New Theories = Nove teorije https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije <p>Časopis New Theories = Nove teorije želi se na drugačiji način posvetiti vizualnoj umjetnosti i kulturi nego što je to učinila disciplina povijesti umjetnosti tijekom svoje slavne prošlosti. Nove teorije tretirat će umjetnost i njezine raznolike fenomene prvenstveno kao objekte promišljanja i intelektualne radoznalosti.</p> hr-HR kresimirpurgar@gmail.com (Krešimir Purgar) marta.rados@aukos.hr (Marta Radoš) pet, 17 sij 2025 12:23:45 +0100 OJS 3.2.1.4 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 Do we still believe in the power of images? https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34711 Krešimir Purgar Copyright (c) 2025 New Theories = Nove teorije https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34711 pet, 17 sij 2025 00:00:00 +0100 We cannot lose faith in what we never believed in https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34710 Žarko Paić Copyright (c) 2025 New Theories = Nove teorije https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34710 pet, 17 sij 2025 00:00:00 +0100 Image studies as taste studies? https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34679 <p>The paper discusses some rather well-known, but rarely discussed origins of<br />the current “immanentism” and “invitationalism” of the images by rooting<br />them in the discussion that is itself rooted in the very matter of aesthetics – the<br />matters of taste. The introductory remarks justify briefly the chosen historiographical<br />approach, supported by few first-hand insights into the “momentum”<br />of visual studies one decade ago. In the second chapter, a short paper<br />appeared only in German in 2008, “W.J.T. Mitchell und der iconic turn” von<br />Norbert Schneider (1945-2019) is recapitulated, in which the impression of<br />the implied harmony between “like-minded” scholars – W.J.T. Mitchell and<br />G. Boehm – has been deconstructed in a comparative analysis. Further on,<br />Schneider´s arguments are followed up in the third chapter, where Boehm´s<br />Ph.D.-supervisor Max Imdahl and doctorate-supervisor Gadamer (as well as<br />their predecessors Fiedler, Croce and Vico) are discussed in some depth, with<br />reference to what we have baptized as image-immanentism and the hermeneutic of pictures. In the fourth chapter, we criticize a more recent follower<br />of Gadamer´s position, whose aim was to support Gadamer´s theory of aesthetic<br />value as artistic value with the projected value of the “artistic image”.<br />Paul Crowther´s important point was to substantiate the claim of the artwork<br />being a “symbolically significant artifact” and hence the extraordinary character<br />of our experience of art and its value. Although Gadamer’s understanding<br />of representation as an ontological event brings with it a metaphysical,<br />Neoplatonist implication, Crowther turned this implication of point to an<br />ontological-existential one. The presented case in point is supposed to provide<br />an argument for deep historiographic connections between the current<br />immanentism of images and their roots in the continental thinking traditions.</p> Slavko Kaćunko Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34679 pet, 17 sij 2025 00:00:00 +0100 From Neurons to Emotions https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34680 <p>In recent years, neuroaesthetics has made its way into art history. Most notably,<br />art historian David Freedberg and neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese have<br />promoted a theory based on the discovery of so-called mirror neurons. In<br />brief, it has been shown that a mirror neuron fires an electrical signal both<br />when a movement is performed by one’s own body and when the same movement<br />is observed in another body, in another individual. Gallese calls this<br />circuit embodied simulation, and Freedberg, either alone or in collaboration<br />with Gallese, has taken these results and simply identified this effect with<br />empathy. Building on the theory of embodied simulation, Freedberg has<br />generally contextualized artworks through a range of neuroscientific findings,<br />including Antonio Damasio’s as-if body loop and Paul Ekman’s theory of<br />linking basic emotions with specific facial expressions. Altogether, this paradigm<br />can be called simulation theory.<br />Freedberg’s resulting neuroaesthetic theory has some radical implications for<br />the analysis and interpretation of artworks, even for the practice of art history<br />itself. This article explores and challenges Freedberg’s assumptions and arguments,<br />which are sought to be refuted, partly by consulting phenomenology<br />and the history of emotions. In particular, his peculiar concept of empathy<br />is rejected, as it is limited to unconscious, pre-cognitive bodily automatism.<br />The article examines his selection of artworks and finds that the scope of<br />his theory makes it challenging to apply to modern and contemporary art. It<br />also takes issue with Freedberg’s atomistic style of analysis, where specific<br />body segments, forms of gestures, and facial expressions, as well as motifs of movement, are isolated from their compositional context and identified<br />as the meaning and message of the image itself. Similarly, the article faults<br />Freedberg’s dependence on Paul Ekman’s tautological attempts to locate a<br />set of basic emotions in the face, not observed but predefined.<br />The article then moves on to first provide an account of the promising results<br />generated by the intersection of art history and emotional history in recent<br />decades. It subsequently uncovers how Freedberg ignores these recent findings<br />and how the history of emotions challenges the neuroaesthetic perspective<br />on emotions in artworks, at least in the form represented by Freedberg<br />and Gallese.<br />The article goes on to discuss how Freedberg’s theory fails to distinguish<br />between art and reality or between art, kitsch, and propaganda. Avant-garde<br />concepts like estrangement and shock are introduced to demonstrate that<br />the application of Freedberg’s approach—his peculiar concept of empathy—<br />would lead to misinterpretations of the aesthetic message of avant-garde art.