Abstract

The First Gulf War (1990–1991) is typically remembered as a virtual, video-game war, in which close to no pictures of human bodies were seen. In its aftermath, images of the devastating Kuwaiti oil fields’ fires were frequently described as visions of apocalypse, conjuring a posthuman world. Some Gulf War photographs depicting oil damage, among which those taken by Steve McCurry, Bruno Barbey and Sebastião Salgado, feature animals from soiled sea birds to horses and camels irretrievably lost in the polluted desert. This article, by focusing notably on three photographs by Salgado as published in his 2016 book Kuwait: a Desert on Fire, proposes a close observation of those easily overlooked pictures, to question the hegemonic understanding of the Gulf War as a “war without bodies” (Sekula). On the contrary, using notably the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, I will argue that the animals’ bodies, and specifically their liminal character akin to ghosts and zombies, convey the damage wreaked by this war, not in terms of battle casualties, but rather of its wider environmental damage. The belated publication of Salgado’s Kuwait: a Desert on Fire and the relationship of that timing with the evolution of the visual representation of climate change will thus be examined.

摘要

第一次海湾战争（1990-1991）通常被认为是一场虚拟的视频游戏战争，在这场战争中几乎看不到人体照片。其后果是，毁灭性的科威特油田火灾的图像经常被描述为世界末日的景象，让人联想到一个后人类世界。一些描绘石油破坏的海湾战争照片，其中包括史蒂夫·麦柯里、布鲁诺·巴贝和塞巴斯蒂昂·萨尔加多拍摄的照片，这些照片的特点是从被污染的海鸟到在污染的沙漠中无可挽回地消失的马和骆驼。这篇文章特别关注萨尔加多在他 2016 年出版的著作《科威特：着火的沙漠》中发表的三张照片，提出对那些容易被忽视的画面进行仔细观察，质疑将海湾战争视为“没有身体的战争”（Sekula）的霸权理解。相反，特别是使用雅克德里达的哲学，我将论证动物的身体，特别是它们类似于鬼魂和僵尸的阈限特征，传达了这场战争造成的破坏，不是战斗伤亡，而是其更广泛的环境破坏。萨尔加多的《科威特： 着火的沙漠》的迟到出版以及该时间与气候变化视觉表现演变的关系将因此被审查。