Ethics and Images of Pain

263 Pages·2012·2.63 MB·English

by  Asbjørn Grønstad, Henrik Gustafsson

Ethics and Images of Pain
Routledge Advances in Art and Visual Studies
1 Ethics and Images of Pain
Edited by Asbjørn Grønstad
and Henrik Gustafsson
Ethics and Images of Pain
Edited by Asbjørn Grønstad
and Henrik Gustafsson
NEW YORK LONDON
First published 2012
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
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© 2012 Taylor & Francis
The right of Asbjørn Grønstad and Henrik Gustafsson to be identified as
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Ethics and images of pain / edited by Asbjørn Grønstad and
Henrik Gustafsson.
p. cm. — (Routledge advances in art and visual studies ; 1)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Pain in art. 2. Pain in the performing arts. 3. Pain in mass media.
4. Art—Moral and ethical aspects. 5. Performing arts—Moral and
ethical aspects. 6. Mass media—Moral and ethical aspects.
I. Grønstad, Asbjørn. II. Gustafsson, Henrik.
NX650.P32E85 2012
700'.453—dc23
2011040174
ISBN13: 978-0-415-89382-4 (hbk)
ISBN13: 978-0-203-12590-8 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by IBT Global.
Contents
List of Figures vii
Acknowledgments ix
Preface xi
J.M. BERNSTEIN
Introduction xv
ASBJØRN GRØNSTAD AND HENRIK GUSTAFSSON
PART I
From Voyeurism to Visual Politics
1 Do Not Look at Y/Our Own Peril: Voyeurism as
Ethical Necessity, or To See as a Child Again 3
MARK LEDBETTER
2 Associates in Crime and Guilt 15
FRANK MÖLLER
3 Painful Photographs: From the Ethics of
Spectatorship to Visual Politics 33
MARK REINHARDT
PART II
Looking In, Looking Away
4 The Violence of the Documentary Image:
Errol Morris’s Standard Operating Procedure 59
STEFANO ODORICO
vi Contents
5 Visual Irruptions, Mediated Suff ering, and the Robert
Dziekanski Tragedy: An Inquiry into the Effi cacy of the Image 74
TARA H. MILBRANDT
6 Tuning Out, Turning In, and Walking Off :
The Film Spectator in Pain 93
MATTIAS FREY
PART III
Performances
7 Imaging Pain 115
MIEKE BAL
8 The Unsettling Moment:
On Mathilde ter Heijne’s Suicide Trilogy 144
ØYVIND VÅGNES
9 Gulag Follies 159
JODY MCAULIFFE
PART IV
Mimetic and Mnemonic Frames
10 Imag(in)ing Painful Pasts: Mimetic and
Poetic Style in War Films 173
HOLGER PÖTZSCH
11 The Sanctifi ed Fallen: The War Film as Witness 193
TONJE H. SØRENSEN
12 Medical Horror: Visual Documents From
the History of Lobotomy 208
JON-OVE STEIHAUG
Contributers 225
Index 231
Figures
1.1 The photograph was taken for Life Magazine by
Henry Groskinsky. 6
3.1 Scenes and Types. Moorish bust. 37
3.2 Ken Gonzales-Day, The Wonder Gaze (Saint James Park). 40
3.3 Lawrence Beitler, Marion Lynching. 42
4.1 Interrotron Hybrid. 64
7.1 Plegaria Muda, one sculpture. 117
7.2 Plegaria Muda, view of the installation. 117
7.3 Plegaria Muda, detail of grass between planks
(extreme close up). 120
7.4 A Long History of Madness, Herlat silent (fi lm still). 124
7.5 A Long History of Madness, Françoise listening (fi lm still). 124
7.6 A Long History of Madness, Gelsomina on dry earth in
Finland (fi lm still).  126
7.7 A Long History of Madness, smoke fi eld in Spain (fi lm still). 127
7.8 A Long History of Madness, Antonin in the courtyard
with La Boétie (fi lm still). 128
7.9 A Long History of Madness, Antonin in the hospital
(fi lm still). 128
7.10 A Long History of Madness, Artaud in monk suit
(fi lm still). 129
8.1 Mathilde, Mathilde. 147
8.2 Small Things End, Great Things Endure. 154
9.1 Gulag Follies. 160
9.2 Gulag Follies. 161
9.3 Gulag Follies. 163
9.4 Gulag Follies. 164
9.5 Gulag Follies. 168
10.1 Sulamith (1983) by Anselm Kiefer. 174
viii Figures
10.2 Black Hawk Down—Stylized pains to soldier’s bodies. 180
10.3 Battle for Haditha—Prosthetic documentation or
double injury? 182
10.4 Waltz With Bashir—Past pains between memory, trauma,
and nightmarish vision. 185
10.5 The Other Bank—The face of Tedo. 187
12.1 Plate 1. Bendik Riis, Wiwisexsjon, 1957. 210
12.2 Plate 2. Patient with implanted electrodes. 211
12.3 Plate 3. Bendik Riis, CASTRAKTION, c. 1957. 213
12.4 Plate 4. The patient in narcosis before the operation. 220
Acknowledgments
The editors would like to acknowledge their gratitude to a number of peo-
ple and institutions for their indispensable support in the development of
this project. In the summer of 2009 the Nomadikon Center of Visual Cul-
ture at the University of Bergen hosted the Second Nomadikon Meeting
“Images of Pain/Painful Images,” which brought together a highly diverse
and interdisciplinary group of international scholars to discuss one of con-
temporary visual culture’s most taxing areas of scholarship. The present
book, while not the proceedings of that conference, has emerged out of the
conversations that were started then. We would like to extend our warmest
thanks to all who contributed in making that event so successful, as well as
to conference co-organizers Øyvind Vågnes, Tonje Haugland Sørensen and
Gjartrud Kolås. We would furthermore like to thank the Bergen Research
Foundation and the Faculty of Social Sciences, whose extraordinarily
generous research grant made the foundation of the Nomadikon Center
in 2008 possible. Our colleagues at the Department of Information Sci-
ence and Media Studies also deserve thanks for their participation in and
encouragement of the Nomadikon project.
We owe a debt of gratitude to the anonymous readers of our original
book proposal for Ethics and Images of Pain, who provided incisive criti-
cism that proved valuable in the conception and gestation of this book.
Finally, we would like to off er our sincere thanks to Erica Wetter and Felisa
Salvago-Keyes at Routledge for the instrumental parts they have played in
facilitating this publication.