83b — Dana Dawud, 11th May 2024

There is no Image of Palestine: Excerpt  from Dialogues on CoreCore & the Contemporary Online Avant-Garde (2024)



Serge Daney's poignant remark, "There's no image of Palestine," against the backdrop of an online deluge showcasing the harrowing genocide faced by Palestinians, beckons a deeper introspection into the essence of what these images convey. Amidst this digital expanse, the images emerging from Palestine carve out a space that transcends mere visual documentation; they embody a narrative of existence that is at once life-affirming and steeped in despair. Within the virtual confines of Palcorecore, where Palestine's imagery is singularly showcased, there's an acknowledgment of a poignant reality-many of the places and faces immortalized in these images may no longer exist, yet their essence proliferates through acts of remembrance and martyrdom.

The notion that "We are all martyrs together" transcends its immediate context to touch upon a universal truth. In Arabic, the term martyr, or 'shaheed,' denotes witnessing, bearing testimony to the truth. Thus, each Palestinian face captured in these images serves as a living testament to their enduring struggle and resilience. As global onlookers, our engagement with these images through the remove of our screens does little to shield us from the stark reality of violence. Yet the enduring Palestinian image transcends the immediacy of suffering, to encapsulate the sanctity and dignity of the martyr as envisioned in the afterlife.

Palcorecore emerges as a bastion against the 'death-image'—the reductive portrayal of Palestinians solely as victims of violence. Instead, it champions the 'martyr-image,' which encapsulates the profound statement of existence it makes. This digital realm becomes a repository of defiance, where the act of documenting, sharing, and witnessing these images serves as a counter-narrative to the prevailing discourse of despair. It is a space where the Palestinian spirit, imbued with hope and resilience, is celebrated not just in the context of conflict but as a broader affirmation of their indomitable will to live, dream, and claim their own narrative.

This resistance through imagery is not merely about countering erasure; it's a profound assertion of identity and existence on their own terms. Palcorecore, in its essence, is an ode to the resilience of the human spirit against the forces of obliteration. It underscores the power of images as a form of resistance, a means to assert one's narrative in the face of overwhelming adversity.