Iconic Turn Research Articles

Религиозные идеи и средневековое судопроизводство. Несколько замечаний об иконографическом повороте в истории права

The article explores legal medieval iconography in its inextricable connection with the religious ideas of the time and ecclesiastical settings reflected in the canon law, theology, and hagiography. The first steps in this direction were taken only in the beginning of the 21st century, even though the iconic turn in historical research has been discussed for decades. Nevertheless, recent publications on legal medieval iconography still come from the pen of art historians, philologists, or literary critics, but not legal historians. As a result, the analysis of the content of these images is often replaced by mere descriptions. The author offers quite a different approach. Instead of studying miniatures and marginalia only as illustrations to the text to which they are formally attached, she attempts to relate the content of these images with medieval religious ideas. Such a turn of study necessitates references to ecclesiastical texts, and in each individual case, as the author accentuates, it requires a distinctly specific source. Thus, the analysis of the miniature from the “Coutumes de Toulouse” (end of the 13th c.) requires the reference to the Decretum of Gratian and the Liber sextus of Boniface VIII, according to which the artist interpreted the degradation of clerics. The marginalia from the “Coutumes de Bordeaux” (1438), which illustrates the death sentence imposed on thieves, recalls the doctrine of atonement developed by Anselm of Canterbury. The image of the Virgin Mary in the scene of fox Renard’s hanging from the Smithfield decretals (second half of the 14th c.) refers to the ideas of the parasudic procedure liberatus a suspendio, repeatedly described in Marian hagiography. The treatise of French theologian Jean Gerson “Requête pour les condamnés à mort” (end of the 14th c.) should be considered as a starting point for changing the iconography of the death penalty in the next century. In general, as the author concludes, the comparison of medieval legal images with the works of canonists, theologians and hagiographic writings allows not only to understand the deeper meaning inherent in miniatures, but also to clarify the dating of manuscripts, the principles of the artists’ work and their relations with clients.

Diversity in Late Antique Christianity: The Cultural Turn, Provincial Archaeology, and Church Building

Abstract This paper considers archaeological evidence for various aspects of early Christian church building and comes to the conclusion that diversity was an essential quality of late antique Christianity. The diversity in question is ill-attested in written sources, but becomes apparent when the material record and everyday life are taken into consideration (cultural/material/pictorial/iconic turn). Church buildings looked and functioned differently in various regions and provinces of the late Roman empire. The diversity does not appear to have been accidental, but was cultivated throughout late antiquity. It was sometimes related to, but did not depend on, differences in liturgical practice, nor was it a matter of knowledge, ability, and workshop tradition alone. Provincial diversity was maintained even when and where the metropolitan alternative was manifestly known and available and although secular art and architecture continued to uniformly emulate the capital cities. A combination of written and material evidence suggests that the diverse formal repertoire of early Christian art and architecture was chosen and decided individually, but tended to form local/provincial/regional clusters. The decision makers seem to have been guided by religious conventions as well as by personal or political allegiances, many of which appear to have been determined locally, each province or region onto itself.

Проблема феномена визуальности в современном англо-американском научном дискурсе

В статье исследовано отражение феномена визуальности в современном англо-американском академическом пространстве. Особое внимание уделено освещению явления визуального поворота в исследованиях, а именно, почему внимание ученых ХХ в. привлекла визуальная культура, и как визуальность завоевывала различные социокультурные пространства. Проанализированы взаимосвязи между визуальным поворотом и привилегией зрения над другими органами чувств (окулоцентризм) и появлением новых технологий. Проникновение визуального в теорию культуры и распространение образов в самой культуре называют «визуальным поворотом» (иногда его также называют «пикториальным поворотом» или «иконическим поворотом») («pictural turn», «iconic turn»). Он был представлен в исследованиях одного из самых выдающихся теоретиков медиа и визуальной культуры У. Дж. Т. Митчелла. Со временем понятие «визуальность» успешно утвердилось не только в самой культуре, но и в других направлениях, таких как культурология, философия, социология и история, которые всебольше переплетаются через изображение. Неудивительно, что в текстах известных исследователей и теоретиков культуры, таких как Стюарт Холл, Гордон Файф, Джон Ло, Джон Питер Бёрджер, Мартин Джей, Элла Шохат, Роберт Стэм, Донна Харауэй и многих других, уделяется большое внимание изучению различных аспектов проблемы визуальности, а фокус академических исследований часто смещается на междисциплинарный уровень. В исследованиях большое внимание уделено определению визуальности и других явлений феномена видимости, онтологии зрения и видения, выявлению границ между видимым и невидимым, освещена проблема образа, теоретических свойств образа в фотографии, кинематографе, искусстве, образовании и т.д. Проблема визуального была возведена в центр новых исследований, заложен фундамент для появления новых направлений исследований, в частности визуальных. Это знаменует начало нового этапа в развитии гуманитарных исследований, когда отпростого наблюдения за тем, что мы живем в эпоху доминирования образов, мы переходим к теоретической концептуализации этого явления.

