ABSTRACT

This paper analyses the scopic regime established by images of UK food banks. Analysis of three popular images of ‘Food Bank Britain’ reveals the persistence of historical practices for visualizing hunger – namely, the dominance of faciality, infantilization of the hungry, and erasure of geographical context from visual frames. Drawing on the work of Judith Butler, this paper demonstrates how such images serve to ‘frame’ austerity – where framing describes the link between the bounding of the literal edges of an image and the epistemic, affective frames for understanding and feeling austerity that are mobilized. Rather than attempting to portray ‘real’ images of food banks, this scopic regime is instead marked by the production of ocular affects that structure the feelings of the viewer towards certain political ends. It is concluded that this framing of hunger denies the political life of food bank users, a process that in turn effaces the radical questions necessary to address the causes of hunger at a time of austerity.

摘要

本文分析了英国食品银行图像所建立的微观制度。对“英国食品银行”的三个流行图像的分析揭示了将饥饿形象化的历史实践的持续存在——即面部特征的主导地位、饥饿的幼稚化以及从视觉框架中删除地理背景。本文借鉴朱迪思·巴特勒的工作，展示了这些图像如何用于“框架”紧缩——其中框架描述了图像字面边缘的边界与认知、情感框架之间的联系，以理解和感受被调动的紧缩. 与其试图描绘食物银行的“真实”形象，不如说这种视觉制度的特点是产生视觉影响，从而构建观众对某些政治目的的感受。