Violence to promote violence

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Forget about the power that, according to Mao Zedong, flows from the barrels of guns. Far more power actually flows through the matte black barrel of the camera lens – and this is a power that flows far more silently and, much of the time, works its magic very subtly. But rarely do photographs explode on the media scene like the now-infamous cover of the 9 August issue of Time magazine. Rarely, too, do photos present us with such a questionable and teachable moment about photography and its political uses.

Photography, both still and film, is a powerful language. It needs no translators and is technology-driven, giving it a reach no language has ever had. But one has to understand how it is used. Today, the endless flow of photographs is increasingly constructing our social and political landscape – constructing us, really, by manipulating the mental spaces in which we live, defining our very drishti, our sense of self. Cameras construct our worlds in ways that word-oriented languages cannot, because the visual language they present is perceived to have credibility – an automatic connection to an 'objective truth' that words do not. Images are thus becoming the bricks that construct our increasingly visual world, a world that can no longer simply ban the making of pictures as was once the case.

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Himal Southasian
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