ABSTRACT
In Treatise on Painting, Leonardo da Vinci argues that obscure things can stimulate the mind to new inventions. Frank Möller argues in this chapter that obscure is an apt term to designate specific developments in contemporary security policy, which is characterized by permanent invisibility aiming to ‘disappear’ people and material objects. However, as da Vinci argues, obscurity may also have a stimulating effect; it may help to ‘reappear’ the disappeared in viewers’ imaginations. The combination of obscurity, invisibility, and stimulation also aptly describes visual strategies in recent photographic approaches to the politics of security, especially technological and infrastructural developments. Möller investigates how Edgar Martins, Simon Norfolk, and Trevor Paglen challenge traditional photojournalistic approaches to war and security in search of ‘great’ shots close to ‘action’. Paradoxically, photography decoupled from seemingly straightforward knowledge-production makes security policy visible without liberating it from obscurity. It does not give viewers assurance but stimulates them to look behind the photograph, searching for that which cannot be seen in the picture. Möller argues this helps move spectators along the trajectory from the subject position of a (passive, observing, neutral) viewer in the direction of the subject position of a participant witness who self-critically reflects upon the conditions depicted in a given image.
