Cosmopolemos [Embedded]: Representations of American Military Power from 9/11 to the Evacuation of Kabul

Cosmopolemos is an exploration of knowledge and meaning in relation to an overwhelming edifice of power: the $6.5 trillion worth of contracts issued by the US Defense Department to the private sector between the 9/11 attacks and the American withdrawal from Afghanistan 20 years later. The items accounted for between these two iconic events encompass every aspect of life and death, from oil reserves and nuclear weapons to cookies and cleaning services: over 43 million recorded transactions, with contractors large and small.

These corporate relationships underpin the military hegemony of the world’s foremost superpower. They aren’t secret. But their scale and complexity challenges understanding. We decided to interrogate this complexity using a traditional, now redundant form: the printed encyclopaedia. For centuries, humans have grappled with their imperfect knowledge of the universe, harnessing the encyclopaedia form to portray inconceivable complexity between two covers. In combining the transaction data with the Pentagon’s soft focus photography of American military power, this encyclopaedia offers a representation of everything the US military paid for everywhere.

Embedded comprises a selection - by Katy Barron, PhotoOxford Director, and artist Edmund Clark - of images from the Incite Project made between 9/11 and the evacuation of Kabul, including by photojournalists embedded with the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq.

• https://photooxford.org/exhibitions/crof...