Some Reflections on the Photofilmic Aesthetics and Visual Rhetorics of Fraught Images in Rabih Mroué’s The Pixelated Revolution (2012)

for dOCUMENTA (13), which contains strong eyewitness documentaries and sniper material as a remarkably new type of emotionally charged contemporary media imagery, this essay deals with the characteristics and functions, the aesthetics and rhetorics of some particular fraught images in today’s political upheavals and wars. By framing these specific fraught images artistically, e. g. in appropriating, re-enacting, and staging found footage, the Lebanese visual artist, director, and playwright demonstrates that most contemporary fraught images, distributed via social media platforms, are less carriers of (political) information, and rather significant, active agents in stirring emotions in the networked global village, effectively triggering affects as part of a larger scenographic regime of current political protests, however fleeting they may be in a time of permanent excitation culture. Résumé: Prenant pour objet The Pixelated Revolution (2012) de Rabih Mroué, cet essai traite des caractéristiques et des fonctions ainsi que des esthétiques et des rhétoriques de certaines « fraught images » dans les bouleversements politiques et les guerres d’aujourd’hui. En intégrant des documents de témoins oculaires et du matériel de sniper dans une démarche artistique, par le biais de la réappropriation, de la re-mise en scène, de l’organisation de séquences trouvées, l’artiste visuel libanais, metteur en scène et dramaturge