David Campbell, ‘Horrific Blindness’

In his article, David Campbell outlines how the meaning of images of violence changes according to the context in which they are shown. One example he uses are the photos taken by white supremacists documenting and celebrating the lynchings of African-American’s in the first—half of the 20th century. The photos were published and became powerful articles of propoganda, becoming “integral to the public and social meaning of the murders.” (Campbell, p57) The exhibition ‘Without Sanctuary’ (2000) compiled a selection of these historical documents and re-presented them for a new audience. Stripped of the racist environment that produced them, they now serve as horrific reminders of America’s past and its impact on the present.

The element of Campbell’s article that I find most interesting is his description of the system of distribution that delivers images of violence to an audience. The key here is not only the audience’s role in experiencing the images, but also providing the media with pre-existing criteria for judging the acceptability of any particular image. Essentially, any public response to images of violence is “against pictures that have been anaesthetised in anticipation of this response.” (Campbell, p64) We are only shown what we are expected to enjoy. Our compliance in this system of distribution complicates any accusations of blame thrown at the media for disturbing the peace. Certainly, boundaries of good taste are transgressed in individual occurrences of poor judgement. But it is the determination of what is good taste in the first place, that is more shocking.


References

David Campbell, Horrific Blindness, in Journal For Cultural Research, Vol.8, No.1, Jan 2004