Saturday 6 October 2012

Libya: the confiscated image

The last century started with the discussion about The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1). In the first decades of the 20th century, cinema was seen as the new big epistemological change infecting the human representation of the world and the human thought. New technologies like social media and internet are of similar importance nowadays.

They undoubtedly contribute to model the thought of the 21st century. We are in fact at a time of “electronic mutability”(2) . Traditional media such as television and cinema are facing new challenges and a transitional period towards a new era.
” The image plays a bigger role than ever in forming public opinion and therefore its political translation. This is particularly clear in the way the most shocking conflicts of our time were dealt with: Bosnia and the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. They are all equally absurd; firstly because of their disastrous consequences and secondly because of their hermetic situation. ”

The image plays a bigger role than ever in forming public opinion and therefore its political translation. This is particularly clear in the way the most shocking conflicts of our time were dealt with: Bosnia and the Balkans, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. They are all equally absurd; firstly because of their disastrous consequences and secondly because of their hermetic situation. With these cases, humanity faces new kinds of conflicts which determine the geopolitical “disorder” and the world’s power game we are now living with. They also constitute a challenge for a new way of thinking. Historians and philosophers will need to develop new concepts and tools of analysis.
Full story: http://www.eutopiainstitute.org/2012/10/libya-the-confiscated-image/


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