Heather Burnett

Heather Burnett’s work examines the iconography of war and the representation of violence in the mass media and entertainment industries. Her interest in such issues stems from her own experiences of war as a visitor in Bosnia as well as from encounters with political journalists who have documented events in global war zones. Her video Witness: AnAesthetic, combines real footage filmed in Sierra Leone by the award-winning journalist Sorious Samura, with clips taken from violent Hollywood movies. It deals with the human passage from innocence to murder via mediated events as well as documentary reality. At the same time, it is a poignant comment on the aestheticisation of violence in the entertainment industry, the increasing conflation of fact and fiction in the media, and the various – often diametrically opposed – standard mechanisms of representation of violence, ranging from the iconic to the banal; as well as our increasing apathy or numbness in the face of suffering caused in large effect by these standardized methods.

Writings for Witness:AnAesthetic by Heather Burnett

Central idea: To view something is a passive phenomenon, one in which disconnection, disassociation can easily occur. To witness on the other hand, carries with it the implication of testimony, the possibility of responding, of responsibility. It also implies the testimony of an individual witness, not the politics or pressure of a group consensus.

We in the comfortable, safe ‘West’ spend vast amounts of money to watch images of fabricated violence, while at the same time the real violence is escalating horribly across the world. One of the many reasons this insanity is occurring is that censorship bodies prohibit us from truly witnessing what is happening in reality in the world in the 21st century. We are deemed somehow ‘too sensitive’ to watch images of the brutality that is actually happening in our world. This is another insanity. As the award winning journalist Sorious Somoura has said ‘how can we be too sensitive to watch these images, when we have freedom and the ability to turn away, to do something about it, to respond, whereas those that are actually suffering do not have that chance, that freedom’. How can we be ‘too sensitive’ to watch it, when we have such an appetite for images of false violence, that they fill our screens, at home, and in the cinema. Movie violence normalises our perception and acceptance of real violence only if we cannot compare it to images of the real thing.

The tyranny of format (exerpt of the text)
Films

The media employ heavily framed formats, in particular for representations of violence, whether fictional or real. In films, no matter how realistic the violence may seem, there is absolutely no connection whatsoever to the horror of real violence. This is underlined by the use of charismatic actors, dramatic narrative music, happy ‘meaningful’ endings, big explosions and exciting gun sounds, and the increasingly glamorous manner in which the violence is presented . In a film, bombs may fall, people may be shot and die, but you don’t have to watch the unbearable spectacle of real people burning alive, bleeding to death, screaming in horror, living and dying in great pain. You may watch, for your enjoyment, a known actor writhing about ‘dying’ but you know that he will get up at the end of the take and go home. Movie violence normalises our acceptance of the reality and inevitability of real violence, because it seduces us into finding it beautiful. It seduces us into finding it meaningful. The subconscious message is: violence is fun, violence is ok, it has meaning , it is survivable, it is normal. We pay for the privilege of this subversive indoctrination.

Real violence sounds, looks and feels terrible, it is truly horrifying. No words can approach what it is to really experience or see violence. It is simply unbearable to watch, unbearable to conceive of, difficult to respond to, confusing, demoralising and challenging. There are no happy endings. There is no dramatic music, no deeper meaning, no glamorous Tom Cruise or George Clooney killing or dying for their country/god/beliefs/woman etc. There is only the harsh sight of a fellow human suffering needlessly, meaninglessly.