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