Attention! War is “before your very eyes”!
From the development of binoculars, telescopes, periscopes and camera equipment to radars, satellites, unmanned drones and visual sensing technologies, the histories of optics, photography and wars show a close link marking their development. As philosopher Paul Virilio puts it, the Age of Enlightenment ushered in cameras and photography, chronophotography and movies, automated weapons, sensor to shooter optical military systems, the constant bombing of our visual and auditory perception, and the illumination from the intense ‘light’ that followed the nuclear bombing… If we think about it, it is not so strange that the trajectory of the evolution of warfare closely resembles that of photography, movies and video games, because the visual machine is in fact a war machine.
In this issue, Kao Chung-Li turns to the development of optics and perceptive technology and explores how the audio-visual battle expanded from the military-industrial complex field into an optics one, dominated by ACG (Animation, Comics and Games) wars and remote telemetry, and how that would change the perception of warfare in the future. Contrasting the light explosion from ammunition with the exposure from photography, and the shooting of bullets with the ‘shooting’ of images, Hsu Chun-Yi analyzes the war genes that are hidden in photography and deduces the genealogical relationship of what is meant by “to see is to destroy”. Lee Li-Chun goes back in time to the mid-nineteenth century to explore the rapid development of aerial reconnaissance photography during the First World War in order to understand why the world had to transform into technical images that needed interpretation and translation. Sing Song-Yong reveals how intricate layers of satellites, communication networks and aerospace technology come together to become the high-resolution Eyes of God, showing us how war is clearly upon us in our everyday lives under the threat of real-time monitoring and violence, carefully and tightly controlled by those in power.
On the other hand, Yen Wang-Yun puts together artist Sung Tieu’s unmanned drone cruising vision, John Gerrard’s simulation and reconstruction of a military base mapping, and a large database of digital audio-visual archives and geographical information amassed by the art group Forensic Architecture, who had conducted a mapping and modeling of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as an in-depth visualization and reflection on the war. Hsieh Pei-Chun describes how the ‘blurring’ of images could be used as a defense tactic to safeguard classified military information and a visible yet invisible visual strategy, all through Trevor Paglen’s ultra long-range photography. In ‘Artist’s Showcase’, we interviewed Lee Li-Chung who shared his series, inspired by his experience with rearing pigeons, that delves into a fictional narrative on aerial reconnaissance conducted through military pigeons, hence opening the door to one’s imagination about Taiwan’s political and cultural history of aerial combat and pigeon racing.
In addition, this issue will introduce rare gun cameras, optical weapons, Camera Comics, a comic book series published during the Second World War, as well as photo archives from the “Rest and Recuperation Program”, through which U.S. military personnel stationed in Vietnam in the 1960s traveled to Taiwan for vacation. These offer a relook into the memories and economy that stayed hidden under the enormous shadows of warfare. At the same time, we also make a special introduction of Marie-José Mondzain, a contemporary French philosopher, and the key concepts behind her research on visual culture. With an interview with her, we explore the connection between imagery, desire, subjectivity and collective identity with the sociocultural environment, as well as how imagery is being used as a dynamic element that demonstrates power and how we can fight against visual totalitarianism. Further, in the “Photobook Making Case Study” section, we show you how books are made at Syubisya in Kyoto with a special process that emphasizes printing and creative processing.
本期目錄 Contents
To Be or Not to Be：沒有死屍的ACG次元戰場
To Be or Not to Be: An ACG Battlefield without Dead Bodies
高重黎 Kao Chung-Li
早期攝影技術超迷你史與攝影槍
A very short history of early photographic techniques & Gun Cameras
彈藥、感知：戰爭的製像術
Ammunition, Perception: The Cartography of War
許鈞宜 Hsu Chun-Yi
辨認．追蹤．介面
Identification, Trace, Interface
閻望雲 Yen Wang-Yun
攝影即射擊：戰爭航空偵察相片的技術簡史
To Shoot is to Shoot: A Brief Technical History of Aerial Reconnaissance Photography from Wartime
李立鈞 Lee Li-Chun
Camera Comics 相機漫畫
垂直之眼：指尖上的世界標靶
Vertical Eyes: The World Target at Your Fingertips
孫松榮 Sing Song-Yong
Kamikaze Drone 神風特攻無人機
Artist’s Showcase
台灣空戰記事
The Memo of a Formosa Air Battle
李立中 Lee Li-Chung
粉鳥記事：訪李立中
A Memo of Pigeons: Interview with Lee Li-Chung
訪談──李威儀 Interview by Lee Wei-I
秘密的形式：電子影像美學與政治性（II）
The Form of Secrecy: The Aesthetics and Politics of Electronic Images (II)
謝佩君 Hsieh Pei-Chun
來自地獄的假期：台灣1966
A Holiday from Hell: Taiwan 1966
圖像能殺人嗎？訪哲學家瑪麗—何塞．蒙贊
Can Images Kill?──An Interview with Marie-José Mondzain
導讀──張正平 Briankle G. Chang
訪談──瑪麗—克勞德．勞思樂 Marie-Claude Loiselle
攝影書製作現場系列6：修美社
Photobook Making Case Study #6: Syubisya
羅苓寧 Lo Ling-Ning