Топологическая рефлексия медиареальности: от образа к тексту

The article is devoted to the study of media reality. The thesis is postulated that media reality has a special spatial logic of its development. Media reality, according to the views of modern analysts, is located in the space between the text and the image. One of the productive methods of its study is topological reflection. This type of reflection includes the problem of positioning the researcher himself in the text and language. It is concluded that the «iconic turn» of modern mass culture requires its own textual analysis by means of philosophy.

Arrebato. La revancha de las imagenes

This essay analyzes the collision between the technological and cultural elements in the Spanish film Arrebato (Iván Zulueta, 1979), to present the film as an aesthetic reflection on the abrupt irruption of audiovisual representation (cinema, television...) to the center of Spanish social life during its Transition to democracy. The political transition is subsumed by an aesthetic transition that results from the progressive convergence between the political system changes and late capitalism. As a result of this novelty, Arrebato transforms into terror the cultural inability to deal with an iconic pluriverse that has liquidated the centrality of written culture. The protagonists of the film are fascinated and involved in an aesthetic transition, an iconic turn, where the images that previously had a symbolic value are now self-referential. On the material basis of the analogic image, Zulueta anticipates the aesthetic and cultural concerns common to immaterial digital reproduction systems.

Мультимодальні тексти сугестивної спрямованості в інформаційному просторі України воєнної доби

The article presents an analysis of multimodal texts with a suggestive orientation in the information space of wartime Ukraine. These texts effectively influence society in a positive way and objectify the narratives that are emotionally rich in description. Multimodal patriotic texts are broadcast through classical and new media, as well as social networks, combining differently encoded information (visual, verbal, and musical text). It has been found that the basic and most important means of suggestive influence is the rhythm of the text, which is created by means of different codes. Rhythm permeates all levels of the text and ensures the result of the recipient's psycho-emotional perception of certain suggestively marked meanings. Rhythm as a proportional alternation of certain elements of the text is "comprehended" by the addressee primarily on the emotional level; the rhythmic structure of the text implies "text assembly", which begins with the unification of the relevant content parts and ends with the creation of a new content unit, i.e. the "text concept". It has been proved that multimodal texts based on a complex of suggestive techniques are associated with the so-called "iconic turn" in communication, i.e. focus on various kinds of visual components of the communication process. The interaction of codes creates a unique information product, the semantics of which cannot be conveyed by means of only one of the codes. Multimodal texts with a suggestive orientation have an extremely wide audience; they represent a quick response to certain wartime crises; they use artistic means to outline the prospects for the wartime crisis development; they embody the relevant emotions of a mentally traumatized society; they objectify the content of events in a vivid and imaginative way; they appeal to the cultural roots of the nation and make extensive use of folklore elements; they enhance the psycho-emotional state of the society and provide multiple reproductions, exercising a long-lasting suggestive influence.

The Shadow of Affectivity Inside the ‘Is/Ought’ Debate’: Siniscalchi, Fuller, Manderson and Vico’s Ghosts in the Legal Machine

