Visual Truth, Absence, and Ethical Re-creation

In order to maintain the coherence of the narrative and the integrity of the visual representations, we chose to construct the visual contexts by using anamorphic images that are similar in style and consistent with the time period. in order to maintain the coherence of the narrative and the integrity of the visual representation. However, after Holly asked “Does this substitution reduce the authenticity of the video?” We began to seriously reflect on this question:

Are we using modern aesthetics to “reconstruct” a history that we want our audience to believe?

Have we inadvertently obscured the history of oppression and power behind the “absence of images”?

Visual Criticism in Digital Representation

After the discussion, it became clear that we were not trying to disguise the “original image”, but rather to use visual language to tell the story that “absence itself” is part of history.As D'Ignazio and Klein (2020) emphasized that feminist data practices must acknowledge the silences and absences in datasets and find creative ways to make them visible without reinforcing cognitive violence.

Rather than being viewed as “reductions” of the past, digital historical materials should be understood as “procedural artifacts”-i.e., data that are constantly being encoded, nested, and reproduced. procedural artifacts"-that is, historical products that are constantly encoded, nested, and reconfigured. “Authenticity” in the digital age no longer means restoring the original, but revealing the materiality and power dimensions of the archive (Fickers, 2021). We are not “filling in the picture” but “exposing the social significance of the absence of the image itself”. In other words, by choosing to use “mimetic” images, we are not in fact “faking”, but rather recognizing the absence of the archive and responding to it through visual language.

Telling history in the blank spaces of images

While the use of substitute imagery enhanced the emotional impact and narrative coherence of our project, it also introduced critical risks that must be acknowledged. Foremost among these risks was the potential for authenticity confusion: which might lead the audience to misunderstand that these histories are being recorded. We are also exploring the multi-sensory presentation methods proposed by Sarah Pink (2015): black screen, bokeh, watermark, all of which aim to “visually acknowledge the absence” rather than cover it up.

For example: using a black screen + captioning to suggest that “no images were recorded because women's lives were undocumented”; using image manipulation techniques such as blurring, partially obscuring or defocusing; or watermarking and cueing the images with AI-generated imagery, acknowledging and exposing the “reconstruction of the imagination” in visual language.