Conference Paper for ‘Concentrationary Imaginaries / Imaginaries of Violence in Contemporary Cultures and Cultural Forms’ - University of Leeds (13-15 April 2011)
Effacing the Image: aesthetics and the concentrationary image
How does aesthetic theory offer a framework for understanding the face as a site of racist violence?
Abstract:
This paper begins with a discussion of Jean-Luc Nancy’s notion of the image’s Distinct and Presentational characteristics. It then proposes a link between these and the Other as image, using photographic portraits of the face from contemporary art and the news media as a vehicle for discussion. The paper posits two aspects of the face:
1. the face as Presentational image, one that escapes interpretation; and
2. the face as Representational image, one that is fully knowable.
Drawing on Giorgio Agamben’s notion of the face as the site of community, the paper proposes an ethical approach to confronting concentrationary images that is derived from aesthetic theory. It examines the mechanism of racist violence to the person as image. It concludes by opening up questions about the implications of such violence as an act of effacing the Presentational image of the Other.
The full programme and submitted papers will be available on Leeds University’s website shortly:
http://www.leeds.ac.uk/cath/cont_men2/cont_mem_2.html