The article reconstructs the is/ought debate in legal theory through a phenomenological reading of the concept of normality. An analysis of Siniscalchi, Fuller and Manderson looks at the issue from the perspective of law and literature, and then applies Giambattista Vico’s rhetorical methodology within the contemporary debate. The question: “is Hume’s law really visible within Hume’s thought?” also paradoxically poses the figure of phantoms and fictions at the heart of the current theoretical debate on law. A history of the phantom placed at the centre of the history of Western institutions still remains to be written, but a comparison of very diverse and incongrous approaches such as the extended order of Hayek, the dogmatic anthropology of Legendre, the eunomics of Fuller and the new science of Vico shows how the mystery of consciousness and the mystery of institutions are inextricably entwined. It is impossible at the moment to draw a coherent doctrine from these conflicting perspectives, but their convocation is sufficient to demonstrate how the theory of law is always suspended between the unknown and the human attempt to inhabit it, moving us toward an affective turn that has yet to be fully conceived in the theory of law, following the iconic turn. The anthropological primacy of fictio and the aesthetic-legal dimension in the constitution of language is not that of a logic and separation from the body and meaning, but the exact inverse, even in the unavoidable constant tension between the two poles: logic is born through the gesture of the body that precedes it, as myth precedes the foundation of the State; the origin of the concept is affective, as Hume, and perhaps Vico himself, would have passionately affirmed.

Visionary Academy of Ocular Mentality: Atlas of the Iconic Turn

May 25 2022 Visionary Academy of Ocular Mentality: Atlas of the Iconic Turn Visionary Academy of Ocular Mentality: Atlas of the Iconic Turn. by Luca Del Baldo. De Gruyter: Berlin, Germany, 2020. 440 pp., illus. Trade, PDF. ISBN: 978-3-11-069519-9; ISBN: 978-3-11- 070610-9. Elizabeth McCardell Elizabeth McCardell Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Elizabeth McCardell Online Issn: 1530-9282 Print Issn: 0024-094X © ISAST2022ISAST Leonardo 422–423. https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_r_02230 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Elizabeth McCardell; Visionary Academy of Ocular Mentality: Atlas of the Iconic Turn. Leonardo 2022; doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/leon_r_02230 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsLeonardo Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © ISAST2022ISAST Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Leonardo Reviews Online

Charles Darwin by J. David Archibald. Reviewed by Gregory Tague.Fifty Years Inside an Artist’s Mind: The Journal of Athena Tacha by Athena Tacha; edited by Richard Spear. Reviewed by Anne Collins Goodyear.Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age by Annalee Newitz. Reviewed by Allan GraubardNetworks, Collaboration and Resistance in/between Portugal and Brazil, 1962–1982: Works from the Arquivo Fernando Aguiar and the Coleção Moraes-Barbosa, edited by Maika Pollack. Reviewed by Jan Baetens.1960: When Art and Literature Confronted the Memory of World War II and Remade the Modern by Al Filreis. Reviewed by Jan Baetens.The Building as Screen: A History, Theory, and Practice of Massive Media by Dave Colangelo. Reviewed by Mike Mosher.Deceitful Media: Artificial Intelligence and Social Life after the Turing Test by Simone Natale. Reviewed by Anthony Enns.The Visionary Academy of Ocular Mentality: Atlas of the Iconic Turn by Luca Del Baldo. Reviewed by Elizabeth McCardell.

