documenting Fisher's service? Or, maybe we can read this collection of images as anti-iconic. If we have become inured to the violent or iconic images, perhaps it is time to consider the daily, the dull, and the less-than-decisive-moments of war.

Iranian Nuclear Facility Photo & Interpretation

Nate Kreuter — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:30:08 +0000

This morning I received an automatic update message from Imaging Notes, a remote sensing (satellite imaging) trade magazine. The lead-off story was about one of the alleged nuclear material refining facilities in Iran.

The image, and the annotations provided by a private company, are eerily similar to those Colin Powell used in his February, 2003 speech to the UN when he argued on behalf of the doctrine of pre-emptive war in Iraq. I point all of this out not to question the interpretation of the Iranian image, but simply to point out that as lay-people and citizens, we do not have the means to engage with the arguments presented in such images, but must take or refuse their content based with only our trust or mistrust in the party providing the image to guide us.

Exposure to Exploitation

Andi — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 16:07:25 +0000

Image Credit: Peter Davis, Hearts and Minds

This past week my students and I were considering the representation of the Vietnam war in network news coverage and in documentary films such as Peter Davis' Hearts and Minds (1974). Several of the images we considered depict bodies in pain or men, women, and children dead or dying. As we discussed the appeals to the emotions of the viewer at work in these images, the conversation gradually turned to the ethics of the photographers and filmmakers but I left the classroom wondering about the ethics of teaching these images.

My students grappled with the question of whether the filmmakers might have exploited the pain of their individual subjects in order to make a larger rhetorical point about the impact of war. We considered the possible level of involvement of the photographer or filmmaker in capturing these images of pain and death. Should the documentary filmmakers and photographers have intervened on behalf of their subjects? Should the photojournalists have denied access to media to people causing pain to themselves or others (as in the case of self-immolating monks)? Do these images fetishize the body in pain? Do these images minimize the pain of the individual in order to recast that pain within a larger ideological context? Can there be agency for these subjects?

While I am familiar with many of the ethical questions surrounding the role of the documentary filmmaker or photographer, I found myself wondering about the ethics of using these images in the classroom. I wondered whether I might be using these images for my own purposes (in this case as a pedagogical tool to help my class consider the ethics of documentary) and thereby engaging in a similar set of ethical problems. How can we teach images of trauma without also exploiting the pain of others? Can there be agency for these subjects in our consideration in the classroom?

Fallen Soldiers

timturner — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 20:52:02 +0000

At his first televised press conference last week, President Obama received a question about a controversy that, though once debated quite energetically, had seemed for a time to recede into the background as the casualty rate for U.S. soldiers has fallen. The questioner wanted to know whether the new administration would order the Pentagon to reverse its policy of forbidding the publication of photographs showing the return of fallen soldiers from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. (President Obama responded by not commenting, since the policy is currently "under review.")Image credit: thememoryhole.org, via Associated Press, NYT, 2/15/2009

The question, and the issue, were covered yesterday by The New York Times in a story and an editorial urging the President to overturn the policy. As the author of the former summarizes the issue, "Part of the debate that has developed turns on whether the return of soldiers is a private or public matter. While families have registered a range of opinions about allowing the news media at Dover, many have maintained that the return of a body is so deeply personal that they should be able to decide whether to keep it private." Above and beyond the questions raised by the difficult question of how to treat the images of what is essentially both a public and a private sacrifice (a soldier dying for his or her country is also lost to his or her family), the debate itself is simply a reminder of the power of images to move arguments.

The inconsistency of Easter imagery

Brett Ommen — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:48:04 +0000

Easter is one of those odd holy days turned secular holidays that creates a lot of incongruous images. Why do we have baskets with marshmallow bunnies instead of a nougat filled crucifix? Perhaps it is that kind of visual confusion that lead a group of protestors to create a new kind of visual Easter mix up.

On Sunday , a group calling themselves Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War stood up in Chicago’s Holy Name Cathedral right before Cardinal Francis George’s homily and sprayed stage blood on themselves and other worshipers. The gaps between visual display and reality are as confused here as they are between the Easter story and Peeps.

The problem, in my estimation, is that the protestors assumed a kind of visibility that exists in a vacuum. The image of protestors covered in fake blood, while perhaps a bit cliché, is powerful. It forces people to imagine bloodshed in everyday life to call attention to the real bloodshed war-torn nations experience. The protestors’ choice of venue was in some ways a wise one. The press was on hand to cover the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Easter celebrations, and so a broad kind of exposure was guaranteed. And so if good visual performance were limited to the creation of a powerful image that has a strong channel of circulation, this protest would have been a success. But visual communication, being communication, needs to recognize the other contingencies of meaning production.

