New Theories = Nove teorije

Seven proposals for visual reading of contemporary Osijek art

2024-03-05T11:58:40+01:00

Can art provide knowledge?

2024-03-05T11:16:28+01:00

The question of the relationship between art and knowledge and whether and
in what sense art can be regarded as a form of knowledge has been addressed
from different perspectives but it still does not have secure grounds in
contemporary aesthetics. The argument involves rather skeptical attitudes
– from Plato to Kant and throughout the dominance of positivist tradition in
Western philosophy in the first half of the 20th century – as well as cognitivist
approaches, such as James O. Young’s view of art as a source of knowledge,
which has the capacity to provide both propositional and practical knowledge.
The “linguistic turn” in contemporary thought and the ensued iconization
of language in western culture led to the identification of cognitive potential
with discourse, resulting in inequitable disregard of sensory awareness
and turning the human experiences and cognition into the product of language.
The submission of iconicity to semantics and reducing the pictorial
to interpretable text without sensory significance led to the questioning of
the cognitive aspect of visuality.
The hermeneutical perspective, drawing upon Michael Polanyi’s view of
all knowledge as established in relation to tacit thought, considers art as
embodying tacit knowledge and emphasizes the importance of the inherent
inexhaustibility of meaning in art that can contribute to the inquiry. Recognizing
that knowledge is not always reducible to language, such perspective
liberates knowledge from the dominance of the propositional and provides
further insights for the phenomenology of art as a creative practice.

No doubt that the ways of representation in arts are fundamentally different
from those in the sciences and both realms contribute to knowledge in radically
different ways. However, while the ways to explicate how art can enhance
the faculty of judgment and practical knowledge might be relatively obvious in
literary works, the question of how visual works can provide the same kinds
of knowledge is more ambiguous. Consequently, the question of epistemic
potential of visual representation is even more challenging.
Image as a system constructed according to the immanent laws with its own
iconic sense - which determines its difference from reality as well as from
discourse – challenges perception, because a conceptual, abstract tendency
of perception is incompatible with a sensual particularity of the image
(Boehm). At the same time, it allows a multiplicity of experience made possible
by simultaneity inherent in the image provided that we understand the
act of seeing as comprising simultaneity and consecutiveness as well as the
unconscious, pre-conceptual processes. It is the expressive potential of the
pictorial and the specificity of art as an experiential and perceptual modality
embodying representational meanings that distinguishes it as a distinctive
form of knowledge. In an endeavor to defy the approach of semiotics and the
epistemology of science that insist on amodality of knowledge and its dependence
on discursive context, this paper rejects the reducibility of knowledge
to language and embraces the approach that advocates „disestablishing the
view of cognition as dominantly and aggressively linguistic“ (Stafford).

Nostalgia – between fiction and (hyper)reality

2024-03-05T12:32:47+01:00

The Notion of ‘Image’ and Eurocentrism

2024-03-05T11:35:35+01:00

The enormous variety of forms and uses of phenomena called ‘image’
has so far prevented the formation of a universally accepted concept of
the image. It is even questionable whether a unified concept of the image
encompassing all relevant phenomena is possible or whether the ‘image’
is not rather a historically changeable collective name of phenomena
grouped by family resemblances. the image seems to occur in almost all
cultures; for this reason alone, any study of the image should be differentiated
not only historically, but also interculturally. But this is not always
the case; therefore in this essay a certain Eurocentric bias in Western
concepts of the ‘image’ is critically discussed. Firstly, it will be presented
how ‘image’ is defined in certain mainstream discussions of image studies.
Secondly it will be shown that there are Eurocentric blind spots in these
discourses. The range of objects considered as images are restricted and
thereby especially non-European types of images are excluded. Three of
them will be mentioned: the tattoo, the mask and calligraphy and what
their difference to hegemonic western notions of the image as separated
from the body, to-be-looked-
at and non-performative entails. Tattooing,
calligraphy, the mask and much more could become the subject of research
projects and courses. The problem with such research and teaching
that reaches beyond the European horizon is twofold: First, simply not
everything can be done; researchers and teachers must reduce the variety
of possible objects. This cannot and should not lead to the exclusion of

non-European phenomena, but not everything can be included – complete
inclusion is impossible. Therefore, only a local coordination process
on what can be taught in modules such as ‘Interculturality’ or ‘Global
Media Culture’ can be done. The paper ends with some short notes
on the institutional and image-pedagogical consequences of this critique.

Charles Darwin and Visual Culture

2024-03-05T11:45:55+01:00

The importance of Charles Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species (1859),
cannot be overstated, both in terms of (the history of) evolutionary biology
and culture-wise. The book and the theory of evolution by natural selection
presented therein eliminates the need for an explanation of a superior power
in all that is related to the diversity of biological species, and thus provides a
scientific and materialistic theory for “creation”. The book and its author have
become pivotal in secular culture, and the focus of attacks by various religious
groups. With about 500 illustrated covers of a book whose importance goes
beyond the scientific field to which it belongs, it is interesting to study how
the ideas appearing in Origin of Species are illustrated in its many editions,
whether there are recurring motifs in the illustrations, and if so, what their
meanings are. The abundance of illustrated covers of Origin provides virtually
controlled conditions for a study of the unique way in which concepts
transfer to the public. Such an investigation must begin by examining the link
between text and cover image. Accordingly, my aim is to map and classify the
Origin motifs that appear on the covers of the various editions, and how they
are brought to bear, toward determining which are being transferred In my
paper, I draw on two related concepts first introduced by W.J.T. Mitchell in his
book Picture Theory: the “imagetext”, defined as a composite of picture and

text that operates as a single unit. When the text and picture do not function
in harmony– when something else intervenes between them – the result is
an image/text. These interactions between words and images (imagetext vs.
image/text) not only help to analyze representations, but trace their relationships
to issues of power, value, and human interests. Herein I present and
discuss recurring motifs among the illustrated covers of the various editions
of Origin of Species, for example: motifs related to the Beagle’s voyage; living
nature; a focus on the author – Charles Darwin – rather than on his ideas;
ascent of man (appears only on commercial editions); and unique metaphors.