The Visionary Academy of Ocular Mentality: Atlas of the Iconic Turn

I think I can safely say this book is unique. Del Baldo’s concept is brilliant and possibly opened more “cans of worms” than even he thought at the start of his project. Taking over 10 years to complete, this book is the result of what seems to be a labor of love.In short, Del Baldo asked 96 individuals, some well known, others not so prominent, in the fields of philosophy, science, history, ethnology, consciousness studies and art history to send him a photograph of themselves (head and shoulders). He would then paint a portrait of each individual from the photograph and his knowledge of their work and personalities. In return for Del Baldo gifting the finished portrait to each individual, they were required to gift him a written response concerning what the portrait meant to them.The book is nicely produced: It runs to 460 pages with 96 color plates, one for each portrait. There are two introductions, the first by W.J.T. Mitchell (The Visionary Academy of Ocular Mentality), the second by Horst Bredekamp (The Warburgian Tradition and Bildwissenschaft). These are followed by the portraits from A to Z, together with each “sitter’s” written response. These are then followed by a “Conversation Piece,” by Luca Del Baldo and Andreas Beyer. This is written only in Italian, which I found irritating. The publishers should have included an English translation, in keeping with the rest of the English text!“So, just what is the iconic turn?” As Bredekamp explains, “Del Baldo has devoted his philosophical painting to the concept of the iconic turn, which has given a name to and inspired the profound methodological changes in the humanities and natural sciences that have been developing for about half a century.” Gottfried Boehm introduced the term in 1994 in an essay introduction to his book Was ist ein Bild (What Is a Picture); this described, “the picture’s entrance to the central area of hermeneutics and philosophizing as an autonomous instance of its own” (p. 14).Del Baldo’s skill as a portrait painter is simply astonishing. The portraits are 11 × 15 in and painted in oil on canvas. Almost without exception they look as though they are about to speak or come to life from the flat semigloss pages. I am in awe of his painting skill. After seeing photographs of, and studying the works of, Daniel C. Dennett, Donna Haraway, Noam Chomsky, Peter Singer and Arthur C. Danto, to mention a few, I now feel I know these scholars through Del Baldo’s portraits. I am not sure exactly what this means in the theoretical controversies and discussions of photography and portraiture as a means to know or represent a person accurately. One thing is for sure, this project will, or should, reassess some of these theories, especially those espoused by scholars such as Derrida, Barthes and Foucault.As Mitchell states in his introduction: This project is centered around a band of contemporary scholars who have devoted their lives to the iconic or pictorial turn, expanding the domain of art history into the larger domain of visual culture. Then further; Members of the Visionary Academy investigate vision in both its literal and figurative sense, as a study of optical technologies and perception on the one hand, and the boundless field of human understanding and imagination on the other (p. 10).Not considered in the brief theoretical introductions is the psychological underpinning to portraiture and the narcissistic, egocentric ramifications of some of the sitters. This covertly surfaces in some of their responses, and so it is quite fascinating and possibly constitutes a whole study of its own.These are some of the “cans of worms” I referred to earlier. The scholars’ responses to their portraits vary from quite lengthy theoretical discussion of Del Baldo’s mission—and from my reading, some miss the point altogether—to others that are much shorter genuine statements of appreciation. As an example, Zygmunt Bauman says it all. Huge thanks, dearest Luca Del Baldo, for sharing with me the wonderful tributes your portraits, deservedly, mustered from your sitters. If I could only express my gratitude to you and my admiration of your art by writing something at the same level of erudition and expertise. … I am not, alas, up to the task! Yours forever in debt — Z [pp. 50–51].I need only add, thank you Luca Del Baldo for your effort and genius in producing this body of work and sharing it with the rest of the world. This book will take pride of place in my bookshelf.

Nomadism of Imagery and Contemporary Design Culture

With its impromptu pervasiveness, the image has taken on enormous strength today, mitigated only by its own “inflation” which can generate a sense of confusion. Thanks to the diffusion of images through the web, today’s designers have a wealth of images at their disposal. The paper poses open questions, concerning how the designer’s sensibility could be developed, focusing on the value of the image as a vital force for the project. On the basis of the revolutionary method of Aby Warburg, which freely links images from different contexts, places and times, the article investigates the effective and potential influence of the iconic turn on contemporary design research. Visual studies affirm the autonomous epistemological value of the image, recognize its deep surface and its strength as imagines agentes. Exploring this context, the article presents in its closing part an exhibition by Diego Cibelli, mixing ancient iconography and contemporary themes, digital and material technologies.

Architecture and Contemporary Visual Culture, the Image of Realism and the Realism of Image

The rise of visual culture and the role of images in shaping contemporary thought and global society has been a constant since the end of the last century. Called “Iconic turn” in the field of philosophy of perception and image theory, this process has captured increasing attention in diverse academic fields, even in disciplines such as architecture where the role of images has not always been well considered. There is no doubt, however, that the visual nature of architecture makes the image essential in its conception, representation or perception. Within this relationship between architecture and image can be noted a recent change: a progressive attention toward realism as an alternative to an arbitrariness of form whose main consequence has been an uncritical use of images by architects and their consumption by society. The visual nature of some of the most influential works of the British architects Sergison Bates and Tony Fretton are exemplary for this purpose, aware of the importance of images in the shaping of everyday life and in the architectural narratives of the real. These works, in turn, allow us to explore the reciprocal strengthening that this realism as an attitude in being (architecture) and in looking (photography) has for an architectural practice that feeds on images and engenders them.

