Who owns the images? Image politics and media criticism in theater: a separation of powers

This article investigates the ownership of images analyzing not only the place and mode of image circulation, but also the question of who can access these images under what circumstances. It is not only concerned with the technical or electronic media that are often held responsible for the increasing global circulation of images; rather, the relationship of theater to these "newer" media as a place and medium of a potential redistribution of images will be analyzed. It will focus on the specific conditions of seeing and being-seen within and through technical media and the way theatre can grant special insights into this process, an analysis which also makes the discussion of the power of the media and violence in media necessary. Of significant importance in this context is theater's special capacity to reflect the medial violence in images and thus make them visible and distributable. We will illustrate this capacity with Peter Sellar's 1993 production of Aeschylus' The Persians and Armin Petras' Mach die Augen zu und fliege oder Krieg böse 5 (2004) and show that today political theater is hardly conceivable without an explicit criticism of images and their media.