Politics and
Aesthetics:
Citizen Action in the Digital Age

Civil Disobedience

What do you do when the laws of your country conflict with your personal conscience?

This question, posed by Henry David Thoreau in his seminal essay Civil Disobedience, was asked in 1849 in direct response to the Mexican - American War and the strategic widening of the institution of slavery that was planned to follow. Thoreau’s framework made a rebellious critique of the American Government of the time (and Governance in general), calling it a wooden gun, a toy, that is not actually needed, but rather serves as mere complicated machinery to satisfy the ideas of what a Government is, also accusing state enforcers of such machinery of giving up the ability to choose between right and wrong, thus putting themselves on the same level as wood, earth or stone. In fact, so against government was Thoreau, that his view was that people would achieve far more if the government simply got out of their way, and so prevalent was the machinery of governance, in his opinion, that it was an individual’s right, no less their responsibility, to counter this passivity. He conceptualized this responsibility as a “counter friction”, defined as any act against a law that required a person to be the agent of injustice against another.

Thoreau did not simply write these theories, he also lived them, going so far as refusing to pay poll tax for six years, an act that eventually had him arrested and imprisoned. Rather than deter his views, he mused on how his stay in prison could restrict his physical body but did not restrict his mind, spirit, or conscience, due to serving time for an act that was in favour of his moral character (Thoreau 1849). These ideas on friction between one’s personal moral character and the laws and actions of governance remain exceptionally pertinent today, especially when we consider technology’s creation of a socially connected environment enabling scrutiny of personal moral character and government inconsistency alike. This version of understanding citizenship, and its relationship with power through media, is at the heart of the analysis’ exploration.

In conducting this analysis, it is important to define the terms of citizenship and politics for this paper. Rather than the normative transactional definition of a citizen that can be found in the dictionary, i.e. a national member who gives allegiance to the government and receives protection, civil rights, and privileges in return, this paper defines a citizen in relation to morality (even where this leads to non-protection and denial of privileges) as articulated by Henry David Thoreau. Therefore, the term citizen in this paper is defined as a morally engaged individual who prioritises their conscience over blind obedience to the law.      

In her book, The Civil Contract of Photography, Ariella Azoulay builds on Thoreau’s concept in terms of the citizenry relationship with personal morality, through photography. I.e. As a spectator, where the photograph (or in this papers case, imagery) can create a collective active discovery, between photographer, subject and spectator, challenging the space between contemplation and action (Azoulay 2008, 90). This ability to ask questions through imagery, both in terms of how an image is taken, as well as through the image itself, simultaneously creates a deeper exploration into our own relationship with citizenry and responsibility.      

The definition of politics in this paper also veers away from the normalised usage that refers typically to methods of civil service, such as parliaments, elections, and government administration. Instead, such fundamentals of governance will be referred to as Police Logic as per Jacques Rancière’s definition in his book, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, and the term politics in this paper will be defined as an active disruption of Police Logic [by citizens] who claim equality in a shared world. This version of Politics against Police Logic, is visual, visceral, unwavering, and definitive against a system that includes the literal police but is not necessarily against uniformed police directly.

Documenting Palestine Action

Founded in July 2020 by Huda Ammon and Richard Barnard, the direct-action activist group Palestine Action has protested the bombardment of the Middle East for years. The group's primary focus is using disruption to raise awareness and put pressure on the government by going straight to the tangible material of those complicit in the murder and control of Palestinian bodies (Ammori 2025). Their actions, primarily directed at Elbit Systems and its subsidiaries, have led to cancellations of contracts as well as permanent closure of Elbit’s Staffordshire factory amongst others across the United Kingdom (Abolition Media 2024).

However, on June 20th, 2025, after the vandalization of two fighter jets with red paint at RAF Brize Norton, the group was added to a proscription list alongside Maniacs Murder Cult - a white supremacist, Neo-Nazi extremist group, and Russian Imperialist Movement – an ethno-nationalist paramilitary group also involved in racial extremism (legislation.gov.uk 2025).

Under UK law, the Anti-Terrorism Act (2000) permits an entire organisation to be proscribed if (i) it is involved in terrorism, (ii) it promotes or glorifies terrorism and (iii) if it encourages others to commit acts of terrorism, and, while individuals can’t be proscribed, they can be arrested for showing membership, support or sharing related material. Within the Anti-Terrorism Act, the definition states that terrorism is the use or threat of action designed to influence the government or intimidate the public, or made for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause (Crown Prosecution Service n.d.). Despite the group being known for its multiple vandalisms of corporations that support war (Al Jazeera Staff 2025), it was the action at Brize Norton that led to cross party condemnation in UK parliament and the announcement that a proscription vote would take place. Notwithstanding resistance, the proscription eventually passed with 385 (for) to 26 (against), labelling the group terrorists. At the time of writing, an immediate appeal made by Palestine Action led to a verdict deeming the proscription unlawful by the High Court. In spite of this, the Home Office is currently awaiting a verdict from its appeal to this decision, and the group continues to remain proscribed until further notice (BBC 2026).

An especially brazen element about PA is their use of handheld devices to actively document their vandalism of property. As seen in TKaWM, handheld footage filmed by PA members give the spectator a “front seat” to disruptions such as occupying rooftops, sabotaging hard drives, glueing hands to immovable objects and vandalising factories complicit with weapon supply (Blythe 2025). In addition, the inclusion of narration and interviews with activists, artists and family members provide the kind of emotional storytelling and logical reasoning of these actions from a citizenry perspective.

