INTERACTION WITH DISASTER

Today’s media is characterised by attempts to search for more simplistic treatment of current affairs accompanied by an increased reliance upon the visual image. Yet when we stop to think about how much of our knowledge of the world is derived from pictures, we find that there is also very little general understanding about how visual images communicate this information. Against this background, journalism as a profession has become ‘promiscuous’, disparate and diffuse; yet Western governments appear to be increasingly responsive to public opinion. It is becoming increasingly important not only to analyse the ability of visual images to create new discourses, but also necessary to examine the social and institutional constraints on their function.

While the paper evaluates media responses to disaster, it assesses the ethnographic value and potential to be found in artists’ responses to humanitarian disasters. In such artworks, new information and communication technologies can offer the possibility of the complex interlinking of sources and commentary in different media, adding a level of technical sophistication to ethnographic studies that makes analysis easier, richer, and more accessible to a broader audience. While mass media reporting of disasters has the potential to stir public opinion, ultimately prompting aid agencies and governments to respond to the problem, there is a marked tendency to categorise the victims of such tragedies as human types, whereby the selective nature of the visual image frequently objectifies them dismissing their historical, cultural and political circumstances. In contrast, visual artists challenge these conventions. Examples include, Eva Koch’s Villar multimedia project relating to forced migration during the Spanish Civil War and Alfredo Jaar’s The Rwanda Project: 1994-1998: an installation documenting survivors and locations of the 1994 Rwandan genocide. These attempts aim to portray the disaster through the personal experiences of those involved.

The paper itself will be accompanied by a demonstration of a multimedia exploration space that examines these changing presentations of disaster victims. Interaction with Disaster is a multimedia presentation that considers some contemporary images of disasters and subsequent human migration. It looks for patterns and common elements in their construction and usage. It identifies some historical archetypes that are used to portray the subject of forced migration and questions the role of the mass media in aiding the relief of humanitarian disasters.