Keywords: war, vision, optics, global, network, domain, control, power, disseminate, transmit, media(te)The histories and technologies of warfare, optical sciences and image-making are interconnected by a common thread: the artificial extension of human sight. War-Scope invites artists and viewers to investigate what it means to envision war in today’s image-saturated and networked culture. The exhibition brings together artworks that employ new visual technologies in order to explore the impact of visual technologies on how war is waged and presented to the public. The title is inspired by the multiple uses and connotations of the word “scope.” At once, it can refer to military technologies of vision (such as the periscope or rifle scope), and cinematic techniques (for example, the Cinema Scope film format or Rotoscope animation). Simultaneously, it can be used to connote a practice of surveying particular terrain (as in “to scope out”) and a domain of control, influence or reach (as in the “scope of the war,” “scope of the threat,” “scope of his power,” “scope of the destruction,” etc.). This word is rooted in optical technologies (microscope, telescope, etc.) and the discourse of broadcast media (for instance, the “scope of the television signal”). In addition, it can describe the broadness of one’s belief, area of research or artistic practice, among countless other territories. War-Scope includes artworks that address, confront and subvert the visual technologies used in warfare and those that allow (or force) us to envision and represent it. Many of the works question the relationship between optical technologies and the limits of war—the link between visual extension and the extension of conflict, violence and military or political power. How are images of war captured, filtered and disseminated to a global audience? How is war’s “scope”—in all the possible meanings of the word—presented and re-presented to us? How have new technologies impacted the capturing of these images and their transmission, reception and reproduction? How have artists used similar or competing optical technologies to recondition the way we see war? Document 9-1-1 re-contextualizes media images of the “War on Terror” and their underlying (Western) psychological motivations—paranoia, fear, hatred, uncertainty, etc., often directed towards the “Terrorist Other.” The project combines appropriated and created images, audio and text in order to question how conceptions and ideologies of war, terror, conspiracy, surveillance, suspicion, recursion, intelligence and infiltration are linked, intentionally and unintentionally, to real events and consequences. Taking the form of a cryptic and expansive website, Document 9-1-1 acts as a reconditioning device, forcing the viewer to become aware of her/his preconceptions about the visual tactics of global warfare, for instance, what it means to “target,” “survey” and “eliminate” a potential enemy based on their appearance alone. Marksmanship Training is “a video game performance using ‘the official U.S. Army game,’ America's Army.” The original game allows, and in fact seduces, its players into a first-person perspective of warfare (wherein one can actually see through the crosshairs). Its obvious simulation collides with the propaganda stating that it delivers an “authentic military experience” of the “War on Terror.” Chris Reilly’s subversive hack of the game lets the user fire at a commanding officer at which point s/he is transported to a simulated prison, an impenetrable digital incarceration. Marksmanship Training thus presents the illusion of control—the ability to violently defy authority—and the resulting outcome within the “logic of the game.” The work questions how simulated vision can be used to condition soldiers to “see” in a certain way, and how this training tool can be rewritten, exposing its agenda and artifice. + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
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Traces of Conspiracy uses new media (Google maps and the Flickr image database) to suggest a textual and imagistic narrative on warfare. At several moments in the flash animation, a crosshair appears at the center of aerial photographs of urban landscapes, recalling satellite surveillance technologies—the “ultimate” extended vision for military means. Traces of Conspiracy appropriates images from the public domain and, through visual and textual suggestions, makes them appear ambiguously violent or suspicious, as if they had been leaked from a covert source. In this way, the work questions the way we can be made to see or “read” conspiracies in everyday images. It asks us to look twice at images associated with war—how much of their meaning is innate, and how much has been applied in an artificial narrative? Is their (re)contextualization the real act of hostility?
My Lover in Unequal Parts uses found imagery from war zones in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon and original writing to construct a mythical narrative from within the civilian population. By cropping and blurring the photographs, Rheim Alkadhi dislocates their overt meaning and uses them for narrative inspiration. The work makes a connection between media imagery and the culture of storytelling, in part by focusing on “extraneous” details—a pair of plastic slippers, red curtains, the wheel of a bicycle—allowing the viewer to see a different narrative then the one (forcefully) applied by dominant media sources. My Lover, through a simple technical presentation, draws attention to the ways in which warfare can spread into all aspects of life—its scope is not adequately addressed in limited international reports. Instead, clues to its individual, personal impact “lie” in the images.
WhyTheyHate.US randomly displays images from the user-driven Flickr database tagged “whytheyhateus.” The project avoids taking a definitive position on war and, instead, lets the images speak for themselves. These images, given the loose algorithm of their selection, remain relatively ambiguous with only a lingering sense of their commonalities—expressions of (anti)Americanism, US cultural or political identity, war, protest and frustration. Viewers are encouraged to contribute their pictures with the vaguely democratic promise that every image will eventually be displayed. This dynamic also incorporates the possibility for manipulation of the system by tagging unrelated or contradictory images. WhyTheyHate.US expands the limitations on what images can be considered in a discussion on US international policy, opening the possibility for numerous, potentially denaturalizing, juxtapositions and readings.
ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT by Jody Zellen | Rhizome ArtBase entry ALL THE NEWS THAT’S FIT TO PRINT is an interactive website that continuously “remixes” the current (print and online) edition of The New York Times. Appropriating images and headlines, the majority of which make reference to the current war in Iraq or the discursive “War on Terror,” ALL THE NEWS shuffles them in an audio-visual montage. Jody Zellen simultaneously highlights and explodes the informational schema of the prominent media source, providing a more fluid and immersive “reading” experience. The viewer becomes increasingly aware of how war, violence and conflict have taken over the images and text of the “paper”—and the potential for these reportages to seep into all other dimensions of the news. How does the interface of the Times itself condition our impressions of war? Does its destabilization constitute an act of protest against this dominant visual regime? |
Curated by Shane Brennan, March 2007