An especially brazen element about PA is their use of handheld devices to actively document their vandalism of property. As seen in TKaWM, handheld footage filmed by PA members give the spectator a “front seat” to disruptions such as occupying rooftops, sabotaging hard drives, glueing hands to immovable objects and vandalising factories complicit with weapon supply (Blythe 2025). In addition, the inclusion of narration and interviews with activists, artists and family members provide the kind of emotional storytelling and logical reasoning of these actions from a citizenry perspective.

Approximately four weeks prior to the proscription vote, on June 5th, the documentary film production company Rainbow Collective had TKaWM approved and classified for release by the BBFC as suitable for those aged 15 years and above. However, with screenings planned nationwide, news of the upcoming proscription caused mass cancellations, and the BBFC began procedures to revoke its initial “15” classification. At the time of writing, despite being available on YouTube, the BBFC website simply states N/A, Unsuitable for classification (BBFC 2025).

Upon hearing about the proscription combined with multiple screening cancellations, the filmmakers, Hannan Majid and Richard York, decided to recalibrate the film’s release by making it digital only, shareable for free and advancing the release date. Rather than rely on a normalised release schedule, access to the film became instantaneous as did downloading and sharing from the Rainbow Collective website, until the proscription date of July 5th, 2025.       

While this agile change in distribution strategy could serve as a paper itself, this analysis will focus on the film’s content using the concepts and theoretical frameworks of Jacques Rancière and other adjacent scholars, whose work discusses the intersection of politics, art, documentation and citizenship.      

In investigating these concepts, this study is guided by the following primary research question: How does the film “To Kill a War Machine” disrupt normalised documentary aesthetics? As well as the following sub-questions: - How does handheld imagery facilitate the empowerment of direct-action activists to portray themselves as willing subjects? - What are the dominant documentary modes throughout the film and how are these used to disrupt? - What are the aesthetic dimensions that create a visibility of the invisible throughout the film?

Literature and Theory

While direct action has been a form of protest for centuries, the recording of it, and therefore the performance of it, has tended to be reliant on disrupting hegemonic media vehicles by recording events deemed media worthy. One can only imagine the impact of historical activists such as the Suffragettes or American Civil Rights movement if they took place during contemporary society’s interconnected and instantaneous imagery, however, this does not take away from how deeply perceptible these movements were at a time when mere disruption of cultural norms was deemed radical.

As referenced through Thoreau’s essay of 1849, this tension between citizenship and governance isn’t new. Indeed, there were earlier forms of direct action that preceded Thoreau’s time. The Boston Tea Party which took place on December 16th, 1773, is one such example, where American colonists, disguised as Indigenous Americans, boarded British Ships docked in Boston Harbour and threw hundreds of chests of tea belonging to the East India Company overboard. This was a political protest of British taxation and its monopoly on tea sales within the region, and specifically targeted the Tea Act of 1773, which was implemented by the British as an attempt to monopolise the tea industry away from local merchants and tea smugglers, while also saving the flailing East India Company from bankruptcy. In response to the American Colonists’ direct action, the British Government introduced harsher measures to reassert control, specifically under the Intolerable Acts, which involved closing the port of Boston completely until the damage created was repaid by activists and simultaneously reducing Massachusetts’ ability for self-governance. Rather than quelling the tensions, they were escalated and the organisation of America’s First Colonial Congress was developed which, aimed at unifying a response toward the British Government's punitive measures, created further activism such as boycotting British goods, and, other methods of non-compliance including preparing a militia that eventually fought the American War of Independence (now celebrated as Independence Day) (Carp 2010). While the modern-day celebrations that continue every year include fireworks, food and family to mark the end of British rule, it is easy to forget the initial catalyst: a participatory, performative action taken by a small group of citizens who put their bodies on the line as an expression of moral character over governance.      

In the UK, arguably the most widely known direct action group was the Women’s Social and Political Union (WSPU), better known as the Suffragettes. Formed in 1903 by Emmeline Pankhurst, the WSPU were not the first formed Women’s rights group of the time. In fact, they were formed four years after a group called the NUWSS (National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies), who were better known as the Suffragists, a term used to describe men or women who believed women's rights should be obtained by parliamentary means such as lobbying and petitioning for policy change (UK Parliament: Early Suffragist Campaigning 2026).      

The WSPU believed such actions were too passive and undertook direct measures with the slogan ‘deeds not words’ (BBC 2024), signifying that rights should be demanded instead of requested. Their bold direct actions led to high profile media exposure culminating with the formation of the “suffragettes” name, originally used as mockery by the Daily Mail in 1906. The group reclaimed the name and continued to enact high profile direct actions that garnered media attention, such as smashing windows and setting fire to buildings as well as chaining themselves to railings across Greater London. Perhaps their most well-known acts were the bombing of the Nevill Cricket Ground in 1913 and the running onto the racetrack at the Epsom derby by Emily Davison (also in 1913) who died after colliding with King George V on horseback. Both occurrences created widespread media coverage until the Suffragettes’ activities largely declined in 1914 due to the onset of the first World War, which ironically, created a need to democratise the rights of all citizens across the UK (BBC 2015). These past tensions highlight the complex perceptions of citizen responsibility versus direct action depending on the medium, morality, and message.      

In their book, Investigative Aesthetics: Conflicts and Commons in the Politics of Truth, Fuller and Weizman discuss these complexities through the lens of aesthetics, which they claim is a relational form of sense-making composed of bodies, data and objects, as opposed to anaesthetisation, referred to as numbing the senses (Fuller and Weizman 2021, 37), that can be associated to disorienting techniques employed by powerful, hegemonic, or corporate forces to obscure truth. With this in mind, any act by a body in the World can be positioned as highly aesthetic or anaesthetic depending on who deems the effect as stimulating or numbing, assuring, or disorienting, intensifying, or obscuring. Furthermore, interesting techniques to position the act as violence, vandalism, victory, or elitism, can be used depending on who is enacting and who is documenting (Lynch 2010, 543).      

