HKUK0361LU Kunsthistorie/Visuel Kultur: Potentielle billeder - Fra det ubestemmelige til bedraget

The first four lectures of this course will be especially concerned with ambiguities of the image, and the power of image founded on its undecidable vagueness, moving around problematics of invisibility, indeterminacy, and deception of images.

The point of departure will be the meaning of the term "image" itself (including its cognates Bild, beeld, imago, eikon and the derivatives) which is polysemic and highly ambiguous. But it is the Greek word eikon that explicitly evokes the conundrum of uncertainty of image. It carries an ineffable mystery that the word imago lost in Latin. In Marie-José Mondzain’s words, eikon is by definition “the indecisive and unstable semblance, the resemblance to an absence, an object of uncertainty and opinion that could be named a non-object.” We will explore the enigma of image as eikon, hovering between visible and invisible, in its utmost radicality as Dazzling Image. Similar paradoxes of vision in excess by default will be explored through Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of the saturated phenomenon, identified either as “invisible” (according to quantity), “unbearable” (according to quality), “absolute” (according to relation), or irregardable (according to modality). Next we will move into aspects of indeterminacy and ambiguity of image, unveiling the potential of vagueness in the production of the visible with the assistance of such theorists of image as Gottfried Boehm and John Sallis, Georges Didi-Huberman and Alexander Nagel. Images borne on air or “evaporated like smoke” as in Leonardo’s sfumato or in Monet’s spread of light; the imaginary breeze, and sound productions that traverse the audible as in Monteverdi’s Zefiro torna, which enchants the air with sweet accents and frees the waves' feet (di soavi accenti l'aer fa grato e'l piè discioglie a l'onde) will constitute a phenomenal typology of meta-stability and trans-visuality (trans-audibility).

The last three lectures, after a series of four other lectures offered by Ragni, will be devoted to problematics of play, creativity and deception as cardinal goals of art as artifice. Uncanny anamorphic images, as well as simulacral visions (both premodern and contemporary, especially holography), will illustrate the idea of image as intermediality which operates on an imaginary plan constantly revived in new media, confirming thus the ghost image of the ancient Greek eidolon as a paradigm of Western culture.

Alle billeder rummer et ubestemmeligt eller tvetydigt aspekt, men nogle billedtyper indskriver denne billeddimension i valget af formalt udtryk. Det er disse billedtyper, vi vil arbejde med på kurset: arabesken, fragmentet, Umrisse (omrids, f.eks. Flaxman), blots (Cozens), kleksografier mm. Forløbet vil også omfatte diskussioner af forskellige troper, f.eks. metonymi og synekdoke, og forskellige strategier, som har til formål at åbne aflæsningen og indskrive betragterens egen betydningsdannelse i billedet. Det kan bl.a. ske gennem etableringen af såkaldte ’Leerstellen’ [tomme steder/rum] i billedets syntaks eller gennem brug af barokkens semantisk åbne allegori. En sidste dimension i forløbet vil være undersøgelser af billeder, som opløser deres eget umiddelbare udsagn i paradoksets ubestemmelige. Eksempler herpå er anvendelsen af ironi, som vi ser det i romantikken eller billedstrukturer, hvor f.eks. et neoklassicistisk udtryk podes med et barokt rum. Det teoretiske grundlag vil omfatte René Wellek, Roman Jacobsen, De Man, Wolfgang Iser, Gamboni, Alexander Cozens, Ernst Behler, Walter Benjamin, Wolfgang Kemp m.fl. Billedhorisonten vil strække sig fra ca. 1400 til ca. 1870 og vil ikke alene omfatte klassisk maleri, tegning og grafik, men også folkelige billedudtryk som f.eks. neuruppineren.