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