Afterlives

CN: Violence 
Following his desktop work on ISIS propaganda videos, Kevin B. Lee’s essay film tracks how images of extremist violence circulate. What happens to us when we lock our eyes with such material? Encountering a 3D-printed Medusa head at an exhibition, he starts asking: Can we ever truly process the trauma of what we have seen? Meeting artists and researchers, Lee explores how any act of preservation or reproduction can carry a coercive logic, turning into another form of violence, and whether the act of looking can ever truly escape this violent cycle.