Synopsis
People in Iran document every second of their struggle against the Iranian regime. They take great risks, pulling out their phones and pressing the record button, so that the world may open its eyes and never forget or ignore their plight. The regime deliberately targets the eyes of these witnesses. Many people have lost one or both of their eyes, and some have even lost their lives, just like Shirin Alizadeh.Yet, despite the dangers, the videos of these witnesses are still shared on the internet. The fact that these moments are now being removed as 'sensitive content' from social media is the very hypocrisy we must answer for on the other side of the world. Behind every eye blurred into deep obscurity, invisible to our eyes, a person in the Middle East loses his life. (Narges Kalhor)
“If we show you pictures of napalm damage, you’ll close your eyes,” says Harun Farocki at the beginning of NICHT LÖSCHBARES FEUER. In the face of such violence, we close our eyes first to images, then to memory, fact and finally to the connections between them. SENSITIVE CONTENT considers this conundrum and the role of social media in showing/not showing images of resistance and their counter-shot: police and institutional violence. We have all seen the icon—a little eye— before a particular type of image. How is it that political struggle is always kept a blur? (Lucía Salas, Viennale 2023)