The Genoa G8 and the Death of Carlo Giuliani

Abstract

The death of Carlo Giuliani during the 2001 G8 in Genoa is encapsulated for many by a photograph, taken by Dylan Martinez of Reuters, which featured prominently in the Italian and international media the day after his shooting (see Figure 6.1). In it, Giuliani appears to be less than a meter away from the trapped conscript carabiniere policeman, Mario Placanica, and closing in swiftly on him with a fire extinguisher that he is ready to turn on. However, like all those accounts of Giuliani’s death that have been presented as “the truth of what happened,” the photo in fact only offers us an interpretation, predicated on the position (be it physical or ideological) of its creator and the lens through which events in Piazza Alimonda on July 20, 2001, are viewed. The image that emerges is thus dependent on a series of prior conscious and unconscious choices. In Martinez’s case, these relate to his location in the piazza, the angle, frame, and timing of the photo, and the lens used to take it: a set of choices that determine the eventual composition and form of the photographer’s representation of the reality of the scene before him.