A Driving Force
On the Rhetoric of Images and Power
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abstract
The volume comprises a selection of papers presented at the 5th Postgraduate International Conference organized by the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage of Ca’ Foscari University of Venice (Venice, 4-6 October 2023): A Driving Force. On the Rhetoric of Images and Power. In the introduction to his well-known The Power of Images (1989), David Freedberg claims not only that images hold power over us, but they are also, inevitably, related to ‘power’ itself. Art is therefore a powerful and non-neutral tool. Its forms and expressions influence and manipulate the realm of the real. Throughout human history, the artist’s creative power gave form, substance, and meaning to otherwise inert matter. This process turned the artist into a demiurge. Furthermore, once images are given their final form, they circulate and live a life of their own. The 5th Postgraduate International Conference was aimed at investigating the rhetorical nature of the intersection between image and power. In 1979 Yuri Lotman claimed that “rhetoric” is the displacement of the structural principles of a given semiotic sphere into another semiotic sphere. The Tartu semiologist’s approach implies that the “correlation with different semiotic systems gives rise to a rhetorical situation in which a powerful source of elaboration of new meanings is contained”. In exploring these meanings from a multidisciplinary perspective, this volume investigates two main themes: the power of the image, as an autonomous device, endowed with a pervasive and persuasive character; the image as a form for representing power which addresses questions concerning the sense of authority, and its negation, namely a sense of dissidence and counter-narrations.
Russian Empire • Macedonia • Materialism • Power of the images • Power • National image • Byzantine empire • Pietro Aretino • Byzantine sculpture • Our Lady of Kodeń • A/traverso • Labour of love • Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth • Cittadini originari • Modern Art History • Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock • Crossmapping • Vittorio Viale • Byzantine Empire • French Revolution • Exhibition • New Media Installation Art • Portrait de la jeune fille en few • Poor power Images • Venice • Speculative design • Wearable technologies • Melodrama • Poor power images • Gendered bodies • Distorted portrait • Technology • Kustar • Alternative press • Jan Fryderyk Sapieha • Dissidence • Gaze • Rhetoric • Italy • New Formalism • General intellect • Neoliberal imaginary • Beirut • Countersurveillance fashion • Decoloniality • Political iconography • Palaiologan Renaissance • Visual culture • Salon d'Automne • Iconography • Public sphere • Optic Nerve • Post-Representation • Historiographical bias • Arts and crafts • Image • Sursock Museum • The Peggy Guggenheim Collection • Politics • Occupational realism • Modern art history • Metaphor • Political iconology • Directory • Image and power • Countersurveillance Fashion • Geographical personifications • Authority • Scuole Grandi • John V Palaiologos • Palazzo Madama, Torino • Second Post War Period • Semiology • Latin faith • Kodeń • Russian style • Salon dʼAutomne • Design • Un’Ambigua Utopia • Sex • Aby Warburg • Drone • Speculative Design • Portrait de la jeune fille en feu • Autotheory • Allegory • Revolutionary festival • Saint George • Surveillance • Symbols • Fascism • Feminist art • Paraesthetics • Visual Culture • Contemporary art • Visual identity • Power representation • Renaissance • Lucerne • Propaganda • Image theory • New media installation art • Socially engaged art • Folklore • Painted facade • Religious submission • Arts • Post-representation • Lebanon • <p>Kustar • Sapieha family • Holbein • Sixteenth-century Italian art • Venice Biennale • Postcolonialism • Warfare • The Bureau of Melodramatic Research • Coronation of Miraculous Images • Wood