Culture’s photodermic enjoyment.
The aesthetic depiction of the Black corpse raises questions about scopic pleasure, empathy, and the futility of evidence. This essay engages aesthetic speculation about intended justice through Paul Stopforth’s Elegy (1981) and the Biko Series (1980), drawings of Steve Biko’s corpse that are all or...
| Publicado en: | Mortality Vol. 29; no. 2; pp. 252 - 270 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Taylor & Francis Ltd
May2024
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=177479726&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 177479726 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 13576275 MIY jtl: Mortality issn: 13576275 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: May2024 vid: 29 iid: 2 pid: 377 pub: Taylor & Francis Ltd artinfo: ui: 177479726 10.1080/13576275.2023.2265309 ppf: 252 ppct: 18 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P db: hlh ui: 177479726 tig: atl: Culture’s photodermic enjoyment. aug: au: Zondi, Mlondolozi affil: Comparative Literature, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. su: Dehumanization Violence Art Autopsy Social justice Culture Forensic sciences Homicide Guilt (Psychology) Police Practical politics Shame Medical cadavers Photography Exhibitions sug: subj: Dehumanization Violence Art Autopsy Social justice Culture Forensic sciences Homicide Guilt (Psychology) Police Practical politics Shame Convention and Trade Show Organizers Federal police services Municipal police services Police Protection Provincial police services Medical cadavers Photography Exhibitions keyword: death evidence Paul Stopforth pleasure Steve Biko death evidence Paul Stopforth pleasure Steve Biko ab: The aesthetic depiction of the Black corpse raises questions about scopic pleasure, empathy, and the futility of evidence. This essay engages aesthetic speculation about intended justice through Paul Stopforth’s Elegy (1981) and the Biko Series (1980), drawings of Steve Biko’s corpse that are all oriented toward a counter-evidentiary logic whose aim is to disprove the evidence provided by the apartheid police. I posit that this investment in evidence (alternative, or otherwise), capitulates to the terms of the dominant regime by participating in the struggle for evidence (alternative or otherwise) in the first place. I also engage the entanglement between scopophilia and negrophobia/negrophilia in the image of the Black dead, not merely as features of Stopforths’ individual unconscious, but as civil society’s/culture’s most consistent dreamwork. Questioning the political promise of aesthetic mobilization of the corpse, I ask: Why is it necessary for the world to see the image of the corpse (again) in aesthetic practice, in order to reflect on violence, and what modes of recognition and identification are produced? My curiosity lies in what is enacted by recruiting the viewer to adopt such forensic seeing. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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