A Driving Force
On the Rhetoric of Images and Power
edited by
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.
Sapieha family • Painted facade • Exhibition • Modern art history • Our Lady of Kodeń • Paraesthetics • Power • Byzantine sculpture • Warfare • New Formalism • Byzantine Empire • Pietro Aretino • Folklore • Optic Nerve • Semiology • Un’Ambigua Utopia • Contemporary art • Public sphere • Russian Empire • Poor power images • Political iconology • The Bureau of Melodramatic Research • Image theory • Feminist art • Crossmapping • Socially engaged art • <p>Kustar • Arts • French Revolution • Allegory • Venice Biennale • Saint George • Directory • Arts and crafts • John V Palaiologos • Dissidence • Rhetoric • Italy • Historiographical bias • Latin faith • Image and power • Byzantine empire • Materialism • New media installation art • Holbein • Labour of love • Metaphor • Revolutionary festival • Scuole Grandi • Cittadini originari • Postcolonialism • Renaissance • Design • Portrait de la jeune fille en few • Image • Gendered bodies • Authority • Speculative Design • Speculative design • Countersurveillance fashion • Vittorio Viale • Sursock Museum • Sex • Visual Culture • Power representation • Fascism • Poor power Images • Autotheory • Palaiologan Renaissance • Wearable technologies • Religious submission • A/traverso • Power of the images • Drone • National image • Neoliberal imaginary • Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth • Venice • Technology • Beirut • Decoloniality • Surveillance • Salon dʼAutomne • Countersurveillance Fashion • The Peggy Guggenheim Collection • Symbols • Propaganda • Visual culture • Second Post War Period • Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock • Modern Art History • Visual identity • Kodeń • General intellect • Macedonia • Gaze • Sixteenth-century Italian art • New Media Installation Art • Russian style • Salon d'Automne • Occupational realism • Portrait de la jeune fille en feu • Palazzo Madama, Torino • Kustar • Jan Fryderyk Sapieha • Melodrama • Geographical personifications • Post-representation • Politics • Wood • Lebanon • Political iconography • Alternative press • Lucerne • Iconography • Post-Representation • Aby Warburg • Distorted portrait • Coronation of Miraculous Images