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IMAGINATIONS Revue d’ÉTudeS INTeRculTuRelleS de l’Image JOuRNAl Of Cross-culTuRAl Image STudIeS terrorism and its legacy in german visual culture 5-2 2014 MARIA STehle Noah SOlTAu Anja KAThARINA SeIleR Thomas NAchReINeR R. eRIc JOhNSON Thomas RIeGleR christoph dRAeGeR Sebastian bAdeN Terrorism and iTs Legacy in german VisuaL culture managing ediTor - carrie smiTh-Prei editor in chief | rédacteur en chef • sheena Wilson editorial Team | comité de rédaction: daniel Laforest, dalbir sehmby, carrie smith-Prei, andriko Lozowy French content editor | contenu français: daniel Laforest design and technical editor | design et technologie: andriko Lozowy Web editor | mise en forme web: carrie smith-Prei reviews editor – elicitations | comptes rendus critiques Élicitations: Tara milbrandt French Translations | Traductions françaises: alexandra Popescu editorial advisory Board | comité scientifique: hester Baer, university of oklahoma, united states mieke Bal, university of amsterdam & royal netherlands academy of arts and sciences, netherlands andrew Burke, university of Winnipeg, canada ollivier dyens, concordia university, canada michèle garneau, université de montréal Wlad godzich, university of california santa cruz, united states Kosta gouliamos, european university, cyprus Faye hammill, university of strathclyde, united Kingdom anton Kaes, university of california Berkeley, united states dominic mciver Lopes, university of British columbia, canada sarah mcgaughey, dickinson college, united states Peter mcisaac, university of michigan, united states marie-dominique Popelard, université de la sorbonne nouvelle - Paris 3, France christine ramsay, university of regina, canada Laurence a. rickels, academy of Fine arts, Karlsruhe, germany Will straw, mcgill univeristy, canada imre szeman, university of alberta, canada sPonsor: IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 3-2, 2012 • 2 IMAGINATions 5-2 FaLL 2014 TErrOrISM ANd its LEGAcy IN GErMAN Visual CulturE guesT ediTor: maria StehLe 4 introduction by noah soltau and maria stehle 7 aussteigen (getting out) impossible—montage and Life scenarios in andres Veiel’s Film Black Box B rd by anja Katharina seiler 29 The aesthetics of Violence and Power in uli edel’s der Baader meinhof Komplex by noah soltau 46 askew Positions—schieflagen: depictions of children in german Terrorism Films by maria stehle 67 “inspired by real events”—media (and) memory in steven spielberg’s munich (2005) by Thomas nachreiner 88 “Jedes herz... ”: The role of Terror in hans Weingartner’s die Fetten Jahre sind Vorbei (The edukators) by r. eric Johnson: 103 “mirroring terror”: The impact of 9/11 on hollywood cinema by Thomas riegler: 120 shooting history: an interview with swiss artist christoph draeger about the re-enactment of terrorism in his video installation Black september (2002) by sebastian Baden 3 • ISSUE 5 - 2, 2014 • IMAGINATIONS TeRRORISM ANd its leGAcy IN GeRMAN vISuAl culTuRe Noah Soltau ANd MArIA STEhLE How else to get attention for one’s product inform or influence audiences’ concepts of and or one’s art? How else to make a dent responses to terrorism and political violence. when there is incessant exposure to images, Our edited volume is positioned at the tail end overexposure to a handful of images seen of a surge of engagement with West German again and again? The image as shock and left-wing terrorism, the student movement the image as cliché are two aspects of the and so-called “sixty-eighters,” and the social same presence. (Sontag 23) and political legacies of the 1960s and 70s in general.1 By also looking beyond Germany, we The idea for a special issue on visual depictions position this volume at the beginning of a more of terrorism in German culture came out of comprehensive scholarly engagement with a graduate seminar on Representations of visual depictions of violence and terrorism Radicals and Terrorists in German Literature in a post-9/11 world. In Philip Hammond’s and Film in the 20th and 21st Century that Maria introduction to the edited volume Screens of Stehle taught at the University of Tennessee in Terror: representations of war and terrorism 2011. Based on our discussions in the seminar, in film and television since 9/11 (2011), a we decided to put together a special issue that collection of essays that seeks to “brings examines, based on the German case, how together European and North American historically traumatic events inform visual scholars working in politics and international cultures in the twentieth and twenty-first relations as well as in literature, film, media century. The specter of international terrorism and cultural studies to take stock and assess has influenced the aesthetics of a wide range the shape and significance of the post 9/11,” of artworks produced in and about Germany, (17) he writes: from film to photography to visual art. A closer examination of these visual art forms aims After a decade of turmoil and instability in to further develop the understanding of and world affairs, after two