Strategic Visualization of Abstract Violence

This book explores the witnessing and visualization of 21st century warfare and state-corporate-military power, examining contemporary ‘post-photographic’ art documentary practices and their departure from socially ‘realistic’ representations of war and conflict, to more abstract, conceptual, but also forensic, visualizations.Departing from current ethico-political debates which attend to the creation and viewing of either direct or symbolic violence, The Strategic Visualization of Abstract Violence focuses on the in/visible and socially abstract systems, structures, processes and relations of state-corporate-military power that are neglected in conventional news framing and traditional war photography. With attention to the work of leading practitioners, it thus sheds light on new practices of both warfare and war photography, applying a recalibrated vocabulary and revised conceptual and methodological frameworks that recast debates surrounding the visualization of socially abstract forms of violence.It will therefore appeal to scholars of media and culture, visual culture studies, sociology, photo-journalism and military studies, especially those interested in transdisciplinary and transmedial approaches.

Nicolette Barsdorf-Liebchen lectures in the School of Law and Society at Bournemouth University, UK. She practised as a lawyer for some 15 years in the UK and abroad prior to returning to academe to continue her research trajectory. She has a transdisciplinary background which encompasses law and social sciences, philosophy and critical theory, art history and visual culture, media and cultural studies. She has published on the topics of complicity in the witnessing and representation of war and violence, conceptual and war photography, contemporary state-corporate-military violence and its in/visibility