Description
: In 2015 and 2016, Islamic State militants targeted multiple ancient cultural heritage sites in Syria and Iraq. While the destruction of ancient art and artefacts have been tracked by governmental and non-governmental organizations, the extent of damage remains unknown. In this presentation, I interrogate the politics of iconoclasm and restoration as it relates to a digitally restored Lamassu Bull from Nineveh, Mosul. The politics of restoration poses two problems, neither mutually exclusive. The first problem pertains to meaning. IS militants and heritage preservationists share an assumption that ancient artefacts, such as the Lamassu Bull, are endowed with a degree of sacredness (e.g., as idolatry) or authenticity (as an archaeological entity), which forms the material basis for the object’s meaning. The destructive gesture only resonates if the artefact is endowed with meaning. Moreover, the destroyed object allows preservationists and international organizations to claim heritage destruction as an attack on ‘common humanity.’ I critically examine this shared terrain of ‘authenticity’ between heritage preservationists and IS militants. The second problem pertains to the issue of digitally restoring cultural artefacts. Here, I examine Bruno Latour's concept of 'iconoclash' to interrogate the recent folding of 'things' back into the political (e.g., Arendt, Connolly, Bennett, Honig, etc.). While Latour abandons any notion of 'authenticity,' his work still authorises a conservative understanding of 'worlding' insofar as the destruction of 'things' is taken as peculiar form of violence. I ask whether the digital restoration of cultural artefacts is its own mode of violence, one that erases the fragments of destruction.
