Guided Tour & Book Launch – Violent Images

Violent Images
Eva Leitolf und Giulia Cordin (Ed.)

Images both reflect and exert violence: AI mimics war photography in Gaza; snapshots from Abu Ghraib become a meme shared around the world; surveillance expands with automated image production and analysis; sexist images still permeate advertising and entertainment. Violent images are part of our lives. They shape how we perceive the world. They may represent violence directly, or their violent potential may be associated with their production, dissemination, or use.Many questions arise: Where does the violence in and of the image begin? What makes an image violent? Who decides this, and in what context? How do production technologies and distribution channels influence the relationship between image and (the exercise of) violence? And how do artists deal with the issue of violence and the violent potential of image technologies?

Through the lens of various disciplines, Violent Images investigates the politics of visual violence and its potential to provoke, subvert, and transform social, political, and media discourses. The artists and scholars invited to contribute to this image-text publication discuss The Whiteness of Silicon Valley’s Digital Ecologies (Stephanie Polsky); Gender and Violence in News Media and Photography (Roland Bleiker and Emma Hutchison); transgressive image-making practices (Monica M. Haller), and more. All the contributors critically examine established and emerging visual concepts of violence, suggesting that our engagement with them is inherently political and more pressing than ever.

Violent Images explores the intricate relationship between visual culture and the social and economic conditions that influence and are influenced by it. It illustrates the need for a more critical and engaged approach to visual representation and communication in the context of local and global conflicts and crises.

Violent Images is the third volume in the Negotiating Images series, edited by Eva Leitolf and Giulia Cordin. The previous volumes are Shoot & Think (unibz) and Landscape with(out) Locus (NERO Editions).

Interviews with and/or texts by 

Roland Bleiker
Professor of International Relations and Coordinator of the Visual Politics Research Program, The University of Queensland/Australia
and
Emma Hutchison
Vale Associate Professor at the School of Political Science & International Studies, The University of Queensland/Australia

Lisa Bogerts
Researcher, educational officer and editor in science communication, Berlin/Germany
and
Maik Fielitz
Researcher at the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society (IDZ) in Jena and a Non-Resident Fellow at the IFSH (Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg), Germany

Lorenzo Gabrielli
Senior Researcher, GRITIM-Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona/Spain
and
Amarela Varela-Huerta
Professor at the Universidad Autonoma de la Ciudad de Mexico/Mexico

Monica M. Haller
Artist and Professor at the University of Minnesota/United States

Max Pinckers
Visual artist and researcher

Mark T. Reinhardt
Professor for Political Science and American Studies, Williams College/United States

Stephanie Polsky
Professor at Pratt Institute and Goldsmiths University of London/U.K.

Elisa Mailänder
Associate Professor of Contemporary History at Sciences Po and Deputy Director of the Centre interdisciplinaire d’études et de recherches sur l’Allemagne (CIERA), Paris/FRance

Visual works by 

Mushon Zer-Aviv, Minne Atairu, Lorna Simpson, Broomberg & Chanarin, Sammy Baloji, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Marvin Gaye Chatwynd, Max Pinckers, Eva Leitolf, Bouchra Khalili, Monica M. Haller, Laia Abril, David Shields, Jenny Holzer, Chiara Cortellini, Mitra Tabrizian, Valie Export and others.