The project "Face of Terror" investigated mediation of terrorism (focusing in particular on the depiction of terrorists and victims in visual media),of particular importance is the Norwegian terror attacks in 2011, and how these attacks have been represented in news media, films, photography and literature.
The project consisted of senior researchers Anne Gjelsvik (PI), Aud Sissel Hoel, Ingvild Folkvord (all NTNU), Mette Mortensen (University of Copenhagen) and two PhD fellows Nadége Lourme (funded by NFR) and Mads Outzen (funded by the Faculty of Humanities, NTNU) (both with workplace at the Department of Art and Media Studies, NTNU). We have had three international experts who have been visiting researchers in the project 2017-2019: Robert Burgoyne (St. Andrews) (2017), Mary Ann Doane (University of California, Berkeley) and Jonathan Cole (2019).
Project participant Mette Mortensen at the University of Copenhagen received funding for the project Images of Conflict. Conflicting Images, and the two projects collaborate closely, including research visits going both ways.
During the two first year the project has conducted several internal workshops, most of them with external guests. In January 2017, Åsne Seierstad, Michael Krona (Malmö University College), and partner Sveinung Sandberg (UiO) participated in our work on 22/7, ISIS propaganda and radicalization. In September 2017, visiting scholar Robert Burgoyne (St. Andrews) and invited guest Catherine Grant (Birbeck) participated in a workshop where the participants in the project presented their own ongoing work, as well as discussed the publication of audio visual essays. Results from our internal workshop in September 2017 have been published on Grensesnitt.org, and several popular articles have been published in the journal Montages.
"Face of Terror" has also organized a series of activities in collaboration with others: In March 2017 we organized a film seminar at the Kosmorama film festival in collaboration with Amnesty, in November 2017 we hosted a one-day open seminar as part of Trondheim dokumentarfestival with Mette Mortensen, Michael Krona and Anne Gjelsvik as keynote speakers and with a panel debate including from Thomas Broberg from the Danish newspaper Politiken about mediation and terrorism. In January 2018 we curated the program «Radicalised» (consisting of six films, a seminar and a catalogue) as part of Tromsø International Film Festival and in May 2018 we co-hosted the international PhD-course «Mediated visibility of Conflicts» with the research project "Images of conflict, Conflicting Images" in Copenhagen with Jennifer Good (London College of Communication) and Stuart Allan (Cardiff University) as speakers and with 12 PhD students, including the Mads Outzen and Nadége Lourme who are PhD-students at our project. In January 2020 four of the members of the project particapted in the workshop "Shaping Responses to Violence in the Aftermath of Terrorist Attacks" in Paris.
Two book projects werelaunched by the end of 2020: Bearbeidelser. 22.juli i ord og bilder (ed. Anne Gjelsvik, Universitetsforlaget) and Ingvild Folkvord "Stemmene fra Utøya" (Scandinavian Academic Press).
The doctoral disseminations are expected in 2022.
Members of the project and in particular Anne Gjelsvik and Ingvild Folkvord have presented the project on academic workshop, public events and in the media.
The project's web page contains details about the project's activities and publications https://www.ntnu.edu/mediaacts/face-of-terror
Prosjektet har publisert to bøker om mediale bearbeidelser av 22.juli. En monografi skrevet av Ingvild Folkvord - Stemmene etter 22.juli. En antologi redigert av Anne Gjelsvik - Bearbeidelser. 22. juli i ord og bilder, med bidra fra fire av deltakerne på prosjektet, samt andre inviterte bidragsytere.
To doktoravhandlinger er under utarbeidelse. To masteroppgaver er levert.
Vi har publisert flere vitenskaplige artikler samt en rekke andre bidrag, som kronikker og analyser i dagspresse, video og podcaster. Prosjektet har nådd bredt og hatt bred pressedekning, vi har deltatt i debatter, podcaster og gitt en rekke intervjuer.
Vi har arrangert en rekke faglige konferanser ved NTNU, samt seminarer i samarbeid med Tromsø Internasjonele filmfestival, Kosmorama filmfestival og Dokumentarfestivalen i Trondheim.
Vi har arrangert et PhDkurs i samarbeid med universitetet i København, samt seminar for stipendiater ved NTNU.
Vi har holdt en rekke foredrag både i Norge og på gjesteopphold ute.
Contemporary research on media attests to the non-neutral roles of media and information technologies, now regarded as prime movers and social and cultural prerequisites for our modern ways of life. More than vehicles of communication and channels of information, media are seen as providers of infrastructural conditions that co-shape our lived environment. The research develops the idea that media are endowed with social and cultural agency in order to recast a series of questions about terrorism, conceived here as violent acts of communication.
The project pursues its aim of understanding terrorism from the perspective of critical media aesthetics by focusing on the face of terror -- a term that goes to the core of the communicative and mediated aspects of terrorism: The face is a primary site of contact with fellow human beings and a contested marker of identity, while in a broader sense it is also a cultural interface that distributes and redistributes visibility and power.
Taking the mediated face as its entry-point, the project investigates the identity work that goes into terrorist acts as well as into the cultural responses to such acts. The research is divided into four parts, each of which explores the inner connections between media technologies, terror, and identity formation from a new angle.