Today, TKaWM’s use of handheld media in documenting direct actions and the reasons behind it, highlight aesthetic disruptions that challenge anaesthetic media, empowering participation to mobilise sensualities as a means of challenging dominant truths.      

Changing Visuality

Given this historical relationship between direct action and media representation, critically investigating what authoritative media communication renders visible and sayable becomes an active responsibility. In his book The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality, Nicholas Mirzoeff names this idea of what is visible and sayable - visuality. The production of visuality by authoritative vehicles, which he names visualising, makes the processes of “history” perceptible to authority (Mirzoeff 2011, 3) suturing authority to power and rendering this association “natural” (Mirzoeff 2011, 6). Furthermore, the authority over these “histories” is not solely physical (i.e. statues of ancient war heroes, or gatherings of commemoration for past events), rather they are a combination of information, imagination, and insight into a rendition of physical and psychic space (Mirzoeff 2011, 3). Building upon the thoughts of Ranciére, who is referenced regularly throughout Mirzoeff’s literature, the right to look involves an exchange in finding, and allowing to be found – recognition of the other so as to find a place to determine what is right - and, in doing so, claiming autonomous subjectivity to rearrange what is visible and sayable (Mirzoeff 2011, 1).

When we look at examples of direct action from this conceptual vantage point, it stands to reason that the expectation of citizenship by governance, and its objectification by hegemonic media, not only create groups determined to redefine what citizenship is, but also enable the use of media to amplify the act of redefinition beyond the borders of these perceived authorities.      

Approaches to Citizenship

This relation between human action on the one hand and social communication on the other requires that we understand not merely how civil disobedience is mediated, but also how it perhaps only occurs as a consequence of the various forms of communication media that make it possible (Paul 2020, 125). In this contemporary moment of media, one rarely needs to imagine how interconnected technologies have emancipated communication visibility. For direct action activists, these changes in media technologies have meant freedom from only focusing on disrupting mainstream media events. Instead, through mobile media, they can now infiltrate and expose interconnecting frameworks once kept invisible by authority. In other words, the changing evolution of media empowers them to directly combat the framing established by traditional media networks (Paul 2020, 124).

This accessibility to contest visuality, democratises visual authority and redefines morality, as citizens can document spaces usually viewed as inaccessible - especially where such fresh documentation is related to the pain of others, and give rise to opposing responses (Sontag 2019, 13).

Rethinking Power

In this sense, the spectator is not only called upon to scrutinise the rendition of visual authority but actively realise that they are a part of the performance, and furthermore, specifically take part in a shared World (Rancière 2009, 11).

Otherwise, the consequences of allowing authority to establish a normalised visual creates a “distribution of the sensible”, defined by Jacques Rancière as the “system of self-evident facts of sense perception that simultaneously discloses the existence of something in common and the delimitations that define the respective parts and positions within it” (Rancière 2025, 12). The spectator that pays closer attention to these delimitations of visual authority becomes naturally emancipated, and such emancipation begins when the opposition between viewing and acting is challenged (Rancière 2009, 13).

Redistributing the Insensible

In the above section I have referenced scholarly writings on media, power, documentation, and citizenship - concentrating on themes developed around media institutionalisation, communicative power through documentation, how visualisation occurs, and citizenship empowerment via technological evolution.

The following sections will further explicate linkages between scholarly theories and a specific event in the UK that disrupted hegemonic narratives using technology, thereby creating a redistribution of the insensible.

Mobile Mania

In line with concepts mentioned earlier in this paper, it is important to develop an understanding of how the commodification and commercialisation of the handheld device relates to redistribution by citizens such as those in TKaWM.

With the invention of the smartphone came a surge in the number of images taken per year (Richter 2017) (Broz 2025). This spike meant that anyone could be an image maker and sharer, and a plethora of shared new moments of accessible space and time emerged, creating new interpretations of the present and therefore, history itself. This borderless recalibration already countered traditional ideas of space, and voyeuristic curiosity to cross the lines of tradition have become a tempting inevitability, even a responsibility, to reclaim the role of citizenship through new de-territorialisation (Azoulay 2008, 120) via the evolution of distribution, circulation and streaming. For authority, perhaps guilty of resting in its own developed anaesthesia, there is an increased likelihood of being caught off guard by an “unruly” group of citizens that can instantly create and share their counter to a normalised narrative, resulting in further mobilization and emancipation of other citizens.      