<br />Finally, the article argues that Freedberg’s neuroaesthetics lacks aesthetic<br />explanatory power and fundamentally deprives artworks of meaning. It also<br />returns to his concept of empathy, which is challenged through both emotional-<br />historical and neuroscientific approaches. Overall, the article concludes<br />that while the emergence of emotions as objects of study in art history and<br />aesthetics is a positive and promising correction to traditional ways of studying<br />artworks, Freedberg’s theory is of little assistance when explaining the<br />occurrence and function of empathy and emotions in aesthetic phenomena.</p> Kasper Laegring Copyright (c) 2025 New Theories = Nove teorije https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34680 pet, 17 sij 2025 00:00:00 +0100 Die Macht der Filmischen Imagination bei Albrecht Dürer https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34692 <p>The article explores the fundamental qualities of imagination in the works<br />of Albrecht Dürer, with a focus on a specific sheet from his cycle of illustrations<br />in the biblical Apocalypse series – the woodcut titled The Strong Angel.<br />Our analysis builds on the insights of media historian Jörg Jochen Berns,<br />who identified the presence of a “film before the film” in the Middle Ages<br />and the Renaissance. This concept refers to an “inner film” that responds to<br />external stimuli – from the “outer film” – allowing the observers to immerse<br />themselves in holy images, particularly during prayer, through the stimulation<br />of their imagination.<br />In the context of the biblical Apocalypse, the Strong Angel is a metaphor for<br />vision; at the same time, it requires considerable imaginative power from the<br />artist (Dürer) to depict such a scene. An angel appears to St John, giving him<br />a book of visions that St John must “devour” to keep them hidden. For our<br />research, which involves interpreting this work through the medium of film,it was essential to highlight a key discovery in this illustration: the montage<br />process that interconnects the elements of The Strong Angel. This connection<br />is crucial for interpreting the Angel as a messenger from heaven, linking the<br />divine to the earthly, the sacred to the profane, and the corporeal (human<br />head) to the material (pillars).<br />We examined the imaginative potential in Dürer’s work through the perspective<br />of image theorist Ludwig Schwarte and interpreted Dürer’s art as imagination-<br />stimulated and produced by intuition, in which the observer actively<br />participates in the scene. Assuming that the inner film existed in the Middle<br />Ages and the Renaissance as a prayerful and visionary imagination manifest<br />in the given examples, we juxtaposed it with the measurement of sensory<br />stimuli, and thus with the physiognomic discovery of the early 19th century<br />as interpreted by Jonathan Crary.</p> Mirela Ramljak Purgar Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34692 pet, 17 sij 2025 00:00:00 +0100 Ikonički anarhizam i estetika ružnog https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34707 Vladimir Rismondo Copyright (c) 2025 New Theories = Nove teorije https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34707 pet, 17 sij 2025 00:00:00 +0100 Algorithms and Imagination https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34696 <p>In the territory of post-isms also visuality has been debated in terms of its post<br />condition, where it was essentially associated with the digital era in which<br />images have proliferated to the stage at which everything must be made into<br />an image and is consumed as an image. Such image and information overload<br />and constant alertness have produced a certain “visual extinction” and<br />invisibility, not only as a form of resistance to prevailing visual politics but<br />also as a perceptual and cognitive response to excessive exploitation of (mediated)<br />visuality. In contemporary visual culture the superficiality of the visible<br />superseds the concerns of pictorial and reduces imaginary and metaphoric<br />power underlying visual form.<br />Digital media culture has made a fundamental shift in our relation to the external<br />world, sensory perception and, most importantly, in our visual awareness<br />and understanding of images. The new phenomenology of the image<br />decisively altered looking practices, the relationship between the observer<br />and the observed and also cognitive and affective dimensions of images. The<br />image has transformed from representation into a fleeting and instant visual<br />event which is in the ongoing convergence of media no longer ocular-centric.<br />Automated processes of production marked by various image customization<br />tools, accelerated speed and immediacy by which images are produced and<br />distributed changed the concept of creativity and introduced »cut and paste«<br />as a paramount model of image-making.<br />Tech-aesthetics and cyber visuality not only change cultural and anthropological<br />role of images but also rearticulate the ontology of the image itself, its materiality and the way we experience images. Flusser claimed that whoever<br />is programmed by technical images lives and knows reality as a programmed<br />context. I examine how the algorithmic logic of the programmable (screen)<br />image affects other types of images, particularly focusing on aesthetic, phenomenal<br />and representational properties and distinctions between contingent<br />screen images and other, mainly art image-objects. I argue that egalitarian<br />approach towards images and accessible image-making technologies<br />impede our cognitive abilities to control and process images. This raises<br />further question of our capacity for critical reflection on visual systems and<br />image agency, specifically regarding complex connections between formal,<br />material and technical components and the construction of meaning. A<br />range of issues arising in this framework are to be tackled. Do rapid changes<br />in image technologies (assembling human and nonhuman elements) along<br />with AI make images self-contained and human intervention eventually dispensable?<br />What methods should we use in deciding which images should be<br />archived, interpreted and historicized? And last but not the least, how and if<br />do images in the era of visual commodification relate to imaginary and make<br />possible, as Deleuze woud say, “thinking in images” beyond the legible signs<br />and normative technologies?</p> Nadja Gnamuš Copyright (c) 2025 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://hrcak.srce.hr/ojs/index.php/nove-teorije/article/view/34696 pet, 17 sij 2025 00:00:00 +0100