A Driving Force
On the Rhetoric of Images and Power
open access | peer reviewed
-
edited by
- Angelica Bertoli - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email
- Giulia Gelmi - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email
- Andrea Missagia - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email orcid profile
- Maria Novella Tavano - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia, Italia - email
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.
Keywords Beirut • Crossmapping • Sursock Museum • Saint George • Latin faith • A/traverso • Cittadini originari • Arts • Political iconography • Speculative Design • Byzantine empire • Metaphor • Pietro Aretino • Macedonia • Authority • Venice Biennale • Propaganda • Fascism • Countersurveillance fashion • Arts and crafts • Materialism • Wood • Countersurveillance Fashion • Salon dʼAutomne • Scuole Grandi • Neoliberal imaginary • Poor power Images • Power representation • Drone • Portrait de la jeune fille en few • Visual identity • Public sphere • Gendered bodies • Modern art history • Design • Kodeń • Post-representation • Image and power • Gaze • General intellect • Poor power images • Russian style • The Bureau of Melodramatic Research • Our Lady of Kodeń • Iconography • Speculative design • Historiographical bias • Aby Warburg • Renaissance • Technology • French Revolution • Alternative press • Allegory • Wearable technologies • Labour of love • Power • Semiology • Directory • Palaiologan Renaissance • Politics • Distorted portrait • Surveillance • Image theory • Contemporary art • Paraesthetics • Rhetoric • Second Post War Period • Sex • Byzantine Empire • New media installation art • The Peggy Guggenheim Collection • Warfare • New Formalism • Exhibition • Venice • Vittorio Viale • Postcolonialism • Holbein • Kustar • Lebanon • John V Palaiologos • Dissidence • New Media Installation Art • Coronation of Miraculous Images • Palazzo Madama, Torino • Socially engaged art • Italy • Lucerne • Autotheory • Un’Ambigua Utopia • Symbols • Visual Culture • Feminist art • Sapieha family • Occupational realism • Power of the images • Post-Representation • Sixteenth-century Italian art • Russian Empire • Decoloniality • Optic Nerve • Image • Political iconology • Revolutionary festival • Byzantine sculpture • Religious submission • Salon d'Automne • Jan Fryderyk Sapieha • Folklore • Nicolas Ibrahim Sursock • Modern Art History • Painted facade • Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth • Geographical personifications • Melodrama • Visual culture • National image • Portrait de la jeune fille en feu
Permalink http://doi.org/10.30687/978-88-6969-771-5 | e-ISBN 978-88-6969-771-5 | Published Dec. 22, 2023 | Language en
Copyright © 2023 Angelica Bertoli, Giulia Gelmi, Andrea Missagia, Maria Novella Tavano. This is an open-access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction is permitted, provided that the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. The license allows for commercial use. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.