Atrocity images and the Audience

Abstract

Susan Sontag’s reviews and descriptions of agony images is the keystone of war photography. From On photography(1977) to Regarding the Pain of Others(2003), Sontag wrote about how agony images could affect the majority of people. Media ruled photographs and used them as its own container. Through her book, the passiveness of the audiences was examined. She criticised the way of how people looked at an agony image. According to her, audiences constantly consumed other’s pain if the they are far away. She judged repeating formats and simplified messages from media which numb the sensation of people, the surfeit of similar horrendous images turned an audience into a consumer. “Is a photograph ever “real”? she asked. Firstly, within in my thesis I would like to to examine the relevancy of Sontag theory, her interests in emotion in charge of atrocity and pain. To found out the possible respond of the audience, in respect to war in contemporary art photography. When artists have the chance to turn their camera from those atrocity on sites, what could be the differences in audiences’ reactions from traditional war photojournalist. Moreover, Sontag’s concept “the audience as consumers” will be traced back to its basic elements. To scan the particular words and phrase which Sontag used in her two books. Secondly, use Regarding the Pain of Others(2003) as a starting point of the timeline, then search for the critical thoughts which against or support Sontag’s words during the decade. Furthermore, use different concepts of the agony images to examine the remarkable singular atrocity images and the art works relate to war and atrocity. To explore the change according to the interaction between atrocity and contemporary photography and their audiences. After all, use the dialects between the theories and the war in contemporary art photography to extent the perspective from Regarding the Pain of Others(2003) to get closer to our time — to build the the reference of how to see an agony image.