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