Description
Stories about pandemics or epidemics, as told in pop culture receptions, oftentimes begin with the emergence of a mysterious, unknown disease in some remote area in the Global South labeled as “hot zones” (Wald, 2008). The moment of discovery, of making the virus visible, is frequently presented as historic and as a game changer in the fight against the outbreak. The proposed paper offers an exploration of the material-semiotic qualities of virus imagery alerting us to the complex relationship between image and virus. I argue that visual manifestations of the virus matter for the health-security nexus in three ways: 1) the making of the virus and its introduction as an actor to the health-security nexus, where it contributes to the 2) deepening and to the 3) widening of this nexus. I develop this argument by considering the entangled emergence not only of microscopic images connecting scientists, viruses, electron microscopes, and laboratories but also by analyzing models, paintings, plush toys, and stock images in order to appreciate the interconnected semiotic and material features of viruses’ visual manifestations.
