Paper short abstract:

This presentation critically examines the interplay between law and visuality in the emerging pre-crime order and in the post-9/11 securitization of everyday life.

Paper long abstract:

The "Global War on Terror" has significantly increased the pressure on governments to think and act pre-emptively. The security apparatus no longer seems to be activated (solely) by the breach of a norm, an immanent threat or a reasonable suspicion, but by a vast array of abstract risks and diffuse threats.

The anticipatory logic that increasingly securitizes everyday life implies that these un(fore)seen risks and threats can somehow be made (fore)seeable, that the still unknown and faceless offender can be rendered visible before s/he even knows that s/he is about to commit a criminal act. In this context, imaginative or "visionary" techniques take on new political significance. This presentation critically examines the role that the visual plays in the emerging pre-crime order and in the securitization of everyday life. Most importantly,it will scrutinize the implications of this "visualization before justice," i.e. this visualization of a threat or "risky other" in advance of laws.