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