![]() Based on an empirical analysis of different waves and phases of looting in the context of war and state decay in Somalia, the paper identifies five types of looting. Furthermore, the organisational structure, the performance of actions and the main targets of looters have differed widely. past atrocities and (perceived) injustices, as well as economic interests. In Somalia, looting activities have been driven by a broad range of motives, including military-strategic considerations and/or desire to revenge. Rather than being inspired primarily by economic objectives, lootings are complex and ambiguous social activities, which are embedded in daily practices and the political rhetoric of the war. ![]() This paper examines practices of looting in the Somali war. By putting disability studies into conversation with phenomenology and media archaeology, it contributes to a materially-informed theory of aggressive imagery. On the example of photosensitive epilepsy and frame rate standards, this paper will examine some historical frictions between disability and visual media. Norms that presuppose viewers with certain corporeal abilities and orientations are one of those things that, in Sara Ahmed’s words, ‘are relegated to the background in order to sustain a certain direction.’ When this direction is abandoned, when seeing is performed ‘incorrectly,’ when the media subjects implied, modeled and anticipated by norms fail or refuse to orient themselves as expected, the image becomes aggressive: it provokes nausea, seizures and other potentially harmful effects in those who view it. Our sensory experience of the world – how we see and hear, and therefore also how we form memories and weave a sense of self – is to a large degree shaped by technological and industrial norms. While this is not the first time animated moving images were purposely used to cause bodily harm, the case is nonetheless remarkable because its entry into legal discourse seems to formally inaugurate a new regime of violence and aggression in the imagery that surrounds us – images that are not aggressive in what they show, but because of what they do. The court’s indictment referred to the GIF as “a deadly weapon”. Eichenwald, who is Jewish, suffers from photosensitive epilepsy and the tweet he received was intended to induce a seizure. ![]() In March 2017, a Texas grand jury indicted a man on an aggravated assault charge enhanced as a hate crime for tweeting a strobing GIF to journalist Kurt Eichenwald.
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