War Culture and the Contest of Images

Introduction

1 INTRODUCTION In modern warfare and the accompanying culture of war that capitalism produces as a permanent feature of modern society, the contest of images is as critical as the war on the ground. We might say that the contest of images is the continuation of war by other means, affecting not only our political understanding of the present , but also of the past, in ongoing battles for meaning that are fought out on the field of visual representation . At stake are the prevailing myths of national identity and the social and political policies of the state in relation to the lives and liberties of domestic populations as well as other peoples and nations. We begin from the understanding that the documentary image is always framed in order to control the visual and narrative dimensions of war and its ramifications. This framing is structured by the choices and conditions that are part of the image production , by what is included and what is excluded, and by the agencies, institutions , groups, and discourses that surround the circulation of the image. As Judith Butler has shown, the frame is not merely a passive device but must be understood as a structuring device that actively interprets what is real and what is not. Thus our critical attention must be focused on the conditions of the frame and how it limits or presents what may be seen and what may count as reality.1 Yet even as the state solicits our complicity in the normalization of war and the destruction of targeted populations, the effects of war can never be fully contained by the frame; reality can never be fully controlled. In different contexts, the meanings of the same images may even contradict one another or contradict the original intentions of their producers , demonstrating the instability of the frame. Furthermore, the excluded or repressed excess to the frame provides “the potential resources for resistance .” “In the destructiveness of war,” writes Butler, “there is no way to restrict the trajectory of destruction to a single visualized aim. Invariably, the fantasy of controlled destruction undoes itself, but the frame is still there, as the controlling fantasy of the state, albeit marking its limit as well.”2 Examining how the controlling fantasy of the state “undoes itself” is one of the aims of this study. The understanding that images are mediated in terms of both the production of the image itself and how the image is framed through context has been a given in photographic theory for two or three decades and has called into question the truth value of the documentary image while placing traditional documentary in a disputed and unstable position in relation to the field of artistic production. Yet the power of the documentary image is greater than ever, emerging during a period of social and political crises 2 INTRODUCTION in the twenty-first century when the image can digitally travel the globe with unprecedented speed. Does the understanding that the photographic image is always framed undermine the potential of documentary practices today to function as weapons of radical critique? How do contemporary documentary practices make explicit the frame of meaning in ways that do not rely on tropes of universalism and transparency, which may be used to serve the cause of the state? How are contemporary documentary images used to construct counterhegemonic narratives and to call into place a public sphere, based on shared ways of seeing, that are critical of and outside the control of the state? How have critical documentary practices merged with artistic genres such as video, reenactment, performance, and conceptual art in new and dynamic relationships? These are the overarching questions that govern my analysis of war culture and its oppositional responses; more specifically, I argue that documentary practices represent a visual culture of resistance engendered by the permanent culture of war in the United States and in the Middle Eastern zones of conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Israel/Palestine (and growing globally). Recognizing that the disputed borders between documentary photography and politically engaged art have become increasingly permeable for technological, political, and cultural reasons, I believe this makes it all the more critical to examine the radical potential of documentary practices in relation to democratic ideals and social struggle and to focus on the conditions of making and discourses that surround contemporary documentary practice. Such practices have evolved to serve as weapons of critique against the perpetual militarization of society and to make visible the...