Images of Terror

Violence in Visual Culture

What is Violence?
violence
ˈvʌɪəl(ə)ns
noun
1.
behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or
something.
synonyms: brutality, brute force, roughness, ferocity, fierceness, savagery, cruelty,
sadism, barbarity, barbarousness, brutishness, murderousness, bloodthirstiness,
ruthlessness, inhumanity, heartlessness, pitilessness, mercilessness; strong-arm tactics;
rareferity, forcefulness, force, full force, power, powerfulness, strength, might, savagery,
ferocity, brutality, destructiveness
"the violence of the blow"
2.
strength of emotion or of a destructive natural force.
Synonyms: intensity, severity, strength, force, great force, vehemence, powerfulness,
power, potency, ferocity, forcefulness, wildness, frenziedness, fury, storminess,
tempestuousness, turbulence; lack of control, lack of restraint, passionateness;
rarefervency, ardency
"the violence of his passion"
Violence is removal of choice: where people lose their
agency
Violence is dehumanizing the victims and look on them
not as people but as inanimate objects (Laura Tanner)
Physical violence and threats of it extinguish the
spontaneity of not just a moment but a person.
(Bogart)
Slovaj Zizek
Subjective Violence (crime, or violence by criminal or clear role of criminal and victim)
Objective Violence ( invisible, widespread, confusing not too pronounced, not have a singular
or clear source which is why can easily be confused with how things are can be easily
internalized such as languages, societies, governments, institutions)

Symbolic Violence
Systemic Violence
What is
Visual
Culture?
Visual culture would be anything that an individual is
exposed to that is visual in nature such as
Origin of
Violence
In Japan, it was said that sacrificing a woman at a rushing river would placate
the spirit who lived there, allowing for the construction of bridges and the safe
passage of boats.
In Greek myth , the warrior king Agamemnon decides to kill his own daughter
in exchange for a favorable wind on the way to Troy.
The Egyptians buried some of their pharaohs with dozens of servants when
they died, ensuring that their needs would still be met in the afterlife.
Bodies found entombed in bogs across Europe may have been slain as gifts
for higher powers.
The great civilizations of Mesoamerica killed people, smashed food and sank
treasure to pay their debts to their gods.
Aesthetics
First used in 18th century by German Philosopher Alexander
Baumgarten the term refers to those principles governing the nature
and appreciation of beauty, especially in visual art.
It also refers to the branch of philosophy which deals with issues of
beauty and artistic taste.
What is Beauty?
Beauty is in the eye of beholder…………..
Collective aesthetics
Individual aesthetics
What qualifies as art?
What is Aesthetic experience and aesthetic judgement?
When and how Gore and Violence became aesthetic?
Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli
Mona Lisa
Leonardo da Vinci
Marcel Duchamp
The Fountain

Anything that evokes

emotions of any kind or
make a person experience
a different range of
emotions is beautiful and if
designed to evoke these
emotions can be
aesthetically studied.
The picture perfect
A4 Paper Challenge
The Terror Aesthetics
The Jihadi Brides
Abu Ghraib and
Guantanamo Bay
Detention Centers
Poetics of Resistance
“Where there is power, there is resistance.” Michel Foucault
France 2015
Liberty Leading the people Eugene Delacroix
The Arab Spring
When Faith Moves Mountains
Francis Alys
“And what is done in love is well done” Vincent Van Ghogh