Images of War, War of Images
With François Bucher and Alaa Mansour
Screening followed by a conversation with François Bucher and Alaa Mansour, moderated by Edwin Nasr
9/11 marks an irreversible turning point in international politics. The attacks on the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001 were answered by the United States and its allies with a global “war on terror”. As well as becoming manifest in the wars launched against Afghanistan and Iraq, the war on terror sanctioned military campaigns against “Islamic terrorist groups”. Meanwhile new systems of civilian security measures and ubiquitous surveillance were established, and technologies such as facial recognition have been undergoing perpetual improvement ever since. This film programme reflects the post-9/11 geographies of power and control, which are deeply connected to racial stereotypes and algorithmic biases in visual technology. François Bucher made White Balance (to think is to forget differences) in 2002, in the shadow of 9/11 and its aftermath. The film links these events to an ongoing investigation of how cameras adjust to “whiteness”. The Mad Man’s Laughter (2021) by Alaa Mansour explores the spaces of violence in simulations produced by the military-entertainment complex. Both artistic video essays employ a variety of references, internet footage and computer generated imagery to investigate the power of images in an asymmetrical world.
What else is on Friday?
See the Friday timetable to visit the other programmes with your Festival Pass (5-days) or Day Pass (1-day). With the passes you can also visit the festival exhibition The Curse of Smooth Operations at the IMPAKT [Centre for Media Culture] and Steenweg 26. For more information on the festival tickets please see here