In the UK, a pertinent case of this phenomenon was the London riots of 2011, where Mark Duggan was shot dead by police in Tottenham during an undercover operation. Officers reported that Mark Duggan had fired a gun at them upon their attempted arrest, contradicting several eyewitnesses whose personal accounts, shareable via technology, provided an immediate friction to the authority’s “distribution of the sensible”. In this case, relationships with the police were already tense. At the time, Tottenham was an area with significant social tenson due to high unemployment, poverty, and deep distrust of citizenry treatment by police. In a sense, members of the community comprised what Rancière defines as the “sans” part - an excluded, invisible, and voiceless group with little recognised place within the established order. Without any such role, these citizens of the “sans” part are deemed as an accessory to the social structure by Police Logic, and even a nuisance in their desire to be counted (Rancière 2010, 33). From this perspective, when countering accounts from eyewitnesses were easily shareable to others using relatively new technologies such as Blackberry Messenger, alongside separate inconsistent reports from the officers involved (Forensic Architecture 2020), handheld phones were used once more to redistribute visuals of demonstrations held outside Tottenham Police Station. In Rancière’s terms, Politics had begun to be created, as the “sans” part, i.e. the citizens of Tottenham, had begun to aestheticize their bodies in the World and demand to be seen and heard against the status quo of Police Logic (Rancière 2010, 36). These demonstrations intensified days later when further news was redistributed by the family who had not been formally contacted by police, and the redistribution came to a crescendo upon the police’s slow response to demonstrations by a community that refused to continue to play their part of no part. By the time a senior officer attempted to provide clarity, the formal visualities used for address by Police Logic, such as a microphoned podium in front of the crowd, a decorated uniform with badges of service, supporting officers and TV cameras were so ineffective that the usual combination of authority with hegemonic media were starkly uncovered as a hollow marketing exercise rather than an opening for citizenry connection.      

This emancipation from, and disruption of, Police Logic became a trigger for recalibration of the normalised social order across the UK, leading to visual redistributions of police treatment facilitated by mobile technology across the nation, and rapidly transforming passive spectatorship into emancipated citizenry with riots against police treatment unfolding across multiple UK counties simultaneously (Drury, et al. 2019). As the riots spiralled further out of police control, direct actions, such as vandalism and looting of stores, were recorded and shared to others - who were able to capitalise if desired. Ironically, acts of pacification by police were also recorded and shared so citizens were able to avoid arrest by continually updating each other on police locations.      

With handheld media, these recordings became statements of democracy, sparking a nationwide debate on the appropriate response to inappropriate power, while simultaneously reminding us that the civil contract is, and always has been, a mutual, fragile, and evolving relationship.      

(Re)creation

When relating technological evolution to emancipated citizenry in documentary film, we have a technological pincer that has concurrently liberated discovery and research through the internet, and democratised visual creation through the availability of affordable recording equipment. The autonomy provided has freed the art of storytelling to such an extent that creation and distribution no longer need institutional approval. Apps such as Filmic Pro have allowed the handheld device to be used as a professional recording camera, enabling accessible high-quality films to be created in this way for the first time in history (Macaulay 2016), and documentarians have experimented with the use of handheld devices for films in part or in full (CNN 2013), with the realignment of participation spaces creating a broad range of counter visualities to the normative.     

While this evolution has allowed the ability for more documentaries to be made and more importantly, seen, a rise of authoritarianism threatens the existence of independent documentary filmmakers dramatically (Borum and Perez 2025, 103), with new technological behemoths repurposing formulas of anesthetisation via the traditional modes rather than emphasizing new visceral styles of impact.     

Documentary Modes

In his book, Representing Reality, Bill Nichols states that through documentary the fragile mortality of social actors remains always in evidence. At the heart of a documentary is less a story and its imaginary world, but an argument about the historical world (Nichols 1991, 111). While mainstream media behemoths tell stories in a normative way, the questions remain: whose stories are told, why and how?     

The correlation between power and responsibility makes it clear that documentation always presents a particular point of view about history. Therefore, it is important to understand the agendas of producers to determine what is being said about the (un)acceptable social spaces, assigned roles, and agreed visibility. With this in mind, understanding the types, or modes, of documentary film, and when they were developed is also important to analyse TKaWM with the correct detail.     

In Introduction to Documentary, Nichols describes six documentary modes of representation that were all created and developed over the last century: Poetic, Expository, Observational, Participatory, Reflexive and Performative (Nichols 2010, 31). We can understand each as follows: Poetic (1920s -): Stressing visual and acoustic rhythms, patterns, and the overall form of the film. Expository (1920s -): Speaking directly to the viewer with voiceover. Observational (1960s -): Looking on as social actors go about their lives as if the camera were not present. Participatory (1960s -): Filmmaker interacts with their social actors, participates in shaping what happens before the camera. Reflexive (1980s -): Calls attention to the conventions of documentary filmmaking and sometimes of methodologies such as fieldwork or the interview. Performative (1980s -): Emphasizing the expressive quality of the filmmaker's engagement with the film's subject addressing the audience in a vivid way.     

It is important to note that whilst these modes are not exclusive categories, and their evolution is not exactly linear, they do provide loose historical frameworks for distinct styles that have often been blended (Nichols 2010, 159). Therefore, the modes used in TKaWM are an aspect that this study seeks to analyse with the hope of better understanding the relationships between citizenry media, direct action, and documentary.         

Methodology

Data collection and Analysis

To Kill a War Machine is a 78-minute 2025 British documentary directed by Hannan Majid and Richard York of Rainbow Collective. The film was chosen for its documentation of the direct-action group Palestine Action and the tactics used against complicity by the arms industry with corporations and government.     

I analysed the film as a solitary primary source beginning with the development of Literature Descriptions, Defined Themes and Object References. After several viewings I used the film’s transcript to create “Anchor” Examples that served as a referenceable guide to Object References from scholarly literature.     

I manually coded the transcript through multiple reads, watches, and edits with reassessment of relevance to the anchor examples and object references. Once complete, I segmented the film based on identified subject areas and watched several more times with the transcript in hand to assess and label the modes of documentation. Once these were recorded, I analysed the data before writing my results and findings.     

Research Design and Rationale

To analyse the relationship between citizenship and institutional power and further scrutinise their intersections with visuality and aesthetics as identified in the research questions, I used a qualitative analysis for content in the form of a deductive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke 2021).      

