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Jane Blocker's book is a compilation of her reflections on stories, performances, contemporary art, historical, and individual traumas. Her objective is to understand the witness in relation to “the politics of the visual.” Blocker starts the book with her own perspective on the satellite photographs which Collin Powell used in his testimony on chemical weapons facilities in Iraq. She describes his interpretation of how these photographs, taken by an “anonymous camera in the sky”, overshadowed the testimony of the United Nations (UN) inspectors. Blocker describes this as one example of the “strategy of legitimizing the invisible witness” which she then shares with the reader throughout her book.
The book is divided into three chapters: History, Technology, and Biopower. The first chapter includes a discussion on Western culture's reliance on “official history.” Blocker uses the example of a Native American performance which shows how history can be enriched by hearing from those who are not part of the majority whose account of history is taken as the truth. It mentions how the images in Western movies are taken as valid ways to see a culture which goes beyond the stereotypes superimposed on it. Blocker also explores the topic of homosexual couples and the way society and history have either criminalized their story or categorized it as lawful. The author refers to the artists Felix Gonzalez Torres, whose powerful art has portrayed this struggle.
The second chapter describes how photography is the primary technology of witnessing. Blocker points out how photographs allow people to witness atrocities, such as the genocide in Rwanda, which might not be fully captured if not seen even if through an image. Blocker then directs her reflections toward the problems that arise on depending on images and technology as witnesses. She discusses the disturbing possibility and ethical challenges of a future in which technology will become a neutral, image capturing, “super witness