Invasive Links

In a world increasingly fractured by unending conflict, a stark division persists between those who endure the frontlines of war and disaster and those who observe these events from the comfort of digital screens in affluent enclaves. As the former seek ways to engage and involve the latter, conflicts are increasingly uploaded, relayed, and brought “home,” reshaping the hypermediated dynamics of modern warfare.

Through the medium of the technical picture, Berlin-based artist Michael Schäfer interrogates the role of the (digital) bystander in his series of photographic provocations, titled Invasive Links, that challenge the boundaries separating witnesses from participants. This timely new edition of K. Verlag’s Processing Process series includes a selection of critical texts that call for renewed moral courage to confront what we see—even when we would rather look away—and to grapple with the unsettling lessons of this emergent form of spectatorship.

Michael Schäfer is an artist living and working in Berlin. In his work he uses digital montage to combine current media images with images taken by himself. With his practice, he not only challenges the medium of the technical picture, but also takes up concrete social topics. Schäfer has a degree in artistic photography (Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig) and has lectured at various universities (HGB Leipzig; University of Hartford, Connecticut; and UdK Berlin). His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally and is part of important collections. In 2019, he founded the art space Villa Heike in Berlin.