Deductive Thematic Analysis

I deemed a deductive thematic analysis most suitable for this research based on its flexible theory-driven approach, which enabled the matching of defined themes directly with TKaWM content. As Braun & Clarke’s deductive thematic analysis notes steps to ensure for robust analysis, I have detailed my undertaking of these below.      

Results

Visuality and Countervisuality (Mirzoeff) - 63 Total Codes

Across the transcript the analysis identified 140 total codes associated with the scholarly defined themes, with an overwhelming emergence of one dominant theme – Visuality and Countervisuality (63 codes) accounting for 45% of all themes throughout the film.      

Based upon the output of my method, this theme accurately reflects the documentary's overall focus on redistributing the insensible by countering norms of visuality sutured to power and the authoritative definition of “normal.” Furthermore, the complete documentary is not simply a retelling of state and corporate definitions of normal, but an active exposé of how abnormal and illusive the narratives of state and corporations are. In this retelling, the film is able to pierce directly into the spectator’s psychological morality using a powerful counter visuality which arises as tangible evidence of the anaesthetic inhumanity of corporate warfare marketing, potential corruptions of UK Government members, and, perhaps most pertinent to the relationship between Visuality and Countervisuality with Politics and Aesthetics - the aestheticized realities of a formerly inconspicuous building once assumed harmless. All examples expose the distributions of the sensible by traditional politics, through anaesthetized marketing communication, discreet meetings, and obscured physical structures. 

Interestingly, despite much of the film taking shape as a direct Countervisual for the spectator, varying examples of Mirzoeff’s theory on visuality are also used throughout the film, often via archival footage, as a way of exposing the hypocritical communication of power. One such example occurs early in the film at 00:02:11, where anaesthetized corporate footage used to advertise drones by the arms company Rafael, tactical missiles by Leonardo DRS, and longer-range missiles by Elbit Systems, are contrasted with Countervisual citizen's footage that aestheticizes the immediate and direct death and devastation that such weaponry cause. This use of absurd anaesthetisation is seen again later in the film, in the exposition of DSEI, the Defence & Security Equipment International, a corporate fair for killing machines, hosted in the UK every two years to “craft exceptional experiences that accelerate connections that count” (Welcome to DSEI 2027 n.d.). This once discreet trade fair is exposed counter visually at 00:22:00, as a place where Israeli corporations, amongst others, display demonstration videos on how weapons are “battle tested” in Palestine (Majid and York 2025). Further archival footage is used to highlight the UK governments connections with specific Elbit System weaponry productions, such as the watchkeeper drone.      

Reimagining Citizenship (Azoulay) - 28 Total Codes

One of the ways that the film supports the theory of counter visuality is through the next most dominant theme - Reimagining Citizenship, defined as a civil space that exists outside or alongside the nation state, allowing non-citizens to act on their beliefs and claim their rights through photography - or in this case, visual imagery.      

The film possesses many examples where citizenry reimagination has successfully been claimed, however, it is important to note that success here is not defined as “not being caught” as can be traditionally thought of when visuality is sutured to power and rendered “normal”. Instead, success in this case is simply being bold enough to live out the reimagination of your citizenry based on a moral character that compels you do so.      

To look at this in more detail “Types of Media Used” is pertinent, as the Reimagining Citizenship code only relates to visuals in the film where it can be deemed that a person is using a handheld phone or headcam to document reclamation of rights through video and images. These include scenes involving direct actions against a building or its contents, demonstrations of community engagement, or the filming of uniformed response by Police Logic as a pacifying violent response.    

  

It’s important to note that while all the scholarly themes for Reimagining Citizenship involve handheld and headcam Media, the use of these two forms of media was not exclusive to Reimagining Citizenship alone. Additionally, 8 / 45 codes for handheld and headcam Media relate directly to the use of handheld media used by citizens of Palestine to film the devastation caused to their citizenship. This was also deemed a reimagination of citizenship by serving as a consistent reminder of the real lengths that normalised Visuality will go toward to enforce itself against another point of view.      

The use of handheld and headcam Media by activists within the film, mainly as a performative tool, actively exposes people or topics that power wants to stay anaesthetised. The documentation of the actions, authorized by the Activists themselves, appears only second after the traditionally utilised In-Studio Camera (used throughout the film in a participatory way for interviews), highlighting the films direct engagement with a specific point of view - citizenry performance that actively reclaims moral rights through media. In reclaiming these rights with the knowledge that “success” is in the ability to act regardless of capture, these citizens simultaneously reclaim their citizenship by self-empowering acts of moral character.   

In a sense, this idea of filming the enlivenment of one’s own citizenship is shown to have its own power, which is to make an intangible idea a tangible action through self-empowerment. As identified earlier via the example of the London riots, the effects are circular, as when filmed and shared, further inspiration is provided for others to reimagine their own citizenry, act and film, and so on – enacting the forms of actual politics over Police Logic as defined earlier in this paper.      

One pertinent example of this cyclical notion in action is identified at 00:42:21, where we are provided with a specific segment of citizenry reimagination against the Teledyne factory, Elbit Systems, and Grid Systems, which lasts for 7m39s. In this segment the usage of media provides a stark first-hand experience of what acting within one’s own moral character feels like, including two separate segments where audio consists solely of PA activists attempting to communicate over a factory alarm that nullifies their voices. The fact that this sound is unedited and shared with the spectator points out the aesthetic conditions within which PA members put themselves through to fight for their morality and the better conditions of others.      