Polish-Soviet War in Film and Cinema: A New Perspective Based on the Films For You, O Poland (1920) and Miracle on the Vistula (1921)

The Polish-Soviet War, particularly the Battle of Warsaw (13–25 August 1920), soon became a subject of legend and myth. Irrespective of its fundamental political significance, the defeat of the Red Army was glorified as salvation for both Poland and Europe in military, ideological and metaphysical terms. Conducted beyond academia, the narrative was forged mainly by veterans, the Catholic Church and various forms of literature and art. Due to government subsidies, documentary and feature films also conveyed a normative notion of these dramatic events and their participants.
 This article focuses on cinematic works like Dla Ciebie, Polsko [For You, o Poland, PL 1920], and Cud nad Wisłą [The Miracle on the Vistula, PL 1921] produced in order to commemorate the war between the Poles and the Bolsheviks. Taking the iconic turn, this article scrutinises the cinematic self-portrait of the Polish nation that had already been ‘imagined’ as a bulwark of European culture in the East by earlier literary works. Spotlighting protagonists who were given a place in the pantheon of national heroes, it also asks about those who were denigrated or marginalised like women and Jews. Finally, using quantitative methods and Geographical Information System (QGIS) as a tool, the article juxtaposes the maledominated, ethnically and confessional homogeneous ‘imagined nation’ with the film entrepreneurs and actual cinema audiences characterised by their diversity.

Технології візуалізації в освітньому процесі вищої школи: змістовий та функційний аспекти

The article presents the theoretical and methodological principles of using visualization technologies in higher education institutions. The essential features of the concepts «visual», «visualization» in philosophical and psychological and pedagogical contexts have been revealed. It has been determined that the theoretical basis of the analysis of the content and functions of visualization technologies is the iconic (visual) turn in socio-humanitarian theory and practice. It has been connected with the importance of the visual component of socio-cultural reality, the construction of social practices. The general characteristics of visual thinking have been presented, considering the peculiarities of human visual perception, abilities and skills of transforming information into a visual image. The variability of scientific approaches to the definition of the essence of visualization of educational information, visualization as an educational trend of modernity, has been revealed. The role of visual literacy of students of higher education in ensuring the success of professional and personal development in higher education institutions has been characterized. The main tasks, functions of visualization of educational information in higher education institutions, general characteristics of the forms and means of visualization of educational information (structural and logical schemes, intelligence maps, concept maps, reference notes, infographics, scribing, etc.) have been presented.

Functions of Visual Public Relations. On Visual Meaning-Making in PR Practice

Abstract The paper presents the functions of public relations from visual communication standpoint. The argument for iconic turn application into public relations theory is provided. Next, the paper describes three main functions of images in PR: informative, persuasive and aesthetic. The essay is a theoretical realisation of socio-cultural paradigm in a public relations theory. Contemporary public’s interactions with visuals are dynamic. The constructivist approach stresses the role of knowledge in perception and therefore it is against the simplistic nativist approach to perceptual activity. It allows recipients’ behaviour to be generally appropriate also to non-sensed object characteristics. The publics remaining in the dialogue with an organization, learn specific aesthetics and perceive specific institutional visual stimuli. The paper indicates the need for interdisciplinary research in both visual and organizational communication domains. Such application of PR encompasses constant researching, conducting and evaluating communication programs to achieve the informed public understanding necessary to the success of an organization’s aims.

TV Show Dramaturgy as an Analogue of the Audiovisual Syntax

The dramaturgy of a television work as structure-forming for the format basis of a television periodical is examined. The purpose of the study is to explain the fundamental features of a TV program as an integral artistic phenomenon, embodied in many variations based on a single format model. The task is to clarify the problem of the effective functioning of syntactic rules in the absence of basic linguistic units, which is characteristic of the audiovisual language of screen shows, that has been actualized by domestic and Western media researchers. A general thesis is put forward about the polymodality of an audiovisual work as a single text, the unfolding of which occurs according to pre-established schemes that regulate the effect of individual elements on the viewer's perception. The dramatic approach is considered in the discourse of the global iconic turn from the verbal culture to the visual culture, there are multi-branch attempts to identify possible basic units of the new combinatorial sign system. Syntactic constructions, defined as a chain of episodes, show signs of fragmentation, mosaicism, intertextuality, and other criteria of postmodern aesthetics. The dualism of screen attractions as aggressively influencing instruments and verbal narrative, their mutual influence and dramatic significance are emphasized. The concepts of syntactic uniformity, the constancy of the syntactic structure chosen for a given format, without the possibility of breaking it in variations of editions are considered.

