The Anticipation of Security

Abstract

Earlier I argued that the public shock and outrage produced by the release of the Abu Ghraib photographs derived as much or more from the affective intensity they introduced to our everyday practices of mediality as from their evidentiary status in regard to the unacceptable practices of torture and interrogation that had gone on at the Abu Ghraib prison. My argument was based in part on the fact that reports of similar practices at Guantanamo Bay and at dark sites across the globe did not produce anywhere near the same intensity of public outrage produced by the release of the photographs from Abu Ghraib. The continuity of these photographs with our practices of digital photography and photo-sharing and the affective life of our media everyday combined to make Abu Ghraib a matter of much greater public concern than similar practices elsewhere.