Harun Farocki's War at a Distance and Videos by Mahmoud Alhaj

Harun Farocki's 2003 essay film uses archival and original material to interrogate expectations of the objectivity of contemporary photographic images, particularly those images documenting conflict and war. As Antje Ehmann observed, "The image is no longer used only as testimony, but also as an indispensable link in a process of production and destruction." Gazan artist Mahmoud Alhaj's work shares concerns with Farocki's but emerges from lived experience of daily violence in Gaza, "especially under the siege and constant aerial surveillance," leading to "an attempt to understand the technological structure of domination and its impact on the body, space, and memory."