Such examples within the film are the very definitions of those that have been called to act by previous imagery, rather than passively consuming its happenings as something occurring elsewhere. Furthermore, a particular distinction about this action that makes it cyclical, is that it has taken place not solely in response to the filming and sharing of previous actions, but specifically due to the confidential information acquired and shared from a previous action identified beforehand, where the spectator is made aware that a once unknown building in the peninsula of Wirral is actually a factory for war weaponry. Consequently, in this scene and for the only time throughout the film, the spectator observes a combined expository / performative narration mode from the activist wearing a headcam while they cause damage to the Teledyne F35 component factory in Wirral, highlighting an exact example of human action and socialised communication, that facilitate an act of civil disobedience not only to take place, but also to visually flourish through the media tools at the activists disposal.      

This circular redefinition of civil space via Reimagining Citizenship applies on several occasions with all codes working in this way at varying points in the film. For example, in the relationship with the “sans” part the film references a viral social media video on Mariam Achifi (00:36:10), a Palestinian Activist whose filmed arrest in Palestine and consequential smile to the camera, was referenced as inspiration by a participatory member of the documentary, culminating in taking action against the Architectural product provider, Arconic, in the UK.      

In Reimagining Citizenry through technology, an act as simple as a smile to the camera, while acting in one’s own moral character on one side of the world, can catalyse others to enact actionable difference against power across the globe.      

Ranciére Codes: Police Logic vs Politics (27), The “sans” part (13), Equality of the visible (9) – 49 Total Codes

When we move into the theories of Politics, Police, Art, and Aesthetics by Rancière, my analysis produced a total of forty-nine combined codes. It’s also important to note that the primary coded theory - Mirzoeff’s Visuality and Countervisuality – also draws significantly from Rancière’s distribution of the sensible, with the latter scholar referenced several times within Mirzoeff’s book, The Right to Look: A Counterhistory of Visuality, used for this paper.      

Police Logic vs Politics was drawn out separately for its specific and explicit questioning of logic of the established order that maintains the distribution of the sensible, deciding who is part of the community and who is not. This code is abundant throughout the film’s transcript, with a persistent rejection of petition politics, lobbying efforts and conventional forms of protest deemed normative, acceptable, and logical under Police Logic, but not Politics as defined in Rancière’s work.      

The first and most obvious contestation of Police Logic occurs early in the film during an interplay between In-studio interviews and filmed direct actions. Within this interplay we are quickly introduced to what Direct Action is via a participatory interview (00:04:33) “Direct Action is a form of protest where you go straight to the people that are causing the problem, and you solve it yourself.” (Majid and York 2025) and, within the same mode of documentation (participatory) just a little later after more examples of citizenry actions, we are introduced to what it is not (00:05:15) “It is not the national parades, where police come and they say, can you move along now please, it's 4pm. We will decide on how we are opposing you and how we will disrupt until you listen to us” (Majid and York 2025).      

The countering of Police Logic and therefore the creation of Ranciére’s notion of Politics here is clear, and early in the film we are introduced to Direct Action as a clear expression of what it actually looks like to redistribute the insensible, which is immediately aesthetic, disordered, affronting and mesmerising in its coverage, versus the normalised symbolically performative demonstration that Police Logic allows for on the public high street.      

Regarding the realisation of demand to be heard and seen, i.e. the “sans part”, we are introduced to this in the opening narrative of the film by Palestine Actions Cofounders, Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard:      

[Narrator: Huda Ammori] We were sick and tired of begging the powers that be to stop killing our brothers and sisters in Palestine. I had done the boycott campaigns, I had lobbied politicians, I had organised protests and marches, but nothing was working.               

[Narrator: Richard Barnard] Rather than asking any politician to shut weapons factories down, we could go and shut them down ourselves.               

[Narrator: Huda Ammori] By putting our bodies on the line and our liberty on the line, occupying these factories, smashing them up and shutting them down, we could take the power back into our own hands.               

[Narrator: Richard Barnard] We know we had the power. Small groups of people with conscience, morality and a few tools are all that's needed to actually change the world

 (Majid and York 2025).

This “sans” part found in the opening comprises 31% of total codes for the “sans” part throughout the film, all of which focus on this realisation in self or others, the right to be seen and heard, highlighting the important self-reflection by activists in attempting every avenue possible for change to occur before forcing themselves into the public sphere against Police Logic, and into Politics.      

Interestingly, a defining element of Police Logic vs Politics in the film occurs directly after the Teledyne scene referenced previously, at 00:50:00, where we witness many activists celebrating their court release after a trial with a no charge verdict. These moments highlight the successes of acting against the “sans” part and forcing oneself to be seen in the public sphere for this cause, which is seen to render Police Logic as illogical when PA members are held to account in front of other citizens as in the context of a jury.      

In this example, the direct actions defy Police Logic, and Politics as defined in this paper, becomes briefly democratic: “Criminal damage to prevent a war crime is not a crime. When you put that before most juries in this country, they will see that for what it is, that these are people doing what they can within their means to try and prevent the greater harm (Majid and York 2025)”.      

While this revelation highlights the importance of Direct Action as a form of protest that juries are sympathetic towards, the film then exposes the insidious extent that Police Logic enacts to further anesthetize and deter at 57:10 - “Shortly after the genocide escalated in Gaza, we saw the increase in state pressure against Palestine action. Activists were being raided every week, different homes were being searched across the country by the police. We knew at the start of Palestine action, the state would do everything possible to try and stop us before we drove Israel's weapons trade out of Britain. And we weren't going to let them win” (Majid and York 2025).      

