Seeing Torture Anew: A Transnational Reconceptualization of State Torture and Visual Evidence

This article puts forward two interdependent conceptual reforms at the intersection of state torture, visuality, and law. First, to qualify as good evidence - legally and socially - torture images are usually required to be “accurate” and “transparent,” to successfully suppress all traces of the mediation and representation at work. However, this article suggests that this prevalent visual-evidentiary paradigm unwittingly serves state attempts to downplay, decontextualize, deny, and disregard torture allegations. In this light, drawing on the interdisciplinary field of visual studies, this article re-envisages the limitations as well as the critical potential of torture images. Second, international and domestic law tend to conceptualize state torture in exclusively physical and mental terms. Challenging this tendency, this article argues that the extreme gravity of the physical and mental violence of torture ought not obscure, and in fact warrants closer attention to two other, interrelated forms of violence through which state torture operates, acquires its meaning, is experienced, and is made possible: (a) the violence of state mechanisms of (in)visibility - representational violence - which includes state efforts to control by whom and to what degree state torture can be seen; and (b) the violence of law - legal violence - which manifests itself in the contribution of legal institutions, lawyers, and legal rhetoric to enabling, legitimating, and keeping state torture out of public sight. The perspective of this article is transnational, focusing on three cases of state torture: detainees in U.S. custody overseas; Palestinian detainees in Israeli custody; and opposition group members detained in Syria. Legal examples and visual materials from these three cases provide a contextualized basis for exploring what new light the proposed conceptual reforms can shed on the socio-political complexities and consequences of state torture

Deconstructing religion through Art? : Wim Botha’s images of Christ

Abstract: South African artist, Wim Botha, is known for his post-modern reinterpretations of religious iconography, yet Botha states that he is not interested in religion per se but is motivated by a concern for historical systems of representation and visual communication, with the intangibility of religion as a concept as his starting point. Through his work he investigates both the past and the present understanding of a religious ‘truth’ and the way that ‘truth’ has been presented in visual terms to convey a message that far outweighs the physical fact of the elements involved (a man on a cross, or a woman with a baby, for example). Religious iconography is a perfect vehicle for parody and/or ‘quotation’ in a post-modern sense as it has a long historical presence and conveys certain messages that are understood by many people. This allows for complex layers of meaning that result sometimes in extreme responses, ranging from outright condemnation for some works, and others which function as devotional aids, despite Botha’s non-religious intent. This paper investigates selected sculptural images of the crucified Christ by Botha, and the implications they raise for contemporary viewers, both Christian and agnostic

Visual Arts Enhance Instruction in Observation and Analysis of Microscopic Forms in Developmental and Cell Biology

Two important skills for scientists in developmental and cell biology, as well as in fields such as neurobiology, histology and pathology, are: 1) observation of features and details in microscopic images of cells, and 2) quantification of cellular features observed in microscopic images. However, current training in developmental and cell biology does not emphasize observation and quantitative analysis of microscopic images, and it is unclear how best to teach students these skills. Here, we describe our experiences applying visual artistic approaches to instruct undergraduate and graduate students in how to observe and analyze cellular forms in microscopic images. At Loyola Marymount University, we used representational drawing to enhance undergraduate students’ skills in observation of fine cellular details in microscopic images of embryos. At Touro University California, we paired abstract paintings with microscopic images of tissues to engage masters and medical students in learning quantitative measurements of cellular features. Overall, this paper explains specific ways in which visual arts can be used to instruct and engage students in observation and analysis of microscopic images of cells and tissues

Arrival of the Fittest

Prometheus, the fifth film of the Alien franchise, maintains narrative connections to the original four films but the inclusion of new aliens—the Engineers—radically shifts the feminist politic of the series. There is a move away from centralising the monster and the repressed feminine, through images of horror and bodily abjection, toward a politic of carnival, seen in representations of multiple grotesque bodies and subversion of the affect of primal scenes. Carnival is a space where the authority and stability of current social powers and orders are challenged and subverted. This article contends that in Prometheus such a process occurs in the deliberate mixing of scientific knowledge and religious cosmologies, the ambivalent relationship of horror and SF genres to science and scientific knowledge, the gendered complexities of the specific bodies of astronauts and of scientists, and disruptions of the notion of gaze and viewer positioning in the opening scenes