The Catholic Church, by way of the global voice of the Pope and the national voice of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has been clear in its opposition to the war. The setting of Holy Name Cathedral, then, serves as perhaps the most incongruous location for this protest. What’s more, the Chicago area has experienced a few high profile acts of public violence in recent months along with the unfortunately typical violence of urban life. And so a Catholic Church in Chicago is doubly problematic as the setting for this protest. The failure to recognize the setting that serves as a backdrop for the visual protest causes all kinds of problems for the protestors and undercuts their message. Some of the protestors suggested that the setting was appropriate because Cardinal George has visited with President Bush, but that line of reasoning suggests that leaders who disagree with the President over issues relating to the war should avoid him, and that indicates a certain lack of faith in the prospects of communication. Of course, if I were as poor at communicating as the Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War, I suppose I’d have a certain lack of faith in the prospects of communication as well.

Food and Warfare

LaurenMitchell — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 17:56:47 +0000

Here is an amusing/horrifying animation of the history of human conflicts (WWII to the present day), which uses the foods typically associated with the various countries involved to act out the conflicts. It’s called “Food Fight.”

Japan is pieces of sushi, the Arabs are represented by kebab and falafel, the Israelis are bagels and lox, the U.S. is hamburgers and chicken McNuggets, Russia is beef stroganoff, the Vietnamese are those yummy rice noodle wrapped spring rolls.

On one hand, to watch food stereotypes blowing each other up is pretty funny, as is trying to figure out which foods represent which countries. My favorite part is the representation of the Cold War where the hamburger and the beef stroganoff face off, the hamburger keeps adding more and more beef patties, the pile of beef stroganoff gets bigger and bigger, and then they resolve the conflict by just leaving.

However, because it’s a food fight, the mess left behind after they blow each other up can be disturbingly carnage-like, which this gives the whole thing a pretty somber undertone. I found the representation of when the U.S. dropped the atomic bombs on Japan disconcerting: those pieces of sushi were completely charred. And you can’t help but consider the real human beings that were charred after those incidents. The depictions of suicide bombings were also a bit hard to watch since we hear about them every day. The 5½ minute animation also highlights the fact that there has been a war occurring somewhere in the world pretty much continuously since WWII.

The use of food stereotypes highlights the absurdity of warfare while at the same time maintaining a focus on the seriousness of these situations. The foods make these events seem ridiculous, but only up to a point. Because these are real events that have been repeated again and again.

Visual analysis of the Strait of Hormuz incident

John Jones — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 17:40:59 +0000

Lucaites at No Caption Needed has posted an interesting analysis of the recent dustup between the U.S. and Iran in the Strait of Hormuz. According to Lucaites, the argument that the Bush administration has tried to make about the incident through the images—photos and video—released by the U.S., “relies upon two optics or visual logics, one drawing upon a Cold War consciousness and the other drawing upon the logic of the ‘suicide bomber.’ ”

The Cold War optic recalls the ability of the modern, technologically sophisticated, military to observe the world from afar as a means of identifying and assessing threats to national security. Think here of Adlai Stevenson challenging Ambassador Zorin of the USSR with satellite photographs of missile silos in Cuba in 1962. Or more recently, of course, we have Colin Powell using similar photographic evidence to prove the existence of WMDs in Iraq. One case turned out to be true, the other false, but what is important is the underlying assumption of the positive truth content of such visual evidence which presumes to show what otherwise could not be seen. Of course, this is nonsense. Nevertheless, recent videotape from the Gulf of Hormuz operates in precisely this optic. Shot at great distance, we never actually see individuals, let alone incontrovertibly threatening behavior, but that actually works in the favor of the underlying optic of the Cold War logic, for in a sense it is what cannot ordinarily be seen that is the threat, and so the speed boats function as a cipher for a presumably hidden, greater menace.

In this instance, the threat that can’t be seen is animated by the more contemporary optic of the “suicide bomber.” Suicide bombers operate in the light of day, not the cloak of darkness (as was the myth of the Cold War spy). They can be anyone, and indeed, their very visibility makes them effectively invisible (hidden in plain sight), and thus all the more a threat. Add to this the discursive connection between “suicide bombers” and “Middle Eastern Islamic fanatics” and the picture of the speed boats takes on a somewhat different resonance. All the more so in the wake of the terrorist attack on the U.S.S. Cole perpetrated by Al-Qaeda, a self-professed terrorist organization, in 2000. And to accentuate the point the U.S. Navy added an audio recording to its version of the videotape that has someone threatening to bomb the Hopper. We are now told that the Navy doesn’t know where that voice came from and, indeed, cannot confirm that it came from the speedboats. And more recent videotape released by the Iranian government suggests that it is unlikely that it came from the speedboats. But, again, the point is that the photographs are framed within the optic of the suicide bomber that encourages the viewer to see the ordinary and everyday as threats.

