Image Counter Image

Nikki & Saffron

Image Counter Image was an exhibition in Germany running from 10/06/2012 to 16/09/2012

It looks at artistic interpretations of and reactions to media representation of violent conflict over the past two decades.

Starting from the first Gulf War (1990-1991) and ending with the Arab Spring of 2011, the exhibition also includes work from 9/11.

The essay explores how media coverage has changed significantly in the last two decades and the critical approach to

media images.

The title of the exhibition is an indication that the images should not be viewed separately but in light of other images and their

representations.

‘Intericonicity’ – the icons of the attacks on New York point as much to other images as they do the reality of the event of which

they are direct evidence.

Another thing implied by the title is the visual arms race idea. This is the race between media images to get attention, as more and more images are now being produced and only a select few

are seen and used by the Newspapers etc.

Warring countries also fight with imagery, the other side counters images by publicising even more violent and distressing

photographs.

“In the ‘new wars’ of our own time, warring states communicate via and with the aid of global media and picture agencies… A

visual arms race has developed in recent years, with ever more distressing images being used to respond to images of violence

perpetrated by the other side.”

Gerhard Paul

However the more we see of violent images, the more immune we become to them.

Susan Sontag talks about how we chose what to photograph and what to crop out of the frame. The determining influence is choosing which conflicts we see, which we pay attention too and

ultimately who’s side we take. Not every conflict is deemed worthy of pictorial record.

Jasmila Zbanic film

Journalistic agenda which determines what is reported and how/ what is seen as important or unimportant.

Alfredo Jaar Rwanda project

“Pictures can shape opinion and provide proof. Their contents are regarded as real. The viewer has the feeling that he/she has been there… When there is any contradiction between written information and pictured information, it is the latter (possibly

after a period of consideration’ that takes precedence.”

Thomas Knieper

Communications scientist

Sean Snyder

“The status that is ascribed to media images should also be subjected to critical scrutiny. Sean Snyder does precisely this … by investigating the qualitative level on which images make certain claims… He compared his findings with the accompanying press

captions, written by press officers which – as framing statements - define what a particular photograph is supposed to show.”

The Gulf WarMedia images of the First Gulf War were based on a document that advised units of the United States military to control the

images seen.

Journalists were restricted as to where they could go and what they could photograph.

It was seen as a clean war because images were shown of military action but none were shown of the aftermath.

Thomas RuffPhotographic series Nights (1992-96) done in the same style of images from the Gulf War, which gives them a menacing atmosphere. But they show how nothing was really revealed by these images as there are no people in the pictures.

‘a virtual war, a media spectacle that fundamentally called into question the

relationship between an event as it was depicted and actual military conflict.’

Nin BrudermannThis artist installed 4 video channels to show the idea of the

‘spectacularization of war’. The film shows a full unedited version of ‘Operation Desert Fox’ taken from every news station. She

wanted to show the long periods of waiting that the news channels do not show in contrast to the dramatic montages

shown on TV.

9/11Attacks were witnessed globally, and the public got to ‘witness

violence as it was committed’.

‘The images of 9/11 were inexplicably intertwined with the images that the attacks produced… the terrorists had selected highly symbolic targets in locations where there would already

be the highest possible concentration on cameras’

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpUKM0MFNaM

“One of the most striking features of 9/11 was the relatively small about of images that were used in news reports. This limited range

was partly to do with the monopoly enjoyed by American television networks and partly due to the channelling and selection

of visual materials by news agencies.”

This was all made very clear in the work of Hans Peter Feldman

Langlands and Bellhttp://

www.langlandsandbell.com/the-house-of-osama-bin-laden-video.html

Deliberately disappoint the viewer by simply showing an animation of Osama Bin Laden’s house. There is no plot and nothing exciting happens. It is a critique of the sensationalist

nature of the media.

As well as the amount of images of 9/11 being shown, the essay discusses how only successful terrorist attacks publicised.

Photography of conflicts is very restricted as only selected journalists are allowed to travel to Afghanistan and into military strongholds. Access to

information was monopolised by the military and was very secure.

Trevor Paglen’s project The Other Nights Sky is a direct attack on the attempts to monopolise imagery by using long exposures to look as

though things are being hidden and kept a secret.

Because of the publics limited access to images of war, the ones that were actually seen had a greater impact. Images could be leaked once a better understanding of technology developed

which meant more shocking and restricted photographs could be seen.

The arrival of web 2.0 (social media and mobile phones) has changed the way that we see images. Any one, anywhere can take photos and videos of events as they occur. We now get

unedited, nonprofessional, instaneous reporting of images from a range of different perspectives.

Thomson & Craighead

Arab SpringWhere members of the press cannot access an area (banned or too dangerous) people can record footage or take photos and put them online. Therefore we have wider access to images.

‘the widespread use of cameras by people around the world has created more than a mass of images; it has created a new form

of encounter, an encounter between people who take, watch and show other people’s photographs, with or without their

consent, thus opening new possibilities of political action and forming new conditions for visibility.’

Roy Samaha“I loaded my analogue camera with a fast black

and white film and started documenting the events through my computer screen. The Internet

at that period was the event itself.”

http://www.ibraaz.org/projects/34

“This is the ecstasy of communication; this is the electronic revolution. The 'Invisible Generation' is

everywhere.”

“Although these images and videos convey a sense of authenticity and direction involvement, it is often not

possible to prove that this is the case…. The ‘real’ equals credibility via its sense of unfiltered reality. That

is, ‘authenticity’ arises less from the authenticity of reality per se than the authenticity of the means by

which reality is portrayed. Truth effects (can) replace the truth.”

http://www.hausderkunst.de/index.php?id=718&L=1

The point of this exhibition is simply to show the different sides of various conflicts, without resorting to

stereotypes or biased accounts of who is right or wrong. They simply show what happened, or what is

perceived to have happened.

“Their aim is not to create their own reality in these images, but rather to turn our interaction with the

world – through images – into a more multilayered, more differentiated process. They avoid coming up with simple answers to complex questions – exactly as one

would expect of any artistic contribution to this debate.”