8_b_39_PN_Houghton_Smith.pdf (2.8 MB)
Torture Images: a failure to see
journal contribution
posted on 2018-04-18, 22:52 authored by Transdisciplinary image ConferenceTransdisciplinary image Conference, Max Houghton, John SmithThis paper offers two
readings of a set of photographic images released in 2016 by the US Department
of Defense, after a prolonged campaign by the American Civil Liberties Union
(ACLU). From a known cache of 2000 images produced by the US military, as
documentation of the CIA Torture Programme, 198 images were released. These two
sets of images – both the seen and the unseen – provoke a dialogue between the
discourses of contemporary documentary photography and forensic imaging in
order to think about the evidentiary nature of the documentary photographic
image. The contemporary image is postulated as a vehicle upon which to gauge
the role of intuition in knowledge formation. Further, the hidden, or latent,
image brings forth a discussion of the problematic of the unseen; some of the
1800 withheld images appear as ekphrastic apparitions in the ‘Torture
Database’, created by the ACLU as a repository for this material. This paper
offers an evaluation of the ‘legal turn’ in contemporary visual art, with its
emphasis on legal documents and redactions, which create a kind of cultural
afterlife for state imagery. The 198 images were bought as printed artefact in
a clear plastic bag by artist Christof Nüssli at a Paris art fair, implying
they already operate culturally, if not juridically, as evidence. This sustained
act of looking acknowledges the profound power of the image to bring forth a
sense of aesthetic justice, while addressing the acutely political question of
what, and who, is permitted visibility in our current episteme.