Oil media: Changing portraits of petroleum in visual culture between the<scp>US</scp>, Kuwait, and Switzerland

This article examines three cases of mid-20th-century oil media—oil-related imagery, iconographies, and media—in visual culture: a series popular science books entitled The Story Oil published in the US, an oil-themed set Kuwaiti postage stamps (1959), art exhibition Zurich (1956) titled Welt des Erdöls: Junge Maler sehen eine Industrie (World Petroleum: Young Artists See Industry). While depicting crude its natural habitat was common photographic theme early 20th-century United States, material discussed shows that, by mid-20th century, no longer had same presence. iconography case studies came to rely increasingly on images infrastructure context-specific depictions living within petro-modernity or petro-culture, meaning lifestyles fueled cheap fossil energy. However, it is not just changes representations petroleum that matter; any debate about visibility invisibility has take into account very media through which become visually communicated—that is, precise forms oil's mediatization. aesthetic negotiation media-based been crucial for dematerialization matter conversion energy, as well decoupling sites extraction from production consumption public imagination. As petro-culture morphed national even global culture (rather than representing one possible energy source among many), paved way our intimate relationship with energy-dependent lifestyles, biggest drivers climate change.