| Beschreibung |
The course will focus on imaging technologies in the history of warfare from the 17th century to the present. While the production of images and the rendering of visibility can be regarded as key practices in today’s high-tech wars – from large-area reconnaissance to screen-based remote warfare and computational image analysis – imaging techniques have long been part of the endeavor to clear the ‘fog of war’. Colonial mapping, early-modern drill books, the first attempts to verticalise the gaze onto the battlefield by means balloons, early aviation with its links to photography and film, TV-guided bombs and computerized simulations, are all part of a military history of image production that will be explored in depth to contextualize the notorious ”image flood” of warfare in the 21st century. Course participants are expected to conduct and present independent research on specific topics throughout the course. Historical case studies will be complemented with theoretical and critical positions of thinkers such as Jean Baudrillard, Donna Haraway, Rey Chow, Paul Virilio, Grégoire Chamayou, Lucy Suchman and Karen Caplan. |