As aforementioned, primarily the use of handheld and headcam media throughout the film is by those that are attempting to, forced to or enacting reimagination of their citizenship. However, these pertinent uses of citizenry media are also intertwined briefly with the Police Logic code, filming raids and vandalizations by Police of Activists apartments, to reaffirm and reestablish the distribution of the sensible.      

As well as the Police Logic vs Politics code occurring regularly and intertwining mostly with Visuality and Countervisuality, we can also note its relationship with the other Rancière codes, the “sans” part and “Equality of the visible”. Indeed, despite these latter codes comprising the least and second least number throughout the film, they are no less significant within the findings.      

 The “sans” part (13), Equality of the visible (9) – 22 Total Codes

When we analyse the chronology of the defined theme codes as per Figure. 6, the “sans” part and “Equality of the Visible” are primarily utilised at the beginning of the film – specifically within the first third of the film, where the “sans” part comprises 84% of its total codes, and “Equality of the Visible” comprises 66% of its total codes. As both codes interlink primarily with the other codes, but only once with each other, their placement in the early stages of the film set up personal accounts of moral crisis,      

When they ask me why I did it, I tell them about the children, how their childhood is stolen from them, how their skeletons are left charred and smoking, how easily their bodies are crushed by fallen buildings, how their skin melts as their flaming tents collapse around them. I tell them of the boy found carrying his brother's body inside his bloody backpack. I tell them of the girl whose hanging corpse ended at the knees. I tell them of the father holding up his headless toddler. I tell them of the mother who received the approximate weight of her family and body parts to bury, they'd all been shattered beyond recognition. Then I tell them about the history, I talk about how it was us that started it, with our Balfour Declaration. So I say, I cannot stand for this, it can go on no longer. So I took action against Elbit, their weapons supplier. But I never forget to say that it was love, not hate, that called me. (Majid and York 2025)

These powerful emotive stories reach out as a reminder to spectators, that as citizens we have a moral right to decide when enough is enough on the behalf of others, at any time and in any way. In the example above, this equalising visual imagery has directly created citizenry intervention.      

The “Equality of the Visible”, noted as “The modern 'aesthetic regime' removes the old boundaries that restricted art to specific forms or topics.”, reaffirm theories from the Literature Review, that when one citizen or a group of citizens decide to “act” on the basis of their moral character, others are not only capable of acknowledging and affirming that act, but also of gathering, sharing and supporting the person doing it regardless of the state response to suppress. In short, the act of restructuring boundaries of form and topic, in this case factory contents and materials, simultaneously restructures restrictions of Art, by revealing new spatial forms for debate, appreciation, contemplation and judgement.      

Further Observations

In line with Rancière and Azoulay, the findings show that one-way TKaWM documents Activists’ actions, is through the Handheld or Headcam media used. Technology supports empowerment to perform the actions that one deems moral, and, unlike the communication examples shown by corporations, Activists leave no illusion.      

As spectators, this awakening from illusion can inspire becoming “part of the play” through an immersive experience of Activists that act, and an authoritative view of their reasons why. Therefore, merely sharing the documentary for others to watch, becomes a visceral rejection of the normalised anaesthetic regime and an acknowledgement to borderless nature of space in the World.      

An additional area of analysis was to investigate the different documentary modes used across developed segments throughout the film. As modes are not definitive, often with several used at a time to shape narrative within the documentary’s constructed nature, it is important to reference the interpretive objectivity in deciding which mode is most relevant for each segment. To identify these modes, I used the segments informative content and delivery method, and while this involved identifying the relationship with scholarly codes and media types, it was entirely iterative based on watches of the film.      

This opening in Figure 7 immediately sets the scene. The film was created by combining the provided performative social media footage from Activists with narration by Palestine Actions founders. This immediately alerts us to the Participatory Mode of the film, within which the filmmakers have interacted with social actors, and in this case, their performative media, to shape the story before the camera.      

Additionally, the film's narration techniques, which uses voices of the group’s founders, Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard in a “voice of God” narration style of “performing” a script, lending itself to the Expository Mode.      

Finally, the film uses participant interviews on subjective experience and professional analysis, with a mid-shot In Studio setting that cuts between speaking directly to the off-screen interviewer, and narrating over footage, providing a combined Expository and Participatory Mode.      

When analysing the film in further depth, the combined Expository and Participatory Mode was defined as the most prevalent throughout the film, accounting for 50% of the total modes coded. This highlights the film's primary focus on presenting an argument using Founders “Voice of God” style narration, combined with studio interviews from Participatory Activists. While Archival footage is also used in an Observational and Reflexive way, their input is solely to further solidify the expository argument or participatory involvement.      

The Performative, Reflexive and Poetic Modes are uncoded within the film even though some segments used aspects at varying points of an overall exposition, none were deemed potent enough to become Modes in their own right.      

Though the 15 Codes representing the Expository Mode relate solely to moments in the film where Palestine Actions founders, Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard, provide a “Voice of God” style narration, the fact that this mode is used for just over a third (37.5%) of the film highlights the importance of the narrative being facilitated by Rainbow Collective, and makes clear their stance of educating or persuading the spectator from a point of authority, rather than evidentiary victimhood.      

Finally, the standalone Participatory Mode, perhaps the most obscure throughout the film, is relevant in several ways.      

In Segment One of the transcript, this mode is used in combination with Archival Corporate Marketing footage for Rafael, Leonardo, and Elbit. In between this Corporate Marketing footage, participatory videos from social media of citizens in Palestine give a stark contrast between corporate advertising and the reality on the ground. While this scene is also expository in its nature, the lack of narration, assumed unnecessary due to the visuals’ ability to convey the meaning, creates a visceral segment using participatory footage.      

