In/visible War

by Jon Simons

"In/Visible War addresses a paradox of twenty-first-century American warfare. The contemporary visual American experience of war is ubiquitous and utterly present in public, popular culture, and yet war is simultaneously invisible or absent; we lack a lived sense that "America" is at war. This paradox of in/visibility concerns the gap between the experiences of war zones and the visual, mediated experience of war in public, popular culture, which absents and renders invisible the former. Large portions of the domestic public experience war only at a distance. For these citizens, war seems...