Seeing Violence: Images and Critique

Abstract

Thus, my main interest here is in what images of horror produce. What happens to reason when confronted with an image of something that surpasses the powers of explanation or rational reconciliation with the seen? Surmising that the frames of horror – which re-present violence in different ways – equally exercise a certain form of violence over us, I wonder in which part of us this violence takes place. But what if we want, as indeed many have, to use precisely these images as the means for a critique or, further, for the development of a strong ethico-political stance? Is it possible to be both numb and critical? What is critique, and what are our critical capacities, when sifted through violent images – images of violence and images exercising violence? What role do affects play in our being ‘seized’ and what – if anything – propels us to act against violence by being exposed to it?