The next appearance in Segment Thirteen uses handheld media footage directly from one of the participants involved in the In-Studio interviews throughout the film. In this case, the participant has approved their social media account of the event and is detailing the experience through an interview, making for a powerful subjective storytelling of one’s experience performing a direct action.      

Segment Fifteen comprises one of the shortest but no less potent uses of Participatory Modes in the film, with one simple paragraph from a participant in between expository narration from Huda Ammori stating “And really what the activity of Palestine Action is about is increasing the cost of that relationship with Elbit. You know, as I said, if you work with Elbit systems, then expect us” (Majid and York 2025). This small part sits in between a montage of visual imagery from Activists aestheticizing the buildings of Corporations that work with Elbit Systems, and the simple abandonment of an edit away before the dialogue finishes (the only time that this occurs in the film), allows clarity of the messages authority.      

Toward the end of Segment Fifteen, which also refers to the earlier analysis disruption of the Teledyne factory, Elbit Systems and Grid Systems, using the provision of footage by Activists with handheld / headcam media, highlights the use of citizenry participants to tell the story from the roots of its cause, rather than the narrative of its destruction. This level of performative action to identify a war machine, climb atop its roof, break it open, jump inside and destroy as much as possible before its components do harm to others, without the need for expository narrative, and allowing the performance to tell the passionate, dangerous story that participants go through, is a definition of the Participatory Mode in TKaWM.      

Conclusions

In answering this paper’s primary research question How does the film “To Kill a War Machine” disrupt normalised aesthetics, the study has, through scholarly writings and references, identified important relationships between normalised visual anaesthesia connected with power and Countervisual aesthetics of exposure connected to emancipated citizenry. In doing so, the paper has identified how the documentary calls to question the image that governance and corporatisation attempt to uphold, highlighting it as nothing more than Police Logic, and in some cases, violence, attributed to citizens that enact their moral rights on factories and the machinery that manufacture death across the globe.      

The study identified Mirzoeff’s Visuality and Countervisuality as the primary code used throughout the film with Countervisual narratives alongside participatory supply of handheld and headcam media footage from Activists, disrupting the idea of vandalism by offering a new normal of the perspectives and actions held by citizens to pursue their moral character against a government that attempts to force them to be blind.      

How does handheld imagery facilitate the empowerment of direct-action activists to objectify themselves as willing subjects?      

The findings highlight specifically that the performative use of Handheld and Headcam media shown throughout the film, alongside the idea of “success” not comprising normative ideas of escaping Police Logic and imprisonment, facilitates an empowered idea of self that goes beyond the physical punishments of state power. Being a spectator of such recordings allows for self-reflection of one’s own limits, and a visceral reimagining of what citizenship can mean if one has beliefs that they want to stand by.      

The performative scenes delivered by handheld and headcam media (and to a lesser extent - Drone Media) expose the wooden gun of the mechanical state alongside corporate complicity. The difference in this case, is that unlike power, which attempts to anesthetise behaviour with obscurity while conducting it murderously, Activists have willingly participated footage to empower disruptive behaviour for a non-violent cause.      

What are the dominant frames throughout the film and how do these disrupt normalised documentaries?      

In its making, the film questions concepts of documentary filmmaking and art by showing the dissolution of the anaesthetic boundaries that restrict both. Whilst the dominant mode of the film is participatory (either on its own or blended with expository), it is in no way a traditional participatory model, as the participation itself, is in large part from the social media footage provided by members of PA. This disrupts the normalised logic of participatory documentary, as rather than the filmmakers interacting with their participants on camera to become part of the narrative, we are made aware that they interact with their participants off camera, gathering their social media recordings, adding to them with in-studio interviews, organising and editing the footage alongside other participants, to become part of the narrative in production as opposed to narrative in the product alone.      

When combined with the expository mode, where authoritative narration is used by the group’s founders, the combination of documentary modes makes for an interesting, disruptive documentary style that redistributes the insensible with the same authority, access, and beliefs that Police Logic attempts to anaesthetise with. In fact, documenting these borderless acts of participation, such as within the Teledyne Factory scene (Figure 3) alongside authoritative narration disrupts the normalised boundaries of documentation by providing proof for a specific immovable point of view.      

What are the aesthetic dimensions that create a visibility of the invisible throughout the film?      

Aesthetic dimensions are prevalent throughout the film, not only through Handheld Media, but also within the In-Studio interviews conducted with PA activists, lawyers, and family members of those imprisoned. The Police Logic is exposed as an inevitable consequence, especially when actions gather momentum and juries regularly decide in favour of the group's morality. To counter this state of politics as theorized by Rancière, and in reaction to the group’s moral successes, we see the very definition of a Police Logic that enacts violence to morally engaged citizens who refuse blind obedience to the law.      

The “sans” part, referenced by Rancière as the manifestation of two worlds in one (an unknown and unheard one, versus that which is allowed to be seen and heard), relates specifically to this sub-question, claiming that art, imagination, appreciation and beauty are subjectively owned and chosen, not to be imposed by state power or corporations. In dissolving these illusionary boundaries between Art and Life, the film highlights how exposing and disrupting presupposed orders of citizenship is an act for contemplation, reflection, and a literal call to clog the machinery and uphold our moral character toward the duty of others.      

Activists that aestheticize unnoticeably bordered weapon factories as canvases for reinterpretation can prompt spectators to engage their own sensibilities, and act accordingly. 

In the words of the film itself, If not me, who? And if not now, when? (Majid and York 2025).