GRANTEE
My research project departs from the troubling observation that despite the massive proliferation of visual testimonies of the ongoing violent war crimes across digital networks, the images’ power to bring justice, stop, or prevent violence is all the more shrinking. I analyze how digital media environments function during the war, how they define the operation of war-related images, and how they, in turn, are shaped by them. I propose to look beyond the evidentiary function of the violent images of war and explore how they are being operationalized within the engagement economy of digital platforms and weaponized as a tactical tool of cognitive cyber warfare. Hypothesizing that modern warfare is an industry driven by visuals, I consider media images of violence as a valuable military resource. To examine my hypothesis I study image production, circulation, and consumption practices related to the Russo-Ukrainian War, and explore how infrastructures of violence and image-making converge within the techno-social assemblage of the given war.