Re-Enacting Violence: Contesting Public Spheres With Appropriations of is Execution Videos

Abstract

Since the height of ISIS media production from 2014-2017 their promotional videos have become known for their graphic violence and drastic portrayal of beheadings. These iconic executions have been widely appropriated and re-enacted in different contexts by Muslim artists and activists in Europe and the SWANA region as well as by the right-wing “identitarian” movement. In this contribution, we examine the iconic features of IS beheadings in selected re-enactments, ranging from humour to serious (religious-)political engagements, as well as the creative techniques and practices that different actors use in their reinterpretations of that violence. We point to similarities used in different re-enactments while showing how re-enactments of violence may differ according to the perspective of the actors and contexts in which they are set. We relate our examples to discussions on cultural resistance, power and hierarchy, and discussions on (digital) public spheres, to argue that re-enacting images of violence can not only be used as a memetic form of cultural resistance to counter IS iconography but can also be used to transform those ‘operative’ images into different forms of resistance and hatred. We therefore recognise that re-enactments and their mediations can become actors with an existence in their own right.