War Primer 2 By Adam Broomberg | Oliver Chanari... -

Brecht used poetry to "lay bare the device" of the image. In War Primer 2 , the interaction between Brecht's historical text and contemporary visuals (e.g., a biometric camera reading a dead man's iris) creates a "ping-pong relay" that forces the viewer to become a critical observer rather than a passive consumer of spectacle. War Primer 2 [paperback] - MACK

Drawing on Hito Steyerl’s concept of the "poor image," the work utilizes compressed, pixelated screengrabs to represent the "War on Terror". War Primer 2 by Adam Broomberg | Oliver Chanari...

A central theme is the democratization—and simultaneous weaponization—of the camera. Brecht used poetry to "lay bare the device" of the image

Abstract

This paper analyzes War Primer 2 (2011) by Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, a contemporary "hack" of Bertolt Brecht’s 1955 Kriegsfibel (War Primer). By overlaying images from the "War on Terror" onto Brecht’s original plates, the artists transition Brecht’s critique of WWII press photography into the era of the internet, mobile phone footage, and biometric surveillance. This study examines how the work re-functions the "photo-epigram" to expose the political economy behind modern conflict imagery. This study examines how the work re-functions the

While Brecht relied on professional photojournalists and mainstream media, Broomberg and Chanarin source images from "the bad new things": insurgents, soldiers' blogs, and ordinary civilians.