Counter-forensics and photography 1

Keenan updates an earlier version of this essay (2014) to include the significance of the algorithmic image in his consideration of the politics of human rights. Tracing Allan Sekula’s critical examination of the relationship between photography’s evidentiary function and humanism, Keenan suggests Sekula’s term “counter-forensics” provides a different conception of humanism as human rights advocacy. Re-evaluating the ambiguous photographic document, Keenan argues that counter-forensics, which encompasses “both images themselves and the circumstances of their presentation,” can engage photographic archives as sites for political struggle and resistance.