War on war! Artful weapons in times of war and conflict

Tools

Buckley, Bernadette. 2023. War on war! Artful weapons in times of war and conflict. In: Fiana Gantharet; Nolwenn Guibert and Sofia Stolk, eds. Art and Human Rights: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Contemporary Issues. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 165-187. ISBN 9781802208146 [Book Section]

Preview

Text
War on War v.8.pdf - Accepted Version
Download (445kB) | Preview

Official URL: https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/art-and-human-rig...

Abstract or Description

What power do cultural practices have to respond to emergencies of war. Can they act as active weapons against or within it? To open up this issue, this chapter considers Bertolt Brecht’s life-long struggle to deploy aesthetic methodologies specifically as weapons of, or against, war. It further reflects on how Brecht's work anticipates contemporary practices such as Forensic Architecture's The Battle of Ilovaisk (2019) – a project concerning the capture and detention of Ukrainian volunteer combatants by Russian military and pro-Russian separatists in Ilovaisk, Eastern Ukraine, in 2014. Nearly a century apart, both of these practices, it argues, go beyond any attempt merely to creatively ‘express the immensity of the experience [of war]’ (Brandon, 2007: 4). Instead, they seek to interfere, actively and militantly in war ‘itself’. By deploying ‘truth’ as an aesthetic weapon within war, they seek to shift the very parameters on which war operates, is understood, justified, or indeed overlooked as a form of warfare at all.

Item Type:

Book Section

Identification Number (DOI):

https://doi.org/10.4337/9781802208153.00021

Additional Information:

This is a draft chapter. The final version is available in 'Art and Human Rights: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Contemporary Issues' edited by Fiana Gantheret, Nolwenn Guibert and Sofia Stolk, published in 2023, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd
http://dx.doi.org/10.4337/9781802208153.00021

Keywords:

Art's war on war, Bertolt Brecht, Forensic Architecture, Ilovaisk, truth as weapon, aesthetic weapons, Friegsfibel, Fascism before and after war in Ukraine

Departments, Centres and Research Units:

Politics

Dates: