Thinking in Images. From the Icon to Dynamic Sign

The article aims at problematizing the concept of the image by treating it from a dynamic perspective. To this purpose the author suggests giving up the definition of image as artistic, in other words, as grounded in transcendence, such as the eternal laws of beauty, for example. The experience of 20th century avant-garde art offers other possibilities, when what is put into question is not only the autonomy of art but also its artistic and aesthetic independence. The icon appears to be a precursor of avant-garde art in this respect. A phenomenological reading of the icon allows us to conceive of the image as an operator of change. The image understood along these lines stands in contrast to representation and demonstrates an active and dynamic nature: what is implied, in particular, are the vectors that orient and transform the viewer’s gaze. A physical (non-artistic) understanding of the image traces back to 17th century physicalist philosophy. Thus, in Spinoza an image is nothing other than an imprint of corporeal encounters. Such interactions are multiple and heterogeneous. They can be grasped through the concept of dynamic sign that remains faithful to the physics of things proper. The same connections are expressed anew by contemporary actionism, being the art of action in the most literal sense.

Keywords

image, representation, icon, avant-garde, dynamic sign, contemporary art, Vassily Kandinsky, M.-J. Mondzain, G. Deleuze

Received

11.12.2018

Publication date

19.12.2018

Cite Download pdf To download PDF you should sign in

GOST	Petrovsky H. Thinking in Images. From the Icon to Dynamic Sign // Voprosy filosofii – 2018. – Issue 11 C. 57-64 [Electronic resource]. URL: http://ras.jes.su/vphil/s004287440001894-8-1-en (circulation date: 05.11.2024). DOI: 10.31857/S004287440001894-8
MLA	Petrovsky, Helen "Thinking in Images. From the Icon to Dynamic Sign." Voprosy filosofii 11 (2018):57-64. DOI: 10.31857/S004287440001894-8
APA	Petrovsky H. (2018). Thinking in Images. From the Icon to Dynamic Sign. Voprosy filosofii (11), pp.57-64 DOI: 10.31857/S004287440001894-8

Размещенный ниже текст является ознакомительной версией и может не соответствовать печатной

Readers community rating: votes 0

1. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Vorlesungen über die Ästhetik (Russian translation 1971).

2. Gilles Deleuze, Spinoza (Russian translation 2001).

3. Spinoza, Benedict Ethica (Russian translation 1957).

4. Debord, Guy (1967) La Société du spectacle, Buchet/Chastel, Paris.

5. Buck-Morss, Susan (2000) Dreamworld and Catastrophe. The Passing of Mass Utopia in East and West, The MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., London.

6. Jameson, Fredric (1990) ‘Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture’, Jameson, Fredric, Signatures of the Visible, Routledge, New York, London, pp. 9–34.

7. Jameson, Fredric (1991) Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism, Verso, London, New York.

8. Krauss, Rosalind (1999) ‘A Voyage on the North Sea’. Art in the Age of the Post-Medium Condition, Thames & Hudson, London.

9. Mondzain, Marie-José (1996) Image, icône, économie. Les sources byzantines de l’imaginaire contemporain, Seuil, Paris.

10. Overy, Paul (1969) Kandinsky. The Language of the Eye, Praeger Publishers, New York, Washington.

11. Petrovsky, Helen V. (2017) ‘Art of the Passing Moment: The Anti-Projective Nature of Prigov’s Utopia’, Actograph. Revue de sciences humaines, sociales et politiques: Arts, Langages et Frontières, № 1, pp. 11–28, URL: http://www.actographe.eu/izd/2017_1_1/2017-1-Petrovsky.pdf

12. Rodnyanskaya, Irina B. (1983) ‘Artistic Image’, Encyclopedic Dictionary of Philosophy, Sovetskaya entsiklopediya, Moscow, pp. 760–761 (in Russian).

13. Sers, Philippe (2001) Totalitarisme et avant-gardes. Falsification et vérité en art, Les Belles Lettres, Paris (Russian translation 2004).