Echoing the Call for Multimodal Representation

The editor’s introduction to the Visual Anthropology Review, Vol. 32, Issue 2, from fall 2016 emphasizes the necessity of anthropology to engage in multimodal methodologies of research and research communication.
 An expanded view of visual anthropology, and its methodological and analytical contributions to current debates, recognizes and builds on the field’s commitment to a reflexive awareness of the social relationships at stake in the process of making images and an engagement with the politics of representation. It also encompasses an active approach toward learning to see how others see, how technologies of imaging picture the world, and a serious consideration of the technical capacities necessary for communicating ethnographic knowledge through visual composition, editing, and design. (Chio & Cox, 2016, pp. 101–102)
 The claim that the reflection on images has been neglected compared to the reflection on language, echoing in the introduction of Chio and Cox (216), has been made in the context of the iconic turn in the mid-1990s. In reference to the linguistic turn in philosophy coined by Richard Rorty (1967) in philosophy, art historian Gottfried Boehm (1994, pp. 11–38) described the iconic turn, and Thomas W. Mitchell (1995, pp. 11–34) used the term pictorial turn, observing a significant shift toward communication by images. Both recognized the increasing power of images in society through the digital means of communication, which enables everyone to easily create and disseminate images. Both were aware of the lack of reflection on the meaning of images in Western thought.

Modern Urban Diasporas: Factors of Social Dynamics (on Materials of Tuva Diaspora in the City Of Abakan)

In the summer and autumn of 2021, the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies of Khakass State University conducted a pilot sociological study of the Tuvan diaspora in the city of Abakan. One of the main tasks of the study was to build a general integrated theoretical model of the identity of ethnic communities, which would be applicable to the analysis of ethnocultural processes in modern urban conditions. Diasporas are seen as complex multilevel systems that can be visualized through a set of specific behavioral scenarios. These scenarios were supposed to be investigated using the methodology of the frames of Ervin Goffman and the concept of iconic turn in the culture of Ilya Inishev. The preliminary results of the study are presented in this article. It is argued that modern ethnic diasporas have a second or third-order ethnic identity (arising after the traditional and industrial stages of social development). This identity is characteristic of adults who have passed through people who have created a family, have children, an education and a profession, but for various reasons they have not realized themselves in their historical homeland. Ethnic identity of such people does not involve participation in ethnic organizations and associations, but involves the use of visual markers that signal their own ethnic identification and self-identification. In the first approach, the model seems justified, the materials of the in-depth interviews and the expert interviews as a whole correspond to its basic provisions. Further development and adjustment of the model will be possible after processing of all empirical data and analysis of the study results.

Zwischen logos und icon

In his contribution "Zwischen logos und icon. Gegenwartskunst als Anders-Ort der Theologie" (Between logos and icon. Contemporary art as other-place of theology) Ulrich Engel OP examines, starting from the iconic turn, the question what theology (which is primarily committed to the biblical WORD) can learn from IMAGES. Following Foucault's theory of heterotopias (other-places), the study focuses on works of contemporary visual art, which as other-places can expose and make visible hidden, overlooked, misunderstood mechanisms of exclusion. Four artistic positions (Pavel Büchler, Boris Mikhailov, Chris Martin, and Paloma Varga Weisz) are used to show how they cite Christian iconographic traditions and revisit them in a contemporary way. In the omissions and gaps that become apparent in these and structurally similar adaptations, de-emphasizations, and continuations, something appears that is already theologically inherent in the biblical prohibition of images. The Jewish prohibition of images is not an absolute one. For it reminds us that all positively painted images of God always need the theological negative sign, the aesthetic "empty space" in the image itself.

The Treachery of Images: Why Images Do not Exist and There Are Only Flat Objects

Do images exist? In this paper I argue that the notion of an image is ontologically empty – i.e., images are no more than a cultural invention akin to epicycles in astronomy. There are only flat objects engaged in various causal roles. In this paper I will defend the thesis that in visual culture, in the neurosciences, and in philosophy of mind, there is no convincing evidence in favor of their existence. Moreover, I will outline a series of arguments aiming at showing that images do not exist. I will discuss briefly discuss why many authors – from the iconic turn to the neurosciences – use the notion of image as though it were something real. I will conclude suggesting to drop the subject-object divide and to consider a completely flat ontology made only of (relative) objects.