The Closer We Get the Less There Is to See

In almost real-time, consumers of the news are used to watching the most recent events on screen. Distributed by spokesmen units and spread by the media, the events at most appear in black and white, or as Infrared video feeds. The images shot by hovering drones, reconnaissance towers or surveillance cameras are often characterized by a distance between the lens and the occurrence, but also constitute the distance between the viewer and the image. These images are characteristic of many contemporary documentary pictures: the closer we get to reality, the less there is to see. In the chase after depth of resolutions and accumulation of pixels in modern technology, the low resolution, low contrast and low fidelity obfuscate the content, reducing the viewer to the role of passive bystander. The affect precedes the viewer’s capability to decode the image — through graphic framing, often indicated by a red circle or an arrow, and the titles accompanying footage. The affect of these news reports is not primarily created by their subject matter, but by their presentation. In suspending the affect generated via multilayered mediation, could the viewing be experienced in a different domain and test the role of the graphic layer as a mediator for or a barrier to reality?

On screen there is a red circle and in it a man running. The decent viewer would admit they are not excited. They have seen more graphic images on television. And besides the red arrow on screen points at the balance of power, so it is not that hard to watch.

We are already used to living in a constantly documented world. What happened a moment ago appears on screen an instant later. It often means we see more than we want. We shouldn’t waste our imagination — a precious resource. When we sit in front of the screen, what do we really want to see? The warm blood is flowing through our veins. We need to know what happened, we want to know the consequences, to understand the disaster economy — how many are dead, how many are wounded and how many survived?

Then comes the highlight of the broadcast. As if it was a video game, the viewer observes the photographic documentation. They are a trained, sophisticated viewer who has watched television and cinema before. Now they follow the red circle and in it a warm dot pointing to the centre of events. The dot is running on the road from one side to the other, after it runs past a group of men and it falls to the ground. The honest viewer admits they aren’t at all alarmed. They have seen television more graphic than this; it is not that hard to watch. On the contrary, it brings a small sense of joy, a sense of revenge. After all it is their favourite genre, the one where the bad guy dies in the end.

Based on an article by Maya Sela, The Viewer Looks at the Photographic Record of the Attack as a Computer Game, Haaretz, 6 November 2014.