The Politics of Images

The last ten to fifteen years have seen the publication of numerous books and articles considering the relation between images and politics. The reasons for this development are obvious: footage of the World Trade Center attacks and photos from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo (to give just a few examples) have clearly demonstrated that images not only respond to political events, but also play an important part in shaping them. Images have therefore been blamed for their complicity in these events (in ways that literature and music, for instance, have not), and these accusations have prompted artists, philosophers and theoreticians to investigate how images can also be used to think critically about political events. This article examines two quite different, though not opposed, explorations of this last question: Georges Didi-Huberman’s 2009 Quand les images prennent position (When images take a stance)— the first volume in a book series entitled L’Œil de l’histoire (The eye of history)— and Judith Butler’s 2009 Frames of War.1 In addition to these, a number of Jacques Ranciere’s recent writings will be included in the discussion

Aesthetics · Art · Complicity · Literature · Political science · Politics · Computer Science · Critical Theory and Political Philosophy · History · Law · Photography and Visual Culture · Visual Culture and Art Theory