Abstract
What follows is a series of reflections on the shifts in thought that I would argue are necessary to critically engage the graphic, both as a compositional form and as the quality or intensity of a visual display. I take as my focus the display of the effects of unending war appearing in I Live Here (2008) a boxed collection of four books, published by Random House with the support of Amnesty International USA (AIUSA).1 I Live Here was produced by Mia Kirshner, an actress, J. B. MacKinnon, a writer, and creative directors, Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simmons. The works of 22 artists, writers researchers also appear in the boxed collection of the four books of I Live Here and the later developed website. Each is a collage-like composition of journal entries, stories, photographs, numbers and graphic novellas about the war in Chechnya, the ethnic cleansing at the Burmese border, the disappearance and death of women around the maquiladoras near the Mexican border and the AIDS epidemic in Malawi, Africa.
How is one to feel about war?
About a world map of hot spots,
laid out again and again before you?
Zones of conflagration, burning, burning
burning the ground
up into the lives
that ground once supported.
What does it feel like to be asked to do good in a world,
war-torn and burning still,
when there is war in hot spots all around us
but where we do not live? Where do we live?
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© 2012 Patricia Ticineto Clough
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Clough, P.T. (2012). War By Other Means: What Difference Do(es) the Graphic(s) Make?. In: Karatzogianni, A., Kuntsman, A. (eds) Digital Cultures and the Politics of Emotion. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230391345_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230391345_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
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