Toward an iconology for temporal object

Abstract

Abstract The advent of cinema brought with it a different kind of image montage, to which Warburg’s iconological project was strangely oblivious. Are we meant to believe, then, that the cinema does not produce icons? Is iconology destined to be only a science of classical culture, or can it also evolve to integrate into its own study new forms of kinematic art? We would like to ask the question of organogenesis of iconology here, that is to say, the invention of an iconological science for temporal objects by means of appropriate instruments for this new medium. The instrument is both conceived as a means of acting upon the real, and as a means of activating noetic capacities. The aim of our study will be to first outline the iconographic and iconological consequences stemming from animation and flux that have governed images since the birth of cinema, precipitating a crisis in classical iconology. Secondly, through the analysis of the noetic function of animated GIFs (Graphics Interchange Format) in digital streams, we will introduce the notion of ‘temporal gesture’ – as a tertiarized retentional technology, which can be reused for imagining an iconology of temporal suspension and insistence. This will be presented in the third part of this work to reflect on an iconological device for temporal objects by the grammatization and the engramming of ‘temporal gesture’, as an art of delay and repetition. This thinking will be based on the video artwork produced in collaboration with Gregory Dassié titled Iconologie pour objet temporel.