Mediatization, polarization, and intolerance (between environments, media, and circulation)

Image in circulation: shattering of the gaze and memory 191 4. Between the splintering of the gaze and the splintering of memory In Portuguese, we can produce a wordplay between the words estilhaçar and estilhaçamento, translated in this article as splintering or shattering . Here, we are interested in under- standing how the image agency logics set from the activation of production and recognition operations. We are facing two situ- ations that involve conflicts, and both are mediatized conflicts. If in the first case, we have the Syrian war and the migratory crisis derived from it; in the second one, we have the complexity of the civil war, the violence of armed conflicts between police and militias that have already resulted in significant numbers of victims. Kurdi’s image has the effect of splintering the gaze. The photograph, when it reaches our eyes, causes a rupture. It does not matter who the child was, nor his name, but his ability to represent every child (including the one we were) creates an ef- fect. Although we do not want to see it, this image adheres to later ones. Besides, there is a central element: it reaches us con- templatively. Our gaze is on something that is there, far away; therefore, Aylan Kurdi’s afterlife is sustained by an image that hits, touches, but that becomes autonomous because every time it reappears, it reignites not the first discussion, but the way we storytell about childhood. The body stretched out on the beach is the opposite of the ideal vision of childhood, but upon see- ing it, we ratify the existence of this angel child, worthy of being seen, but for not being immortal (ELIAS, 2001), it is deprived not only of the body, but of the right to death and, consequently, of being. Although it is a widely recognized image, widely valued in circulation (ROSA, 2016b) for splintering the gaze, it is an im- age that empties the subject, which manifests the place of his non-powe M r. arcos Vinicius’ image disappeared from the flow, it was removed, leading to a double erasure. The deletion of the file indi - cates a “this was” Barthesian, and it is a deletion of the memory of the event. In this sense, it is the shattering of the memory, which is fragmented. To recompose Marcos Vinicius’ story, his photograph