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