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Pictorial Appearing: Image Theory After Representation PDF

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Krešimir Purgar Pictorial Appearing Image | Volume 126 To my dear colleagues, Keith Moxey, Michele Cometa and W.J.T. Mitchell Krešimir Purgar is associate professor of visual studies and image theory at the University of Osijek, Croatia. Most recently he edited W.J.T. Mitchell’s Image Theory – Living Pictures (Routledge, 2017). KreŠimir Purgar Pictorial Appearing Image Theory After Representation This book has been co-published with the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osi- jek and financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Education of the Republic of Croatia. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Na- tionalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de © 2019 transcript Verlag, Bielefeld All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Cover layout by Maria Arndt, Bielefeld Proofread by Anthony Wright, Imprimatur Editing Typeset by Ana ZubiĆ, Zagreb Printed by Majuskel Medienproduktion GmbH, Wetzlar Print-ISBN 978-3-8376-4135-6 PDF-ISBN 978-3-8394-4135-0 https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839441350 Acknowledgments This book took me many years of writing and thinking about images, although its modest length may not necessarily prove so. In spite of its parts having previously been published elsewhere in different journals and presented as lectures and invited talks in different parts of Europe, its main scope was envisioned some five years ago when it became clear to me that once again, as has been the case many times in history, the civilization of images was undergoing a profound change. But this time it is a change towards overwhelming and ever more immersive visual experiences that are not images anymore, just pure sensorial phenomena in the realm of the visual. During the maturation of my thoughts about images, many very helpful people came across my path, some of whom were very reassuring while others were critical in reshaping my insights in ways I could not have imagined were possible. I would like to thank the editors and reviewers of the different journals where the majority of the material has been published prior to (how appropriate!) appearing in this book. The earlier version of Chapter One was published as “What is not an Image (anymore)? Iconic Difference, Immersion and Iconic Simultaneity in the Age of Screens” in Phainomena. Journal of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics in 2015. Chapter Two was published as “Essentialism, Subjectivism, Visual Studies. Concerning non-Disciplinary Ontology of Images” in Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens, published by Universidade Nova de Lisboa in 2017, in a special issue on visual culture edited by Teresa Castro and Margarida Medeiros, whom I thank for the enthusiasm they showed in accepting it for publication. A rather different version of 6 Pictorial Appearing Chapter Three was published as “Cinematic Time in Painterly Space. Sergei Eisenstein’s Theory of Montage and Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” in the exhibition catalogue Image 2007, curated by Klaudio Štefančić in Croatia in 2008. Thank you, Klaudio, for believing in me and for following my work from the beginning. Chapter Four appeared in 2017 as “Modalities of Pictorial Appearing. Fundamental Concepts”, once again in Phainomena. Journal of Phenomenology and Hermeneutics, and I warmly thank Dean Komel, a member of the journal’s editorial staff, for his susceptibility to my ideas. Versions of Chapter Five were published previously as “Reality and Truthfulness. Abstraction, (hyper)realism and the post-pictorial condition” by the University of Bologna in their journal Piano B. Arti e culture visive in 2016 and as “The Meaning of Hyper-Realism Today. Iconic Difference and Perception of Hyper-transparent Images” in the exhibition cata- logue Search for Reality. Jadranka Fatur and the Hyperreal, edited by Martina Munivrana and published by the Museum for Contemporary Art in Zagreb in 2018. I thank all the people involved in both instances for acknowledging my work. I would not be as confident in presenting my insights in this book if they had not been exchanged with live audiences, mainly students, at several European universities where I was invited to give talks on the topics discussed here. First of all, I am greatly thankful to my colleague, Luca Vargiu, for having me invited to give a guest lecture titled “Indeterminacy of Images: Pictorial Appearing from Fiedler to Wiesing” within the PRIN 2015 project – Il problema dell’indetermi- natezza. Significato, conoscenza, azione at the University of Cagliari in 2018. I am also indebted to Lauro Magnani from the University of Genoa for inviting me in the same year to take part at the Summer School of the Istituto di studi superiori and to give a lecture entitled “Art and technology. The disappearance of images in contemporary visual culture”. Also contributing to my busy schedule that year, but further helping me to shape the final version of this book, was Andrea Pruchová Hruzová, who invited me to Prague to give a talk titled “Allegories of post-representation. On the future of images” as part of her great initiative: Fresh Eye – A Platform for Visual Culture Acknowledgments 7 Studies. Finally, and most recently, I have discussed the introductory parts of Pictorial Appearing at the European University in Tirana where I gave a guest lecture on “How to look at pictures that mean nothing?” in the Department for Applied Arts. My wonderful hosts and invaluable interlocutors there were Marko Stamenković and Konstantinos Giakoumis to whom I express my deepest gratitude. In the long maturation of this book, there were four conferences and presentations that I gave that proved to be most valuable for giving Pictorial Appearing its final overall tone. More specifically, I am referring firstly to the international symposium Ways of Imitation held at the University of Florence in 2015, where I presented my paper “The Absolute Image. Ontological Concerns of non-Mimetic Depictions in Abstract and Conceptual Art”. Two conferences at the University Roma Tre – the first in 2016 entitled Contemporary Film and Media Aesthetics and the second in 2018 entitled From Spectacle to Entertainment. Cinema, Media and Modes of Engagement from Modernity to the Present – gave me the opportunity to test my ideas through two presentations: “Post-Pictorial Condition. Ontology of Image in the Digital Age” and “Philosophy of Image Through Motion Pictures. (Re)presentation and (Dis)appearing”. In 2017 I co-organized the conference The Revolutionary Imaginary. Visual Culture in an Age of Political Turbulences at the Lithuanian National Gallery of Art as part of the activities of the European Humanities University in Vilnius and the international network Visual Culture in Europe. It was a pleasure to work there with my dear friends Almira Ousmanova and Marquard Smith and to deepen our mutual interest in the culture of images. My special thanks go to those people who have significantly shaped my whole career in different ways and on different occasions, and whose intellectual strength and personal integrity have left an indelible imprint on all my professional endeavors. These people are Keith Moxey from Columbia University in New York, Michele Cometa from the University of Palermo and W.J.T. Mitchell from the University of Chicago. I therefore dedicate this book to them. K.P. Table of Contents Acknowledgments | 5 List of illustrations | 11 Introduction — Imagining a world without images: Mimesis, simulacrum and beyond | 17 1. What is not an image (anymore)? | 29 1.1. On the concept of image as a difference and (dis)continuity | 31 1.2. Image as not-representation-anymore and not-yet-immersion | 35 1.3. The essence of the image: Between abstraction and representation | 43 1.4. Iconic simultaneity: Signs of difference and the phenomenon of immersion | 52 2. Essentialism and subjectivism: Two ways of claiming an image | 61 2.1. Between the discursivity and materiality of images | 62 2.2. Overcoming a discursive and material concept of image | 75 3. Epistemological turns: Image as metaphor of the conditions of looking | 87 3.1. Moving and still images – an aesthetic turn | 92 3.2. The principle of montage and the painterly tableau – a temporal turn | 95 3.3. The convergence of painting and film – an ontological turn | 101 3.4. Space and time of the technosphere – a pictorial turn | 106

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