ABSTRACT
The bulk of the material studied in connection with the transmission of conspiracy theories is comprised of written sources. Images of conspiracy locate themselves at the border between the seen and unseen; they portray dense and condensed narratives of causal connections in a play between graphic image, reality and imagination. This chapter argues that visuality in conspiracy culture is an under-researched phenomenon that promises fruitful investigations, an argument also relevant for other research areas. It demonstrates how the visual culture of conspiracy theories recognises patterns, detects agency, maps coalitions, crafts enemy images and visualises secrecy in various interrelations of mediality, essentially between verbal and visual media. As M. Leone has argued, it is Rembrandt and his The Conspiracy of the Batavians under Claudius Civilis, who ‘offers one of the first modern instances of visual conspiracy theory’. Conspiracy theories interpret the world by telling a story.
