Black and White Atrocity

I continue to question the ethics of representing atrocity and the ironic dissipation of the moral force of images of atrocity within the society of the spectacle.

The mechanical reproduction of the very images meant to provoke outrage – even, as they might have originally been meant only to invoke the pride of the trophy – parallels the reflex to reproduce these on the part of those aligned politically with opposition to American foreign policy, it's penchant for war, its justification of torture, its dubious motives, etc. The effects of this urge to reproduce the same image which is endlessly reproduced by the machines of the hegemony are ambivalent at best. And still, we make these images appear, again and again ...