this is an image of text, more accurately an image of a newspaper clipping from the 19th century. for me it raises interesting questions of how differences in the imaging of texts can make a difference: a newspaper clipping, the front page of a typescript report, a screenshot of text, etc.
what's interesting to me about this image is not so much how my eye moved as how hard it had to work to read. which is apprrpriate to the distance in time in play here -- reading from the present to the mid-19th century. You have to resad it word by word, stopping and pondering and guessing and reading back and forward and revising your reading. We don't "see" print like this anymore and that makes it harder to read casually or transparently -- "naturally." Maybe it's an example of how to "toxify" text, or at least highlight its pharmakonic qualities of poison/gift,
as i started to say in another response tot his artifact, for me this image conveys something about "text as toxic" since the framing really doesn't connect it to other forms or action of toxicity, although I think it was meant to say something about toxic racism. If you simply read a transcript of the words you wouldn't get the same feeling (at least not so immediately) you (I) do reading it this way: ill at ease, queasy, unsettled and uncertain. So: "citizens" here transmits a kind of toxic effect, a poisoning of discourse through cleaning up this reference to people in
This is a powerful image in several ways. The story it tells is a realistic portrayal of the past which foreshadows the racism that is still prevalent today. The dated look of the visual adds to the overall feeling that the reader experiences while looking at and reading the image. Lynching as an action produces profound feelings for the reader especially since this is no longer a regular occurrence (shootings on the other hand...). The accompanying text adds to the article by bringing in some backstory and showing both sides of the situation. Overall an excellent visualization.
I find this image to be exemplorary of multiple instances of toxicity, particularly the ways in which history is produced through structures and flows of power. I wonder then if this image if reflective both of the toxic racisms and technologies that targeted black and brown bodies, as well as the toxictiy of the archive.