wars that have left vocabulary for dealing with the effects of both hundreds of thousands dead and injured, it domestic and international social trauma. The may seem frivolous to focus on fictional film articles in this special issue examine artists’ and television drama. The impulse to do so, representations of acts of terrorism and of however, is in part given by the nature of the their social and political effects. We analyze the war on terror itself, designed by its architects aesthetic and social discourses in which these to be a media-friendly event. Staging the cultural products engage and how artworks spectacle of ‘war on terror,’ complete with IMAGINATIONS • ISSUE 5 - 2, 2014 • 4 inTroducTion sound-bites and photo-opportunities inspired products both effective and marketable, a fact by Hollywood, was an attempt to offset the that Noah Soltau illustrates in his discussion Western elite’s loss of purpose and vision, to of the rather successful German film Der fill the ‘void of meaning’ in Halland’s phrase. Baader Meinhof Complex. Most of the films It could never accomplish that. But what it and certainly the artwork, however, also make did do—not so much through the meetings attempts to critically engage with the problem with entertainment industry executives as of violence and media sensationalism and the through its very failure and incoherence— politics of fear. These two seemingly opposing was to prompt others to try to make sense aspects of “terrorism films” might suggest that of the contemporary experience of war and they fail to send a clear political message and, terror in ways that aimed to connect with consequently, remain politically incoherent. popular audiences. (17)2 Anja Seiler’s essay on the documentary film Black Box BRD and Eric Johnson’s discussion In our special issue, only the article by Thomas of genre conventions in the film Die fetten Riegler discusses mainstream Hollywood Jahre sind vorbei (The Edukators) and the films in more detail; the other contributions vacillation between terror and terrorism film relate their discussions specifically to the illustrate the complexity of this struggle for German example and discuss pop cultural, political coherence and complexity. Maria political, and commercial aspects of artistic Stehle’s essay on representation of children representations of political violence. Most of in films about terrorism shows that an honest the films we discuss and certainly the artist we engagement with questions of violence and introduce would probably understand their representation confirms that there is no work as intending to “prompt others to try to complete, easily digestible answer, but there make sense of the contemporary experience of are important political questions that need to war and terror in ways that aimed to connect be addressed. The continued struggle against with popular audiences,” (Hammond 17) and with global terrorism and the images this rather than as trying to re-establish the power terror produces certainly confirms this point. and control of Western nations, here mainly Germany. We would argue that in most cases, Our essays hope to spark further discussions the films are engaged in a project that tries to about the complex questions surrounding simultaneously do both: at the very least gain images and digital images in a global media control of the representation, but also incite a landscape. The increasing reliance on images critical discourse. The fact that terrorism and over text, of breadth rather than depth of the fight against terrorism are media-friendly coverage in the digital age, adds urgency to this events also applies to Germany’s specific discussion that is only compounded by recent past experiences with left-wing and global geopolitical events and their representations, terrorism. This is certainly the case for the which have as of this writing displaced 51 terror attacks during the Munich Olympics million people and resulted in hundreds of in 1972—a violent terrorist attack and global thousands of deaths.3 When we can rely on media event discussed in Thomas Nachreiner’s the Instagram feeds of ISIS fighters for our article as well as in Sebastian Baden’s interview breaking news from the battlefields in Syria with the artist Christoph Draeger—and the and Iraq, rather than in-depth print reporting terror attacks of the RAF in the 1970s and or even the nightly news, the ability to parse into the 1980s. The filmmakers and artists and analyze the rhetoric and ideology of we are discussing in this collection use images becomes increasingly vital. Developing sensationalism, the use of “the image as shock theoretical arguments about the representation and as cliché” (Sontag), which makes their of terror and terrorism from events that 5 • ISSUE 5 - 2, 2014 • IMAGINATIONS represent less recent historical trauma creates Rinner, Susanne. “From Student Movement an intellectual space for critical engagement to the Generation of 1968: Generational that cannot be found in this morning’s images Conflicts in Novels from the 1970s and of the battlefield.