“I don’t give a damn about Paris Hilton”

Jillian Sayre — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 17:02:23 +0000

Jezebel picked up on a story in the Washington Post and the The Daily Telegraph about the surprising shared cameraman (Nick Ut) behind the following well-known photographs:

Apparently bloggers had a lot to say about the coincidence and the Post does an interesting analysis of comparative wartime photography. Jezebel focuses on Ut's personal involvement with the subject: "When I look at my photograph of Kim and my photograph of Paris Hilton," he says, "I think they are both good pictures, in their way. I suppose the big difference is that I grew to love Kim, whereas... well, frankly, I don't give a damn about Paris Hilton." Turns out Nick Ut put down his camera, got Kim to a hospital and is credited with saving her life. This is an interesting issue with humanitarian rhetoric and the responsibilities of an author, brought to light by feelings of guilt expressed by photographers of trauma, as in the suicide of Kevin Carter

The Post talks about the pain in both pictures and the evocative potential of the pictures is captured in the photographer's reaction/non-reaction to the subject. The point is that we aren't supposed to give a damn about Paris Hilton and her ilk. They are creations of the narrative impulse itself, they exist because of the camera. In the 1972 photograph, the subject exceeds the frame of the photograph; her scream, her pain is a narrative excess that effects a call, a response-ability inherent to the work of witnessing.

A Compendium of the Visual Tropes of War

Brett Ommen — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 17:03:10 +0000

The music video above is by Serj Tankian (lead singer of System of a Down) and directed by Tony Petrossian. Depending on your taste in music, you may want to watch it with the volume turned down.

The video does an excellent job compiling nearly every imaginable visual trope of the current war. The use of children in the video provides an excellent polysemous context for the war as well. In one sense, the video illustrates the ways imagery becomes incorporated in the play of children as a way to indoctrinate them into a war state. On the other hand, the video makes a compelling critique of the war as directed by immature leadership. The coda of the video refuses to allow the imagery of war to function in isolation as child’s play by bringing the children out into the street before a military funeral. The video might prove an apt resource in the classroom for the above reasons, or any that you might post in addition.

Glorifying rape or visual rhetoric?

mkhaupt — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:09:52 +0000

Some feminists are all atwitter about Italian Vogue's questionable new "photostory," decrying it as a glorification of sexual violence in theatres of war. (And yes, the spread is pretty heinous on many levels.) But I'd like to submit that the American flags splattered all over these debauched, disturbing scenes function as a none-too-subtle criticism of our government's actions. What do you think? (Warning: some nudity.)

There's Enargeia and then there's Enargeia

Brett Ommen — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 15:50:22 +0000

Over at No Caption Needed, Robert Hariman pieced together a rather precise visual argument by sequencing a series of images from 9/11 and the war in Iraq. While we could spend many a blog entry on the imagery of terror and war or on the function of visual images in argument, the Hariman sequence seems to provide an excellent in-class opportunity to dwell on the different persuasive registers present in visual communication and political speeches that invoke the same imagery.

Hariman’s sequence is as follows: 1) the moment of the second plane impact at the WTC, 2) President Bush as Air Force pilot, 3) the infamous Abu Ghraib photograph, 4) a photograph of (presumably) a former American soldier and his 3 prosthetic limbs, 5) the wreckage of a Baghdad neighborhood, and 6) the wreckage and casualties of a Tikrit car bombing. Images 1, 3, 4, and 6 are particularly disturbing. But seeing these images and hearing them brought up in speech are two very different experiences. It would not shock anyone, I don’t think, to hear a U.S. politician reference the plane attacks of the WTC, or to speak of a former solider dealing with the physical and emotional fallout of war, or to call attention to the violence and loss of life of street violence in Baghdad. And yet the violence of the images in the No Caption Needed post seems much more acute, potentially offensive, and may even execute a metonymic kind of violence on the viewer. This may make images more effective in imparting the emotional register of public memory, but a counterpoint to that utility is that speech offers a type of protection against the pathos of those images. I offer the contrast between visual reminders and vocal reminders, in part to show how the visual might refuse a kind of whitewashing that is possible in non-visual discourse. More importantly, I think comparing and contrasting the No Caption Needed sequence to other discourses on the public memory of 9/11 and the war on terror is an exercise that can create a more precise account of the virtues and limits of visual rhetoric in general.

viz. - war

“Like it’s your little toy”: Masters and Disasters of War

War Games - Isao Hashimoto

Reboot: DADT and Public Sacrifice

Picturing Memory: Space and Faces of Trauma

Remembering War

Documenting Documenting a Tragedy

Fort Hood in Images

Images of an American Soldier

Iranian Nuclear Facility Photo & Interpretation

Exposure to Exploitation

Fallen Soldiers

The inconsistency of Easter imagery

Food and Warfare

Visual analysis of the Strait of Hormuz incident

“I don’t give a damn about Paris Hilton”

A Compendium of the Visual Tropes of War

Glorifying rape or visual rhetoric?

There's Enargeia and then there's *Enargeia*

There's Enargeia and then there's Enargeia