Images in Space (with Wolfram Pichler, Vienna)

Concept by Jakub Stejskal, Nomis-Fellow

Modern Western reflections on the nature of images have predominantly focused on pictures, that is, images on flat surfaces, as paradigmatic examples of depiction. Discussions of images with three-dimensional supports have thus often been derivative or completely sidestepped. The aim of this series of talks is to shift focus to three-dimensional images ‘in the round’ like sculptures, figurines, or models, and to investigate the specifics, whatever they may be, that issue from their 3D nature. Of interest will be anthropological, historical, as well as philosophical approaches. Some of the relevant questions include: In what aspects has a production/reception/circulation of spatial images differed from pictures? Is thereanything specific about 3D image vehicles that a depiction theory should reflect? How have various histories and anthropologies of images succeeded or failed to recognize the difference?

Abstract:  "An Eye of Stone or a Painted One...: Conceptual Trouble with Images in Aristotle" (from Wolfram Pichler)
At the very beginning of his famous Categories, Aristotle claims that if a painted man is called an ‘animal’, this word doesn’t have the same meaning as when it is used to conceptually grasp a man of flesh and blood. Analogous claims can be found in various places of the Corpus Aristotelicum. They are full of theoretical puzzles. Commencing as a commentary on some of them, the talk will eventually have to deal with questions such as: What, exactly, is an eye of stone? Or a painted eye? And where can such things be found? 

Veranstaltung übernehmen als iCal