The Violence of the Image

Lesia Kulchynska

The relationship between violence and image has been a focus of my research for approximately ten years. My own curatorial experience alerted me to its importance; when an exhibition I curated was censored, I started to explore other cases of banned and attacked exhibitions and artworks in contemporary Ukraine. During my field studies on the suppression of art in Ukraine, I discovered that those who advocated censorship and assaults against artworks described themselves as “victims of images,” asserting they had been insulted, attacked, or even injured by them. This realization compelled me to critically explore the perception of violence as an experiential feature of images. Drawing on examples of intolerance towards art projects in Ukraine and beyond, my research initially aimed at understanding why certain artistic images were perceived as intolerable, dangerous, or violent and what kind of developments this perception would bring about. 
While my Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Bibliotheca Hertziana allowed me to continue work on this research project, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine forced me to expand the conceptual framework of it. The intense media visuality of war and its atrocities made the perception of violence as a feature of an image a part of my own experience.  In the context of hybrid and digital warfare, this experience created a vital need to examine visual violence from the perspective of the militarization or weaponization of the image – and in particular artistic images.
The images of extreme violence produced and circulated during the war have often had a strong emotional, sometimes even physical impact on the beholder, inducing chain reactions; beginning with a range of individual feelings and actions, these reactions develop into artistic expressions, social choices, or political decisions. What kind of social relationships do they produce? What kind of relationships do we establish with those images and why? Focusing on the images of violence produced and distributed during the war in Ukraine, both in media and art, the project investigated the performative aspect and specific modes of functioning of those images in the context of digital warfare. 
Today artistic subjectivity and activity are often interwoven with the subjectivity and activity of the artist as an internet and social media user. This intense involvement of artists in the production and distribution of digital images has been affected by the visuality of war. As the weaponization of images is becoming a part of their artistic practices, they have become participants in digital warfare. For that reason, there is a profound need for research and reflection on the mechanisms of the visual impact of war on artistic practices in wartime to develop a more conscious curatorial approach.
As a curator, I continue to be also professionally involved in the production of the visuality of war as well as the production of knowledge about the war. Furthermore, as an individual directly impacted by the war and heavily influenced by its visuality, I transmit my own perception and experience through my professional activity. In this regard, probing research into and reflection on the mechanisms by which war impacts us visually has become crucial for a heightened sense of my own professional curatorial practice.