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I just published What’s a War-Torn African Nation Got To Do with Editing DNA?, a piece on Vantage about Wired Magazine’s choice of a Richard Mosse photograph Myths Of The Near Future (2012) for the cover of its August issue.

The photograph was made as part of Mosse’s series Infra about the ongoing civil wars in the Democratic Republic of Congo, but the story is about the science behind– and the copyright battles over–Crispr-Cas9 a genetic engineering technique. The gulf between the original subject matter and the nature of the story raised some questions for me.

I must mention that, in light of 5.4 million deaths in DRC, the line “And the end of life as we know it” emblazoned in 48-font on the front cover, seems a little clumsy, but I’m too clueless about the magazine world for that to be my line of main inquiry. Someone else can muse over those loose words if they think there’s anything more in them than a disconnect between packaging and content typical of the marketplace.

[…]

Perhaps I am so discomfited because Mosse’s work makes so much more visual sense being bent ever-so-slightly for this futuristic narrative, than it does for its original intended political purpose?

Mosse pitched in on Twitter with the following three comments, they’re part of a longer back-and-forth with a couple of threads between Ed Brydon and I. Chase those threads if you can.

@brookpete @WIRED @WIREDPhoto Myths of the Near Future shows an active volcano and has a pre-Anthropocene element, relevant to the story.

— Richard Mosse (@richard_mosse) August 4, 2015

@edbrydon @vantagephotos @WIRED @amymaxmen A photo can have numerous meanings / interpretations and sustain multiple contexts? Head explodes

— Richard Mosse (@richard_mosse) August 4, 2015

@vantagephotos @edbrydon @amymaxmen Crispr's manipulation of reality. Turning tragedy to utopia. Many reasons I felt it's a good fit

— Richard Mosse (@richard_mosse) August 4, 2015

Read the full piece and see what you think.