In this groundbreaking work, Ariella Azoulay profoundly reorganizes our understanding of the ethical status of photography. It must be understood in its inseparability with the many disasters of recent history. She argues that photography is a certain set of relationships between individuals and the powers that govern them, and at the same time a form of relations between equals that limits that power. Any person, including a stateless person, who addresses others through photographs or takes the position of the recipient of a photograph, is or may become a member of the citizenship of photography. The book`s key arguments concern two groups that have been made invisible by their state of emergency: Palestinian non-citizens of Israel and women in Western societies. Azoulay`s central question is: under what legal, political or cultural conditions will it be possible to see and show a catastrophe that happens to people with defective citizenship in a state of emergency? The Civil Contract of Photography is an indispensable work for all those who want to understand the disasters of recent history and the consequences of their representation and their victims. “This is an important, deeply moral book that was intended to undermine complacent thinking. Azoulay`s renewal of cultural attention to the state and his vision of photography, which forces us to deny the dominant interpretations of evidence, are certainly to be welcomed, as we are once again being returned to reality in reverse. – Steve Edwards, Times Higher Education Supplement “Azoulay. is not interested in the viewer`s emotional reactions to images of suffering. It is not empathy that she is looking for; it wants action. Images can change the world, she argues, and the only reason they haven`t yet is because we don`t know how to look at them.
The problem is not the images; We are. For many years, I said I didn`t know what to do if I came across a picture of another person who was suffering or dying or was already dead. After reading Azoulay, I couldn`t say I didn`t know what to do. She had explained the work in detail. For me, the question now is whether I am up to the task. Sarah Sentilles, The New Yorker Many of our e-books are available through e-library resources, including these platforms: “Azoulay`s ethical and political questioning of her situation as an Israeli citizen should be seen as a challenge in creating our own accounting. – Abigail Solomon-Godeau, Art in America.” . . . nothing less than a complete reformulation of the contemporary political issues of the image. .
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