If You See Something, Say Something: A Look at Experimental Writing on Art

Signs all over New York City state, If you see something, say something, but museum studies repeatedly find viewers do not attend to pictures, just as eye witness testimony is invariably skewed. Ways of seeing have been limited to known ways of discussing. Alternative approaches offer new insights. The first section, Experiments in Art Writing, examines two texts: T.J. Clark\u27s The Sight of Death, a journal of his daily visits looking at two Poussin paintings, for which he maintains the ambiguity of exploration and argues to keep visual images from their dissolution into political symbols; and, Charles Simic\u27s Dime Store Alchemy: The Art of Joseph Cornell, which foregrounds the imaginative as necessary to a critical reception of art. The second section, Literary Ekphrases as Art History and Theory, examines a passage in Proust and a poem by William Carlos Williams to suggest that poetry and prose fiction not only introduce readers to art history but are extensions of the discussed visual works\u27 own art history, and then turns to Don DeLillo\u27s Point Omega to study the arguments around representation as voiced and experienced by the characters, and to suggest a move away from the concept of representation. The final section, The Writing on the Wall, analyzes captions from Tate Modern\u27s little-known but significant caption project Bigger Picture to develop a theoretical validation for such an experimental program. These authors show us how they see rather than simply what they see, and so reveal the advantages and dangers in their choices, recommending we develop renditions of what we see, where to see means both a visual ability and an articulate response

Monsters at the End of Time: Gog and Magog and Ethnic Difference in the Catalan Atlas (1375)

Although they are only mentioned briefly in Revelation, the destructive Gog and Magog formed an important component of apocalyptic thought for medieval European Christians, who associated Gog and Magog with a number of non-Christian peoples. Modern scholarship has focused primarily on medieval representations of Gog and Magog as Jews, largely dismissing other sources as obscure derivatives of these anti-Semitic depictions. However, the Catalan Atlas (1375), which depicts Gog and Magog as Tartars, problematizes this characterization. Created by Abraham Cresques, a Jewish cartographer, for Pedro IV of Aragon, I argue that the Atlas modifies traditional Christian apocalyptic narratives—and particularly those involving Gog and Magog—to critique Christian thought about the past, present, and apocalyptic future. This conclusion stresses the importance of analyzing depictions of Gog and Magog within their immediate historical contexts and challenges the primacy that has been given to anti-Semitic representations of Gog and Magog

Are Our Racial Concepts Necessarily Essentialist Due to Our Cognitive Nature?

Mallon and Kelly claim that hybrid constructionism predicts, at least, that (1) racial representations are stable over time and (2) that racial representations should vary more in mixed-race cultures than in cultures where there is less racial mixing. I argue that hybrid constructionism’s predictions do not obtain and thus hybrid constructionism requires further evidence. I argue that the historical record is inconsistent with hybrid constructionism, and I suggest that humans may not be innately disposed to categorize people by race even though we are likely disposed to categorize people into in and out groups. So, in this paper, I show that there is an evidence set that is inconsistent with hybrid constructionism

Evaluating Cisco e-learning courses modified for the vision impaired

The needs of vision impaired students are quite different to sighted students. The increasing use of e-learning means higher education must move to multi-modal user interfaces in order to make e-learning materials accessible to all students. E-Learning materials (particularly in the sciences and technology) are predominantly visual, presented via computer keyboard and screen. Software and devices designed to aid the visin impaired are unable to decipher most images and visual-centric objects contained in e-learning materials.This paper discusses a project undertaken over the past two years to modify the content and presentation of Cisco certification e-learning courses to enable accessibility by vision impaired and blind students. These modifications necessitated rewriting the learning materials so they could be effectively presented via multi-modal user interfaces to vision impaired students, involving speech, aufio, haptics and force-feed devices and methods.Evaluatin of sections of the project by the vision impaired students using a model based upon Stufflebeam's CIPP model and Kirkpatrick's Four-Level training program evaluation model has been carried out and the results are presented