Arts & International Affairs: Volume 2, Issue 1 | Page 33

Figure 15. Manuel Botelho,
Contagem Descrescente 1967–
1969 (�). Photograph: Manuel
Botelho. (Courtesy: The
artist)
The (artist as) moral witness
Wieviorka (����), writing about Holocaust memories and the politics of these
memories, characterizes the ����s and early ����s as the “era of the witness.”
The era of the witness is one conditioned by visual culture. Audiovisuality,
used in particular by Claude Lanzmann, not only helped systematize the
collection of survivors’ testimonies, but it also gave survivors the feeling that
someone was listening—and watching. An audience listening to survivors’
testimonies is what survivors need, and this audience was largely absent
prior to the era of the witness. Wieviorka does not address the question of
whether or not such artists as Lanzmann can be witnesses of events they
did not personally experience but she notes that survivors’ testimonies
can be transformed into artworks. She does not ask whether or not this is
what survivors want. However, this transformation does not seem to have
32