Abstract
In the collection of essays presented in Image Operations: Visual Media and Political Conflict, Jens Eder and Charlotte Klonk present the ambitious groundwork for a new study of photography as a political tool in the contemporary digital era. In the Introduction, they define the overarching concept of image operations as an emerging field that seeks to analyze and explore the functions of images related to political conflict, how and why they were produced, and their instrumentation in the public sphere. Although such a definition can be difficult to grasp, the overarching approach of Image Operations is to explore the events produced by the utilization of such images, regardless of the intentions of their creators. The book is divided into three parts that tackle the uses and functions of visual media in the realms of ‘contemporary warfare, insurgency/counterinsurgency, and non-violent political activism’. The authors who contributed to the volume move beyond concrete historical and structural analyses of the use of specific images for the production of political sentiments; grappling with the theoretical questions regarding the very essence of the nebulous concept of image operations and the ethical problems of the evaluation, uses, and reproductions of political and violent images for the purpose of their study.
While previous explorations of the political production, utility, and proliferation of images have dealt with the ethical problems of visual studies applied to the realm of violent and possibly exploitative imagery, Eder and Klonk aim to differentiate Image Operations as a unique expansion of this field by framing it within the context of a rapidly-changing digital era of media proliferation. The essays seek to go beyond the foundations of the study of photographic images. With the advent of cell phone cameras and the ease and immediacy of access to video and image sharing sites, the very nature of photography and the ways that images are mediated and consumed has been radically altered. The contributors to Image Operations thus try to move away from expected studies of political photography by focusing on the ways in which modern technologies have transformed the very nature of affective responses to such images.
It is necessary to note that the majority of the essays emerged from a conference on the topic of modern political image operations held in Berlin in April 2014; because of the personal interactions and discussions that occurred prior to the volume’s publication, the essays truly read as discursive and connected. This is especially striking when bearing in mind that contributors to the volume come from diverse backgrounds, including but not limited to the academic fields of Art History, Visual Studies, History and Literature, as well as visual artists and curators. Frequent references of contributors to their participating colleagues are a refreshing move away from standard essay collections that read as completely separate explorations of vaguely related themes. That said, the trouble with presenting a book that reads as a conversation is that the perspectives represented seem a little too open-ended and unfinished. Nearly all of the essays included seem to end abruptly, with conclusions that leave only loose ends and present questions rather than answers when more definitive conclusions, or at least clearer ambivalences, seem entirely possible. Despite the general prevalence of such conjecture, Ariella Azoulay’s ‘Photographic Archives and Archival Entities’ and Tom Holert’s ‘Sensorship: The Seen Unseen of Drone Warfare’ defy this trend by presenting clear perspectives on the new ways that technologies define history and power, respectively. Both essays are able to stand alone, fit well within the volume and are absolutely worth reading for anyone interested in the future of technological image operations.
Eder and Klonk present the bringing together of these disparate participants as the condition through which true transdisciplinary discourse on the subject of the reading and utility of political images could be produced. But this ambitious task to bring together truly varied perspectives seems to have been weakened by the Introduction’s effort to present a cohesive vision of the source materials, theoretical frameworks, and political leanings of the future of the study of image operations. Numerous backgrounds are represented by the book’s contributors, but the overarching approaches to image operations are heavily skewed toward the expected references of practitioners of film and visual studies, relying heavily on the writings of Roland Barthes, Susan Sontag, and Walter Benjamin, with the added pastiche of a ‘greatest hits’ smattering of post-structuralist thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Jacques Derrida. While there is of course a necessity to include these founders of contemporary visual studies, such references are repeated, at times excessively, despite holes in other areas of what will be made apparent as the history of the field of image operations studies. Two glaring oversights include the complete absence of reference to Susie Linfield’s book, The Cruel Radiance: Photography and Political Violence (2010), and the seemingly obvious lack of allusion to Martin Heidegger’s essay ‘The Age of the World Picture’ in Zeynep Devrim Gürsel’s chapter ‘Worldmaking Frame by Frame’. Missing references to such texts are unfortunate but, for unfamiliar readers coming from a visual or cultural studies background, Eder and Klonk’s Introduction reads as a thorough foundation to the contemporary study of political images.
Despite this quibble, Image Operations succeeds in its attempt to present a collection of essays that introduce a spectrum of media that can be considered as politically transformative. Mainstream newsmedia images, viral videos, fine art, and drone footage are among the various images explored and examined by the contributors to this book. Each one attempts to provide a framework for the reading of such images as they exist in the contemporary world while engaging with their colleagues’ approaches to both similar and disparate materials. Where Eder and Klonk’s intention falls short is in their goals to ‘lay the groundwork for future research on image operations in contemporary political life’, balancing ‘different disciplinary perspectives’ to ‘stimulate an interdisciplinary exchange’. Such attempts do not stretch far enough to meet the task spawned by the conference and presented by the editors. The scope of historical and theoretical approaches to image operations presented by the book is a little limited and somewhat indistinguishable from the pre-existing frameworks of Media Studies, Cultural Studies, and other interdisciplinary sects of the Humanities. The contributors are in discussion with one another, but such discussions are too much in agreement to present the conflict necessary to reach dialectical truths. Aside from James Elkins’ final reflections on the volume, in which he vehemently disagrees with art historian Verena Straub’s approach to the self-produced visual archives of female suicide bombers’ martyrdom, there is very little critical discussion between the contributors about each other’s ideas and approaches. Elkins’ bold and provocative approach to the book’s conclusion is a refreshing end to the polite allusion and discussion prevalent throughout Image Operations.